Mostly, I think Elphaba is a genuinely bad person. When they first meet, Glinda is like “I’m so sorry you’re green, but I’m studying {madeup magic category xyz}, maybe eventually I can help”, and Elphaba is like “how dare you imply that being green is thing to be fixed, you’re so shallow and I’m not”. Then in the very next scene, she sings her song about how her greatest wish is to be un-greened by the wizard. Similarly, when Glinda tries to help her get more popular, she pretends to be above the attempt, only to then try to implement the advice in the next scene. Then as you mentioned, the “blonde comment”. All of this proves that she’s not above looks in any way whatsoever; they’re in fact both equally obsessed with popularity, the only difference is that one of them is honest about it and also good at it, whereas the other is lying/self-deluded and also bad at it.
Elphaba also isn’t that much of a victim, really. Yes she’s green, which sucks, but she also has incredible powers and a rich father. I feel like she got dealt a pretty okay hand overall.
So to me the most interesting thing is that Elphaba has the stereotypical victim role and Glinda the steretypical spoiler entitled brat role, but if you take a closer look, I’d argue that Glinda is actually just a better person. Has much more self-awareness, too. As for what this all means or what message the movie sends, I don’t know, it ended before the story was complete. (And the ending didn’t make any sense; both Elphaba running away and the teacher declaring her an enemy before giving her a chance to come back are counterproductive for the character’s goals.) It really depends on what they do in part two.
I had a pretty different read.
Mostly, I think Elphaba is a genuinely bad person. When they first meet, Glinda is like “I’m so sorry you’re green, but I’m studying {madeup magic category xyz}, maybe eventually I can help”, and Elphaba is like “how dare you imply that being green is thing to be fixed, you’re so shallow and I’m not”. Then in the very next scene, she sings her song about how her greatest wish is to be un-greened by the wizard. Similarly, when Glinda tries to help her get more popular, she pretends to be above the attempt, only to then try to implement the advice in the next scene. Then as you mentioned, the “blonde comment”. All of this proves that she’s not above looks in any way whatsoever; they’re in fact both equally obsessed with popularity, the only difference is that one of them is honest about it and also good at it, whereas the other is lying/self-deluded and also bad at it.
Elphaba also isn’t that much of a victim, really. Yes she’s green, which sucks, but she also has incredible powers and a rich father. I feel like she got dealt a pretty okay hand overall.
So to me the most interesting thing is that Elphaba has the stereotypical victim role and Glinda the steretypical spoiler entitled brat role, but if you take a closer look, I’d argue that Glinda is actually just a better person. Has much more self-awareness, too. As for what this all means or what message the movie sends, I don’t know, it ended before the story was complete. (And the ending didn’t make any sense; both Elphaba running away and the teacher declaring her an enemy before giving her a chance to come back are counterproductive for the character’s goals.) It really depends on what they do in part two.