Politics and Historical Interpretation According to "Wicked"

"Where I'm from, we believe all sorts of

things that aren't true. We call it 'history.'

A man's called a traitor - or liberator.

A rich man's a thief - or philanthropist.

Is one a crusader - or ruthless invader?

It's all in which label

is able to persist.

There are precious few at ease

with moral ambiguities,

so we act as though they don't exist..."

--The Wizard of Oz, Wicked

Remember this little ditty from our history books?

These lyrics, spoken by a politician to a political rebel we know as the Wicked Witch of the West, are part of what seem to be a very popular view of history. "History is written by the winners" is a common mantra of a people disillusioned by the traditional history of 'great white men.' In this musical retelling of Gregory Maguire's reinterpretation of L.F. Baum's Wizard of Oz series, this philosophy is examined by turning the Wicked Witch (named Elphaba) into an advocate for an oppressed minority group (sentient, talking Animals) forever victimized by political manipulation of history.

The reason that such a thing is possible, the Wizard argues, is because the public doesn't like ambiguity. It wants black & white, good & evil answers...history in a nutshell. From our readings regarding history as interpreted by film, this appears to be a consensus. "They," the uninformed masses, don't have time to think about such confusing grey areas, so "we," the cultured and informed keepers of knowledge--the leaders and historians--must boil it down and decide what's best for them to know. (How very Brave New World of us!) Also according to our readings, historians deal too much in ambiguity for easy answers to be given for complex questions. Therefore, the politicians are the ones who give the public what they want. This seems terribly presumptuous towards the assumptions of our audience, yet politicians have quite a bit of sway with their party versions of American history.

Are there any answers around here?

We may not be able to affect change on this issue, we can more easily ask the question, what happens to history when historians have or consider a political agenda in their interpretive lens? Do political beliefs in interpretation (regardless of what they are) inherently bias history? Further, is it possible to present history without any bias or lens so that the public is truly free to make all interpretations themselves?

The only ways I could see "raw" history being presented is either as date'n'name history or in such a way that incorporates all interpretations equally. Of those, the latter at least seems impossible, as one or a few interpretations will be represented more strongly as the presenters better understand certain views over others. The former, while certainly possible, doesn't seem useful. I've never heard anyone say that date'n'name history was an opportunity to decide for oneself the truth of the matter. Instead, people just see it as boring and pointless.

As a point of fact, we have been encouraged all semester to find narrative themes, a "so what?" for the histories we tell. It seems as though the Wizard is right that the public wants interpretation, but not--I think--to be blind consumers. Instead, perhaps the public needs interpretation as a point of reference, a springboard of thought from which they can agree or disagree and go from there. Thus, a historian's interpretation is valuable because the public can form their own conclusions in relation to it, not because it is concretely true.