What a Man Needs: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and the American Idea of Masculinity
The 1st American fairytale is about manly values as much as a longing for home (Motivation Monday #11)
NOTE: My wife told me this needs a warning. It’s long. But worth it.
In 1900, L. Frank Baum published what he intended to be the first of a genre of new “wonder tales” for the modern child. He couldn’t escape the nature of such stories.
His introduction told readers that the old fairy tales had served their purpose but should be relegated to history. The “horrible and blood-curdling incidents” the old stories used to teach morals were unnecessary to the author.
“Modern education includes morality; therefore the modern child seeks only entertainment in its wonder-tales and gladly dispenses with all its disagreeable incident.” L. Frank Baum, from the Introduction to the The Wonderful Wizard of OZ1
After 125 years, you can see how his mini-manifesto in the introduction began a path to the current state of children’s entertainment, but also education, and child-rearing. Most of it is aimed only at entertainment and the momentary happiness of the child. We parents are still waking up like bleary-eyed children to what that abdication means and I continue to pray that more parents reclaim their rightful responsibility for teaching morals and virtues.
But Baum was a man of his time, a time of political whirlwinds, but a spirit of rising hope in the promises of modernity: hope that the Wild West would be tamed, hope that the country’s agricultural and industrial powers were working together for a prosperous future, both hope and suspicion at the magic of new technology, and hope that the military might of the US could provide security for its people.
That kind of hope leads to aspirations. It leads to visions of what the ideal person looks like, what morals, values, and virtues one should have. And as I said, Baum couldn’t escape the nature of the type of story he told.
For a book that meant to dispense with “horrible and blood-curdling incidents,” The Wonderful Wizard of OZ contains a surprising number of casual beheadings, curses, attacks on main characters that would be brutal if they were flesh and blood, and the acidic melting of the villain. How is this less horrible than shoving the witch into an oven? Only because the most abused protagonists are a scarecrow and a mechanical man, and because the narrative glosses over the other violence compared to earlier fableists such as the Grimms. However, Baum could not escape the reality (and entertainment) of violence, strife, and the battle against evil.
OZ also contains a slew of explicit and implicit claims to morality because it’s a fairy tale. His choice of heroes and villains, strengths and flaws, goals and desires, shows us what an American—especially an American man—should value, fight, and strive for. Which brings us to the manly ideal within The Wonderful Wizard of OZ.
You already think you know them. But those are only the explicit ones, and we’ll cover them. For the full picture, let’s also look at what’s implied through the way the story is told, that is the assumptions or hidden expectations of manhood from a century and a quarter in our past.
Speaking of writing the kinds of stories we think children need, my daughter and I have a Kickstarter for our first kid’s book that teaches virtues like courage through the fun adventures of a dog who pretends he’s a knight.
If you want to support new stories that pass on classic ideas in modern language, please check out Dog Knights and The Orb of Power. This is your chance to get a copy before anyone else. The campaign ends in just 3 days!
Brains for A Stuffed Shirt
Each of the companions little Dorothy meets on her journey expresses one of those manly values through their burning desire.
The Scarecrow, representative of the common midwestern farmer or worker, lacks a formal education. In the story, he also lacks experience, as one literally “born yesterday.” He longs for a brain because he thinks it will give him answers to the problems he’s already faced. He believes it will make him dignified and respectable among men. There’s little substance or weight to this straw man. Yet, he wants to think great thoughts just for the sake of thinking. All these are clues that what he’s seeking isn’t a brain, per-se, but the education that would give him knowledge to understand the world and have confidence in his ability to solve its mysteries.
He admires the academic pursuits, even puts them on a pedestal. Meanwhile, this brainless “fool” is constantly solving down-to-earth problems during the journey. At every trouble, he is the first with an idea. He berates himself for a lack of sense and intelligence while providing practical solutions to their problems.
I’ve known men like this. Humble in their understanding of what they don’t know, and slow to acknowledge much benefit from what they do. But quick to jerry-rig a complexly engineered machine that stops working, just to get back at the job.
The Scarecrow is an ode to the practical wisdom of men of the earth. The doers. Men who labor and toil, understanding things more quickly (and sometimes more accurately) with their gut than the theoretical experts with all their lab experiments and philosophizing.
When OZ finally gives Scarecrow his brains, a mix of bran and pins, it deforms his head and leads to needles protruding from his scalp to show off how “sharp” he is. Scarecrow claims he is suddenly enjoying grand thoughts, but all we see are the practical solutions he’s always offered. The wizard may have offered him new confidence, making him believe he was finally smart, but it was both a false and unnecessary confidence. I think the movie nails the point by giving the Scarecrow a diploma, allowing him to “think deep thoughts with no more brains than [he already has].”
The reader/viewer knows better. The good he does comes from his practical help more than any grand but ethereal philosophies.
The value upheld through the story is that it’s fine to have an education, but practical solutions are better. Street smarts over theory.
A Heart for a Hollow Man
The Tin Woodsman, while still a worker, is a stand-in for the industrialist and inventor. With the focus of improving their lot and personal wealth, most people find it hard to perceive they have a heart. These are also the men who foresaw and pursue(d) dominance over nature and a merging of man and machine, to make us stronger, less frail, and more efficient in a world of chaos.
The Tin Man lacks the thing that he believes made him human: a heart. He tells of a beautiful munchkin girl whom he longed to marry. In pursuit of the higher standard of living with which he thought he could woo her, he progressively became the mechanized man without a heart. He thinks he became hard, and that a heart is the answer.
But just as the Scarecrow cannot see the irony of calling himself a fool while solving a problem, the Tin Man is blind to the contradiction of being heartless, but willing to work his tail off while pining for the love of a woman.
Likewise, as the Scarecrow is uneducated though not stupid, the Tin Man is tenderhearted and got himself stuck by chasing the wrong thing. His misfortune happened after caring for his widowed mother until her death. “Not wanting to be lonely,” he thought to find a wife and fell in love. But instead of pursuing the girl, he pursued what he thought would impress the girl: Money. Specifically, a nicer house. In a callous drive for his own desire, he didn’t consider that she was also caring for an aging relative, just as he had.
While he appears hard on the outside, the Tin Man’s emotions burst out at every turn. He is a man of unrestrained emotions, isolated in his lone work, and untrained in the workings of true fellowship. Unlike the movie, the book’s Woodsman, not the Lion, is most likely to cry over something silly. The cost of this weakness is to seize up with rust.
The hard-skinned Tin Man does not need a heart in the sense of a capacity to feel the seething currents of emotion. He must learn how to control and direct his strength in the service of others, despite the emotional riptides. He needs an object for his acts of love, rather than an aspiration to fulfill his own desires. He finds it in innocent Dorothy and his other new companions. He is typically the one to carry out Scarecrow’s plans. Along with Scarecrow, he keeps watch each night without complaint. We also see it in his protection of other innocents, like the fieldmice. And though he’s quick to make heads roll, it’s always in defense of others.
His tenderness and kindness are evident throughout the adventure, so it comes again as merely an affirmation of reality when OZ hangs a stuffed silk heart inside his empty torso.
The parallel value follows from the Scarecrow’s gift. In Baum’s imagination, Americans should value a heart of service over sentimentality. All the good vibes and well-wishes in the world can’t hold a candle to one act of kindness. A real man shows he cares by protecting the innocent and fighting evil with all his strength and ingenuity.
Courage for a King
While not a man, the cowardly Lion is still a stand-in. It’s harder to say he’s representative of a certain type of man—for men of every type face fear and need courage—but as King of the Beasts, he might be seen as those with political or military power. The political types, especially, seem to cower in the face of moral challenges (though perhaps they’re only in the spotlight and easier to critique).
In both the book and the film, he comes across as a bully in the beginning. He roars to intimidate because he’s afraid. We all know how often bluster and bravado are a mask men wear, often to hide their fear, and sometimes to boost their own glory.
Akin to his companions, the Lion’s actions reveal that he already has his desire. He faces predators larger and fiercer than himself to save his fellows, leaps over chasms of sharp rock, and tousles with wolves, soldiers, and winged monkeys for the sake of his friends—if not as boldly as the Tin Man with his axe.
The wizard repeats his formality of recognizing the Lion’s courage with a trick. He tells the beast that he must drink from a bottle, and it will only be courage once it’s inside him. Just for the visuals, the movie presents him with a medal, the honor of the courageous.
Once again, courage is something lived out, not felt or theorized. The value the story upholds is facing danger despite fear—with a dash of being wise enough to know when flight is the better choice.
The Unspoken Values of OZ
As the first Modern American Fairytale, The Wonderful Wizard of OZ values some ideas or characteristics that aren’t exactly classic virtues.
Beneath the good things it encourages men to pursue (brains, heart, courage), there are underlying ideas of practicality and competence. As the heroes face their trials, they solve them with formulaic ease—the Scarecrow thinks, the Woodman chops, the Lion pounces over danger. The modernity of the tale shows as it lacks some of the strange and meandering feeling of older fairy stories. It is direct and efficient.
Industry, competence, and practical help are all good things that assist with classic virtues. But they are not virtues in themselves. In a very American way, Baum uplifted them to the extent that they seem essential to the heroes’ success and goodness. This, of course, makes Dorothy’s accidental assassination of both Witches stand out. Perhaps it’s her youth, her sex, or both, but Baum doesn’t seem to have expected her to show the same competence as the men—at least not in death-dealing.
In all this, we have spoken mostly of the male characters, while Dorothy is the main protagonist. She is on this adventure, and we see some things Baum valued through her story, too.
First, the innocence of children and the importance of protecting it—evident even in Baum’s introduction, though mistaken in application. All the men rally around Dorothy in times of trouble. They have each other’s backs, but the little girl comes first.
Next, the beauty and goodness of home, be it ever so humble. Though Kansas is gray and dreary compared to OZ, the magical land can’t compete with the simple love and care of a farmer and his wife. This desire for home goes beyond Dorothy’s persistent wish for Kansas, to the fate of the three men.
With his new brain, the Scarecrow goes from the fields to the palace, leading the Emerald City. After destroying the Wicked Witch, her slaves ask the Tin Man to lead them. Leaving his dream of a wife, he accepts the responsibility over the care a whole people. The cowardly Lion singlehandedly dispatches a giant spider and earns his position as King of The Forest.
In winding down the story, the simple family home is upheld, yes. But the external desire of Dorothy is another distinction that stands out. All the men felt a lack in themselves, while Dorothy wanted something she had truly lost and could only experience by going back.
In the men’s story arcs, we get a broader sense of that longing for home. I can best describe it as a sense of finding your place in the world—knowing your purpose. I think this resounds with men of all times, that each man must prove his virtue and competence, and having proved it, he finds his place. It is not a physical home, but something spiritual: a home of the heart, a comfort and confidence in your own being. It comes from having survived the struggles against your own weakness (perceived and real), and against external dangers.
The Message About Men
The artistically insightful
speaks sometimes about the Wizard of OZ as a story about a girl growing up. Oddly enough, he mentioned it in his podcast last Friday as I was writing this. He addresses the three desires of the men as the things that women give men to civilize them. That may be more apt to the movie, which he specifically cites, especially with the more-than-girlish figure of Judy Garland, hard as they tried to hide it.I don’t fully buy that women “give” these things to men, and I definitely don’t believe the book makes that case. It fits his other theory about women being the glue of society better, since Dorothy is the one thing holding the companions together throughout their adventure. Once she is gone, they each go to their respective domains. They’re changed for the better, but as much from each other and the enemies they faced as from Dorothy.
As for what a man needs to be manly, OZ casts manliness as protecting the weak and innocent (mostly Dorothy, probably children in general), fighting evil, and stepping into your realm of responsibility (each man taking on leadership).
Explicitly, OZ upholds Brains, Heart, and Courage as the necessary traits a man needs to claim his spot. Those things are best found and developed through experience and testing, rather than thinking and feeling.
Implicitly, it celebrates competence for individuals and teams, practicality over theory, and a peaceful and simple home life.
Through what it values, the story also pushes against sloth, greed, slavery, foolishness, cowardice, huckstering, bullying, and cruelty.
Together, these positive and negative values fueled the American century. They tamed the West, conquered Fascism, and spit out a global superpower.
They are worth adopting again. But with a word of caution. They are values, not pure virtues. To see those, we must go back to older tales and an older culture. Still, I encourage men to express these values in their actions, while putting them at the service of the virtues.
We may never reach OZ, but perhaps we’ll reduce the number of stuffed shirts, hollow men, and cowardly bullies plaguing our beautiful country.
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This sounds like an early progressive perspective on both education and entertainment. From what I can find, Baum was a bit of a political free-agent, picking and choosing his preferences from a buffet of popular viewpoints. How very American. For instance, some see significant economic symbolism in the Silver Slippers treading the Yellow Brick Road (Gold bars, anyone?), contrasted with the illusions of the Emerald City. It’s easier to go there when you learn he was active in the politics of metal-backed currencies in the 1890s. But he also wrote for the extermination of Native Americans after the murder of Sitting Bull and the battle of Wounded Knee. He was a man of his time.
This is fascinating. As I read this, I can see bits of me in each of the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion, and I know exactly what they're searching for because I'm trying to find those same things in me.
I wish there was more writing like this on Substack. (Maybe there is, and I just haven't found it yet... I'm really hard to please)
I'll be reading this one more than once. 🙌