Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande react to Wicked poster fan-edit

Why everyone is talking about *that* Wicked poster

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Next month, the highly anticipated musical Wicked: Part One is set for release. 

With the casting of mega-stars Ariana Grande as Glinda and Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba announced in November 2021, fans of both the respective stars and the musical (hey, it’s me) are ready to paint the town green and give in to their inner theatre kids.  

Though the official press tour is yet to kick off, stars Ariana and Cynthia have been making appearances as a duo throughout the year, posing together at the Super Bowl, the Met Gala, the Olympics and most recently, the Academy Museum Gala. Everything Wicked-related in the media has felt positive, that is until last week when a fan-edited poster of the movie forced Cynthia to speak out on social media. 

“This is the wildest, most offensive thing I have seen, equal to that awful Ai of us fighting, equal to people posing the question ‘is your ***** green’,” Cynthia wrote on her stories, sharing an image of the poster edit. “None of this is funny. None of it is cute. It degrades me. It degrades us.”

Image credit: Instagram/@cynthiaerivo

For context, the image has been adjusted to cover up the stars’ facial features (Cynthia’s eyes and Ariana’s nose), in order to emulate the musical’s original poster.  

The Wicked musical poster. Image credit: EBay

“The original poster is an ILLUSTRATION. I am a real life human being, who chose to look right down the barrel of the camera to you, the viewer… because, without words, we communicate with our eyes.”

Cynthia continued, “Our poster is an homage not an imitation, to edit my face and hide my eyes is to erase me. And that is just deeply hurtful.”

In the next story, she posted the Wicked movie’s poster, “Let me put this right here, to remind you and cleanse your palette.”

Look, if I’m being honest, after seeing headlines detailing Cynthia’s rage over the fan edit, I was expecting something a bit… more. I’m certainly not in the position to claim the actress’s reaction wasn’t valid, but considering the Wild West of meme culture and outright heinous trolling we’ve unfortunately come to expect online, I didn’t personally find the coverage of Cynthia’s eyes to be degrading. 

That said, had I dedicated years of my life to a role, I would probably like some recognition for it.

Still, the inference of this fan-edit being dehumanising feels a little heavy-handed, especially considering it was a homage to the story Cynthia and Ariana are telling, rather than something more problematic like altering the stars’ facial features. 

Speaking of Ariana, she very diplomatically came to her friend and costar’s defence when pressed on the matter in a recent interview with Variety. 

“I have so much respect for my sister, Cynthia, and I love her so much. It’s just a big adjustment period. It’s so much stimulation about something that’s so much bigger than us,” Ariana shared, referring to the musical’s cult following of almost two decades. 

Ariana, who has a cult following of her own, is perhaps in a better position to endure the intensity of fandom; and if Cynthia was offended by a well-intended fan-edit, I fear for how she’ll react to the aforementioned Wild West, who are already sharing their opinions of her reaction online. 

Ok, I’ll admit, I laughed at this one:

With the Wicked press tour around the corner, here’s hoping Cynthia and the internet can make peace and we can collectively focus on what is promising to be a gravity-defying cinematic experience. 

Written by Lil Friedmann. You can follow her at @lilfriedmann on socials.

Image credit: @cynthiaerivo Instagram