Cynthia Erivo has called out fans who edited one of the promotional posters for the upcoming film adaptation of Wicked to resemble the original Broadway poster by editing out her face.
In the lead-up to the film’s release on November 22, Warner Bros. released a poster featuring Erivo — who plays Elphaba — and her co-star Ariana Grande who plays Glinda. Just like the original musical poster, it showed Glinda whispering into the ear of Elphaba. The only difference was, in the Broadway poster, Elphaba’s face was obscured by her hat, whereas in the recent one, you can clearly see Erivo’s eyes.
When Erivo saw that fans tweaked the film’s poster to cover up her face and add a bright red lip to resemble the old-school poster, she was not happy.
“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?’” she wrote on her Instagram Stories.
“None of this is funny. None of it is cute. It degrades me. It degrades us.”
Knowing the edits were made by fans who care deeply about Wicked, she went on to explain why the Photoshop job was damaging.
“The original poster is an ILLUSTRATION,” Erivo continued.
“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.
“Our poster is a homage not an imitation. To edit my face and hide my eyes is to erase me. And that is just deeply hurtful.”
She followed up the Story with the real version of the poster.
“Let me put this right here, to remind you and cleanse your palette 💚 💚,” she captioned it.
Online, fans have had a pretty mixed response to Erivo’s outcry. Some think it’s a fair distinction to make, while other’s think the acclaimed actor was being precious.
While I reckon there are certainly bigger fish to fry in the world, Erirvo is entitled to her opinion that she felt erased by the fan edit. Plus, it’s weird to demand an exact replica of a reimagined body of work.
The beloved musical has been written into a two-part movie musical by director Jon M. Chu. Along with Erivo and Grande, the star-studded cast includes Jonathan Bailey, Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Yeoh, Bowen Yang and Ethan Slater.
Personally, I can’t bloody wait and I’ll be decked out in my finest green outfit to celebrate on November 22.
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