Galinda and Elphaba are gay and this is now my entire personality

Behind the Material Girls Episode: Wicked x Paratexts with Leena Norms

A Close Reading of “I’m Not That Girl” from Marcelle

Like millions of people, I went to see Wicked (part 1) in November 2024, and like a good chunk of those millions of viewers, I went in cold. I knew that the movie was based on a beloved Broadway musical (by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman), but I hadn’t seen the musical; and I knew that the musical was based on a book (written by Gregory Maguire), but I hadn’t read the book; and I knew that the book was an adaptation/retelling of the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, but actually this is only partly true and for full details you really need to listen to Leena Norms break down the layers of intertextuality at work in our episode Wicked x Paratexts. I also listened to the motion picture soundtrack a few times to get myself in the musical mindset (last year I went to see Wonka not knowing it was a musical and that was a VERY weird experience).

So maybe I didn’t go in cold, but I went in lukewarm. My point is that I had very few expectations overall and certainly had no clear sense of what to expect from Galinda and Elphaba’s relationship. I am also a chaotic bisexual, so I will gladly read any relationship as gay with little to no help from the text. Boy howdy did this text deliver!

As you’ll hear in our episode, I dove headfirst into the press tour after seeing the movie. I watched scores of videos about the cast and their obvious love for each other, and in particular I sought out clips of Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande together. I don’t know precisely when I decided that Galinda and Elphaba are in love—if it was listening to the soundtrack, watching the movie, or watching clips from the press tour—but I can say that this assumption has only been fortified by the staggering quantity of media and paratext surrounding the film. And as I mentioned in our episode, the queer subtext of their friendship is so obvious to me that the only part of the film I struggled to believe was the scene when Elphie sings “I’m Not That Girl.”

This scene takes place after Galinda and Elphaba become friends and after the handsome prince Fiyero has appeared to triangulate the young women’s budding homosocial relationship. The movie suggests—I assume because it has to because the Broadway musical said so?—that both Elphie and Galinda fall in love with Fiyero. I found this a bit jarring—like, read the room, movie. Galinda and Fiyero hit it off immediately, which makes sense textually and subtextually (because, to quote Gaby, Jonathan Bailey can get it), but the tenderness between Fiyero and Elphie is a slower burn, so to speak. We, the audience, are encouraged to believe that despite Elphaba’s palpable chemistry with Galinda, she also falls in love with Fiyero. (Side note, I am actually willing to accept this premise only because Fiyero is played by Jonathan Bailey… who CAN GET IT).

But I am nothing if not stubborn. I can hold space for Elphaba being hot for Johnny, but I cannot accept that this love triangle would be believable if Fiyero were played by any other man. Bailey’s unholy charisma aside, I found myself listening to “I’m Not That Girl” on repeat simply to find evidence to support the reading of Elphie as in love with Fiyero. Instead, I came out of that experience positively convinced that the song is actually just about being gay when you’re already a marginalized subject, and being kinda jealous of your hot best friend who got the girl you love without having to lift a finger.

I wrote about this in my Instagram stories, but Coach said I could write it up for the Substack too! Let me walk you through it.

“I’m Not That Girl”

Let’s start with the title, “I’m Not That Girl,” as it establishes the entire premise of the song. A conventional reading of the title alone suggests that Elphaba is comparing herself to another woman—to that girl, whom she is not. Heteronormativity teaches us time and again that women must always be in competition with each other for the attention of men, so we are already socially conditioned to read this title as a declaration that Elphaba is comparing herself to another woman in a competition for a man’s attention. We also need to remember that while heteronormativity allows two women to be close, intimate friends (this trope is often reinforced by homosocial triangulation; case in point: Fiyero), compulsory heterosexuality refuses the possibility of such friendship between men and women. Men and women, we are encouraged to believe, cannot be close, intimate friends because there is always an assumed sexual tension.

But not today, Satan! I argue that in “I’m Not That Girl” Elphaba, the speaker, compares herself not to Galinda, but to Fiyero. Let’s get into the weeds.

the title: “I’m Not That Girl”

In classic poetics, the title establishes the subject of the poem; to put it simply, it states the problem. “I,” the speaker, “[am] not that girl.” This is the gesture to comparison that I talk about above.

first verse:

Hands touch, eyes meet
Sudden silence, sudden heat
Hearts leap in a giddy whirl
He could be that boy
But I'm not that girl

Look, we can't divorce the opening line of this song from the heart shattering dance at the Ozdust Ballroom. Elphaba arrives, the room goes silent; she dances, and her peers laugh. In an act of unanticipated compassion, Galinda joins Elphie on the dance floor, and signals to her roommate that she’s dancing with her, not making fun of her. Galinda slowly mirrors Elphie’s movements and gently touches the latter’s hands.

I don’t know how canonical this hand touch is to the Broadway musical, but the scene flashes in the opening sequence of the film, which tells the audience that the moment is significant. Therefore, I hear and read this first stanza as a direct, intentional reference to their dance.

Ok fine there’s more to this stanza than the opening line and its aftermath. The closing couplet “He could be that boy / But I’m not that girl” is essential to the song. It will be repeated twice, and alluded to twice more.

Now keeping in mind what I said about heteronormativity and compulsory heterosexuality above, I’ll add here that those same literary tropes ask us to take for granted that this framing (“He could be that boy / But I’m not that girl”) is romantic. A girl talking about a boy? Must be love! But that is just a convention of interpretation! What happens if we just look at the words on the page? As promised by the title, we have a comparison: He, that boy, and I (not) that girl.

If we refuse heteronormativity here, we can acknowledge that Elphaba is thinking about herself in relation to a boy (we can take for granted that the boy is Fiyero because they were just together), and we can acknowledge this without assuming her feelings for him are romantic. He (Fiyero) is that boy, but she, Elphaba, is not that girl. If we boil that comparison down to its literal meaning, we can see that she’s saying you and I are not alike. Now, obviously lyrics rely on figurative language to be meaningful. My point here isn’t that we need to read the song literally; my point is that if we start with the literal words on the page, we can build our interpretation without presupposing a heterosexual love story. You and I are not alike could be romantic, but it doesn’t have to be!

second verse:

Don't dream too far
Don't lose sight of who you are
Don't remember that rush of joy
He could be that boy
I'm not that girl

The second verse reiterates the song’s problem (“I’m [Elphaba] not that girl”) but adds some inferences. Why advise herself to not “dream too far,” and to not “lose sight of who you are”? This hesitation to want more than what she has at present reminds the audience and herself that she is an outsider with only precarious social acceptance. She is telling herself here to be happy with what she has (precarious, tentative, probationary social acceptance) because it’s already more than what she can expect.

Ok, so then what does she have? Friendship. Whether we read the song heteronormatively or queerly, Elphaba is acknowledging that she is lucky to be friends with someone she loves and she is afraid to want more.

the bridge:

Every so often we long to steal
To the land of what-might-have-been
But that doesn't soften the ache we feel
When reality sets back in

This is so lazy of me, but I don’t have anything particular to say about the bridge. It reiterates the problem and the stakes. She, the speaker, wants to imagine a better world, but the reality is that she’s an outsider with a student visa to social acceptance. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

third verse:

Blithe smile, lithe limb
She who's winsome, she wins him
Gold hair with a gentle curl
That's the girl he chose
And Heaven knows
I'm not that girl

The third verse is where we get the tea. “Blithe smile, lithe limb,” “winsome,” and “Gold hair with a gentle curl”? There’s no question that Elphie is referring to Galinda here—is anyone else at Shiz even blonde? Of course “blithe” is a curious adjective, because it has both positive and negative connotations. It could mean inconsiderate, for example. It can also mean happy and without worry. Galinda has been both, and will continue to be both throughout the film.

I think it’s worth pointing out that Elphaba never describes the appearance of the song’s “He.” We know from context that it’s Fiyero, but Elphie doesn’t, like, refer to Johnny’s his shit-eating-grin, penetrating stare, or liquid pelvis. This seems to me a significant point for my interpretation, because Elphaba identifies numerous ways in which Galinda is “winsome” (her smile, her limbs, her hair). Moreover, Elphie never describes herself either! If we are indeed meant to read the song as a comparison, then we have to consider which subjects are being compared. She describes Galinda’s appearance, but the only direct comparisons we’re given are between Fiyero and Elphie (that boy / (not) that girl).

The line “That’s the girl he chose” brings us back to Fiyero. We know that “chose” is the operative word here because the rhyme draws our attention to it (“chose” / “knows”). One might be inclined to read this statement as lamenting not being picked, like he chose her instead of me. But if I’m right that Elphie is comparing herself to Fiyero, then what she laments here is her inability to choose. Fiyero chose Galinda because he’s that boy; Elphaba doesn’t have the luxury to choose because (“Heaven knows”) she’s not like Fiyero; she's not that girl.

This stanza actually gives us the most information about Fiyero in the song. The big takeaway here is that Fiyero gets to choose whom he loves, so we know that being “that boy” entails a kind of freedom. And Fiyero chooses Galinda, as we know (“that’s the girl he chose”), because she’s “winsome.” The second line of the stanza actually specifies that Galinda “wins him”; since we have abandoned the heteronormative trope of women in competition with each other for a man’s attentions, we can consider how the line “she who’s winsome, she wins him” informs us only indirectly that he is desirable.

Not to repeat myself, but the stanza really emphasizes two things: 1) Galinda’s attractiveness, and 2) Fiyero’s luxury of choice. So when we come back to the comparison (that boy / (not) that girl), Elphie is telling us that Fiyero “could be that boy” who chooses the winsomest girl, but she (Elphie) cannot choose the winsomest girl because she is “not that girl.”

fourth verse:

Don't wish, don't start
Wishing only wounds the heart
I wasn't born for the rose and the pearl
There's a girl I know
He loves her so
I'm not that girl

With this fourth and final verse, we’re back to advice. The advice Elphaba gives herself here, “Wishing only wounds the heart,” seems to me an attempt to intellectualize and rationalize her way out of a very irrational emotion (LOOOOOOVE). She reminds herself that she “wasn’t born for the rose and the pearl,” two objects that signify class and luxury. But roses and pearls are also deeply yonic! Flowers and oysters are well-known visual signifiers for the vulva, so Elphaba’s invocation of these two objects serves to remind us that she is an outsider multiple times over. She may have a student visa granting her probationary access to Galinda and Fiyero’s class, but she does not have a visa to Galinda’s, uh… heart.

Before I wrap up, let me put a bit of pressure on the song’s final three lines. Here we have it: “there’s a girl I know” tells us Elphie is thinking about Galinda. And there’s a “he,” Fiyero, who “loves her,” Galinda. But how do we read that “so” in relation to the final line? How does that “so” inflect the final assertion that she, Elphaba, is “not that girl”?

Personally I see four possibilities.

First, the conventional reading. He (Fiyero) loves her (Galinda) so I’m (Elphaba) not that girl (whom Fiyero loves). It works grammatically, but the vibe is off. It doesn’t follow the rest of the song. I’ve already told you that Elphaba is comparing herself to Fiyero, not Galinda. Stop trying to make compulsory heterosexuality happen! Thank u, next.

A comparison between Elphie and Fieryo gives us three more possible readings, all of which hinge on a “so” that is super-charged with meaning. Remember, the lines we’re unpacking are “He loves her so / I’m not that girl.”

1. Fiyero loves Galinda SO MUCH! And Elphie is “not that girl.” This feels grammatically unsatisfying and kind of incoherent, like two tangential thoughts or a run-on sentence.

2. Fieryo loves Galinda so I, Elphaba, am sad because I don’t have the luxury of loving her. This also feels unsatisfying! Like, it doesn’t add anything new to the song and just repeats the same comparison without movement or development. Kind of a bummer, tbh.

3. Fiyero loves Galinda THEREFORE her heart is unavailable to me, Elphaba. This last possible reading is not only the most compelling, it’s also the most devastating. It not only teases a shred of hope (maybe if Fiyero didn’t love Galinda, there’d be a chance for Elphie), it also suggests that Elphaba could be a good match for Galinda. Elphie and Fiyero are friends; I know I haven’t really addressed this directly in what has now become a dissertation, but they are. We know this from context (the film), and we know this from the nature of Elphie’s lament: she’s not jealous or afraid of Fiyero; she simply remarks over and over that she doesn’t have the luxuries that he has. Her fondness for Fiyero arises from shared interests (Animal rights, for example). If he and blithe Galinda are a good match despite his revolutionary core, then surely Elphaba could be a good match for her, too! Except for that one small, recurring problem: Fiyero “could be that boy,” but Elphaba is “not that girl.”

If you’re an Elphie-Fiyero stan, I believe you and I respect your headcanon. I just can’t see it.

Thoughts? Nice ones only please

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