As Wicked mania builds, a new fandom rises, and that’s not always a source of positivity. With the Wicked faithful stanning Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) and defending Glinda (Ariana Grande), it’s mostly fun and harmless to poke fun at the conflicts within the film as long as it stays on the character and not the real-life actor.
Erivo and Grande’s co-star Marissa Bode has so far taken the villainization of her character—the future Wicked Witch of the East and Governor Thropp ascendant Nessarose—in stride. Her role as Elphaba’s sister is pivotal to the destiny of the witches; it’s her sparkly shoes that become the center of the drama as we get into Wicked Part Two, which will introduce a little girl named Dorothy Gale if the film follows the beats of L. Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz source material. We’ve discussed how Nessa is a villain to watch out for thanks to Bode’s incredible performance, but some folks are taking their hate for the character a bit too far.
In a TikTok reported on by Deadline, the actress shared her recent brushes with harassment centered on her disability; like her character, Bode is a wheelchair user. “It is absolutely OK to not like a fictional character,” Bode said. “I am going to be admitting my bias in the way that I have a lot of different feelings on Nessa than a lot of you do, and that’s totally fine. I think Nessa is complex, but that’s the beauty of art. Wicked and these characters and the movie wouldn’t be what it was if there weren’t different opinions on the characters and who’s truly wicked or not. And not liking Nessa herself is OK. Because she is fictional, that’s totally fine.”
She continued by saying “disability is not fictional,” and described attacks on the character as “aggressive” and “deeply uncomfortable” when rooted in Nessa’s disability.
“At the end of the day, me, Marissa, is the person that is still disabled and in a wheelchair. And so, it is simply a low-hanging fruit that too many of you are comfortable taking,” Bode said. “This goes so far beyond me, Marissa, just needing to ignore comments on the internet. These comments do not exist in a vacuum. Aggressive comments of wanting to cause harm and push Nessa out of her wheelchair, or that she deserves her disability, are two very gross and harmful comments that real disabled people, including myself, have heard before.”
Wicked is in theaters now; Wicked Part Two arrives November 2025.
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