“The Wizard of Oz” is such an incredibly classic movie. I’m hoping everyone that reads this post has already seen it. For those sheltered people who haven’t, the movie revolves around a young woman named Dorothy who is taken to a magical land through a tornado and is trying to find her way back home. I think there are way too many key scenes in this movie to choose from, but for the sake of this assignment, I chose two that were on my list of favorites.

First, I chose the “I’m Melting!” scene. In this scene, the Wicked Witch of the West is threatening Dorothy and her friends. She lights Scarecrow on fire in hopes of killing him, and Dorothy throws a bucket of water on Scarecrow to save him. She accidentally throws water on the witch in the process, which causes her to melt.

After reading “How to read a movie,” I watched this scene from a different aspect. I noticed that in the first part of the scene, the witch is centered. As Roger Ebert suggested, a person located in the center of the screen seems objectified, and the witch definitely does. As the scene continues, Dorothy and Scarecrow are shown on the right of the screen, while Lion and Tinman were on the left. I thought this seemed appropriate, considering this particular scene focuses on Scarecrow, and partially Dorothy. This scene is one of many that help display “The Wizard of Oz” as a fairy tale movie. It represents the “Wicked Witch” television trope for obvious reasons, considering that trope is pretty much based off of the Wicked Witch of the West. She has the classic look: green skin, warts, and dressed in black.

Second, I chose the “There’s No Place Like Home” scene. In this scene Dorothy is being helped by Glenda the Good Witch to get home. She taps her heels together three times while repeating, “There’s no place like home.”

Similar to the last scene, I paid closer attention to the location of the characters on the screen. While Glenda is waving her wand behind Dorothy’s head, she is located to the right of the screen. According to Roger Ebert, this would imply that her character is taking priority over Dorothy’s at that particular time. I completely agree. She is talking to and inspiring Dorothy, so I found that my focus stayed on her. This particular scene also helps display “The Wizard of Oz” as a fairy tale movie. It could probably apply to a few different tropes, one of them being the Damsel in Distress. As shown in this particular scene, Dorothy had faced so many difficulties throughout the movie, and all she wanted to do was go home. This puts her in a “Damsel in Distress” position, because she is helpless and really can’t do much about it.

Additional to these two scenes, there are many aspects of this movie that make it a fairy tale movie. For example, it definitely displays the “Be Careful What You Wish For” trope. Dorothy was very upset at the beginning of the movie, and she wished for something different. She then faced way more than what she asked for. It also displays the “Happily Ever After” trope. Although love and relationships are not involved in the ending of this movie, Dorothy did return home with her family and live happily ever after (which was also shown in the second scene).