Attention is power. Especially when that attention is converted into money through which more attention can be bought. Industries spend billions fighting for our attention in the form of advertising which they hope to convert into profit. MGM’s 1939 classic, ‘The Wizard of Oz’, (which ironically didn’t garner that much attention on its initial release, only just managing to cover it’s $2,777,000 budget) is about a little girl desperate for attention who comes to realize that true power doesn’t come from attention received from others but in the form of attention given to oneself and others.

God’s Gift

Dorothy Gale (Judy Garland) is a gift from the gods, literally – the name Dorothy meaning ‘God’s gift’. Although her parents are not mentioned in the film the fact that she lives with her aunt and uncle suggests she has been orphaned. On this alone she might be forgiven for having an abandonment complex. On the run with Toto her dog after having just bitten Miss Gulch (Margaret Hamilton), she races back home to the farm. She doesn’t seem to get much attention from her Aunt Em (Clara Blandick) and Uncle Henry (Charley Grapewin) who are more concerned with the running of the farm. And quite rightly too. They have a business to run. If they didn’t run the business none of them would have anything to eat or anywhere to live. But are they spending too much time on the business? Have their lives become consumed with the business? Aunt Em looks old and haggard. As does Uncle Henry. The whole of Kansas is in black and white as if it had had the life and colour sucked out of it. We learn that Dorothy had persistently walked Toto past Miss Gulch’s property in the past. As farmhand, Hank (Ray Bolger), points out to Dorothy, she doesn’t have to walk past Miss Gulch’s property. But she chooses to. Why?

Control

Miss Gulch, who we later learn owns ‘half the county’, is the personification of business or the art of making money. For which she has paid a price. Single. Alone. Unforgiving, Unloving. Unloved. Prim, proper, cold and calculating, mechanical in all her movements, half the county are indebted to her as their hard work pays her bills and as a result she has full control of Aunt Em’s attention. Did Dorothy want Toto to bite Miss Gulch? Certainly the first person she runs to for help is her Aunt Em. Was this Dorothy’s way of getting Aunt Em’ attention? Either way Aunt Em and Uncle Henry still have no time to give her busy as they are with the chickens. Dorothy then attempts to gain the support of the farmhands. When this fails too she ‘falls’ into the pig pen forcing one of them to save her. This support is short lived when Aunt Em arrives for refreshments. Dorothy’s face of manipulative triumph quickly transforming back to innocent victim for the benefit of Aunt Em.

Powerless

The drama that ensues with Miss Gulch arriving demanding the seizure of Toto is enough to hold Aunt Em’s attention but her aunt and uncle are powerless in the face of the law who stands firmly on the side of Miss Gulch. Frustrated at the power Gulch has Dorothy threatens violence but her words are empty, meaningless and powerless. When Dorothy storms out crying Aunt Em wants to give Gulch a piece of her mind but even this she is restricted from doing by her mind-controlling religion. All this amuses the weak uncle Henry as he listens and smiles to himself in earnest. We can imagine he has been under the thumb of Aunt Em for all these years powerless to stand up to her. Perhaps it was good sense that restricted him giving his domineering wife a piece of his mind. The desire for a quiet life always convincing him not to.

Regardless, after Toto escapes from Gulch’s clutches and runs back home, Dorothy decides to do the most dramatic thing she can think of. She runs away.

Attention

It isn’t said how long Dorothy had been on the run for. It is still daylight so we can only assume hours at the most but in all probability it was minutes before she happens upon a travelling ‘psychic’, Professor Marvel (Frank Morgan) who is clearly a fraud. In what appears to be a running theme of weak men in this movie, Marvel himself is old and harmless, whose power and virility is somewhat reflected by having his sausage bitten off by Toto…

…as he flirts with Dorothy before replacing it with another on the end of his fork in a fashion that may or may not be seen as a passive yet obscene show of affection…

That Dorothy has no real intention of running away other than as a way of winning attention is clear by Dorothy not asking if she can run away with Professor Marvel, but her asking why she can’t. When Marvel tricks her into believing that Aunt Em is heartbroken by Dorothy’s disappearance Dorothy quickly jumps to her feet and runs back home but nature has a different idea and decides to intervene in Dorothy’s plans by sending a tornado to Kansas. This tornado, a character in itself, not only distracts Aunt Em’s attention away from Dorothy’s disappearance but it shuts Dorothy up and puts her to sleep so she can learn her lesson whereupon she enters the dream – the land of Oz.

Wish-Fulfillment

The land of Oz is basically a giant Freudian wish-fulfillment type scenario – vibrant and bright, full of colour and life. Where the men are not only powerless and weak, just like in Kansas, but are tiny, brainless, heartless, cowardly frauds. Here Dorothy is centre of attention but what kind of attention? As she inadvertently killed the Wicked Witch of the East, she has earned the ire of the Wicked Witch of the West – negative attention. The dark side of attention. But the Wicked Witch is no real nemesis. Dorothy inadvertently kills her with water whilst selflessly trying to save her friend’s life. She then goes on to debunk God in the form of the ‘all-powerful’ Wizard of Oz who like the weak, impotent Professor Marvel is nothing more than a charlatan who’s favourite method of control is keeping people in fear. It is important to note that as a dream all this is taking place within Dorothy’s own psyche and as a result Dorothy is both the observed and the observer. When Dorothy finally discovers what true power is, having learnt her lesson (that any attention worth receiving always comes from the self first before it comes from anyone else), she finds herself back in Kansas surrounded by her concerned friends and family. She has won Aunt Em’s full attention at last and there is no sign or mention of the evil Miss Gulch.