The Wizard of Oz was one of my favorite movies as a child. Beyond the talents of Judy Garland and the rest of the cast was the movie's message that was so profound, it has stayed with me all these years. The Cowardly Lion was looking for courage, but he discovered that when he looked within, that courage was already there. The Scarecrow and Tin Man were also searching for qualities that were nestled within them as well. The Wizard was wise enough to notice what others couldn't see, even though his wizardry was an illusion for the masses. When his curtain was thrust aside, Dorothy and her companions saw a man and nothing more. (I have a recurring image in my mind of thrusting aside the curtains of people I don't like who are in positions of authority and exposing their frailties and vulnerability for all to see. The people I like are welcome to keep their curtains in place.)
The movie gave me hope that some of the qualities I find lacking in myself are within me as well, if only I were to take the time and have the confidence to notice. These qualities range from being a dynamic public speaker to being a better leader to being more extroverted--the life of the party.
Anyway, as I've immersed myself more deeply into the study of finance, I've come to realize that many people believe that L. Frank Baum had a political message in mind when he wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz four decades before the release of the movie.
The Yellow Brick Road is the gold standard. The silver shoes that Dorothy wore represent the attempts by William Jennings Bryan and others to go back to the time when silver was used along with gold for this purpose. (The silver shoes in the novel were changed to ruby slippers for the movie.) The Scarecrow represents farmers and the Tin Man represents the industrial society that our country was becoming at the end of the Nineteenth Century.
The Cowardly Lion was William Jennings Bryan himself, who ran unsuccessfully for the presidency for the first time in 1896. In fact, L. Frank Baum's novel is a parable about the election of 1896, the race between Bryan and William McKinley. Supporting silver was another way of expanding the money supply, which proves, if nothing else, that life hasn't changed much in the past 116 years (at least in some ways).
However, to accept this political interpretation of the novel is to ignore the words of L. Frank Baum himself in the introduction:
...the story of "The Wizard of Oz" was written solely to please children of today. It aspires to being a modern fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heartaches and nightmares are left out.
If the story was written "solely to please children of today," it was not written for a political purpose, despite Baum's political leanings at the time. I prefer to take him at his word. (The "heartaches and nightmares" that he chose to leave out were the "stereotyped genie, dwarf, and fairy" of the Grimm and Andersen fairy tales.)
While I agree that this story is one for the ages and brought about a new age in cinema, you simply cannot ignore the parallels to society at the time.
As you mentioned, the imagery recalling the gold standard, the silver standard, allegories to the change in society from agricultural to industrial and, a major one you missed, are the poppies. They represent the opium trails and dealings with china, not the lollipop guild. Regardless of the preface written by Baum, there is just too much to think it wasn't intentional. No man writing a story with political influence is going to come right out and say he was politically motivated, he will want you to take the story at face value.
The Wizard of Oz as a Monetary Allegory by Hugh Rockoff: http://economics.rutgers.edu/dmdocuments/RockoffWizardofOz.pdf
You going to start talking to a chair next?
Ok, that was uncalled for.
Yes, it was written as allegory by Baum. He was a populist without really subscribing to any political dogma, and his basic mindset was that it was necessary to do right by everyone. Women, native Americans, and others who were oppressed were some of the causes that he worked as an advocate for, and he was well ahead of his time by going agains the openly stated values of the "Gilded Age" (aka, severe social problems with a veneer of gold).
Teaching children fairy tales or telling stories was and remains a very effective means of teaching...just ask religious leaders or kindergarten teachers. Thing is, between now and then, a new technology was invented and refined: an elastic money supply. So, like many religions, his message still serves as a useful warning, but cannot be taken as dogma in light of things having changed some. The monetary system is definitely better than a gold standard, but both could be abused. The general principle of not screwing up a society by ruining the money supply holds: whether or not we are, well, I'm not going there.
Baum was a proponent of the view that religion was a useful means of teaching morality, but that morality was the goal...and not worship. I tend to agree.
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