Right-wing media personality Gina Loudon thinks Wicked is racist against white people and that Ariana Grande “racially appropriated” ditzy, blonde culture.
Loudon appeared on her Real America’s Voice show American Sunrise to discuss the “racism” she saw in the Wizard of Oz prequel starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo.
“Let’s just start with the fact that they have Ariana Grande who’s obviously a Hispanic woman playing the part of a ditzy, blonde, white, really villain when it comes right down to it,” Loudon said.
Grande, who plays Glinda in Wicked, is Italian-American with roots in Sicily and Abruzzo. In a recent interview for Wicked press, the 31-year-old spoke Italian with the reporter.
The Eternal Sunshine singer has also previously said that she’s “proud to be Italian.”
“For this particular movie, the racism and the racial appropriation, I just thought was offensive, frankly,” Loudon continued. “All white people aren’t dumb and evil, and I just get kinda sick of that storyline.”
As scholars and experts have explained exhaustively, the claim of racism against white people—often called reverse racism—fundamentally misunderstands the definition of racism itself.
“Racism … reinforces discriminatory attitudes with social, political, cultural, and economic institutions that have historically disenfranchised a group of people simply because of their racial identity,” according to one definition from Vox.
Because white people are not historically disenfranchised, the idea of racism against them is a paradox.
Loudon was a media adviser to incoming President Donald Trump during his 2020 presidential campaign and the co-chair of Women for Trump in 2020.
Wicked arrived on Nov. 22 and was an immediate success, earning $114 million domestically and $50.2 million abroad.
Grande and Erivo’s co-star, Marissa Bode, spoke out last week about the jokes and comments at the expense of her and her character’s disabilities.
“Disability is not fictional,” Bode said. “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.”
