Codename: RUSHDIE

All right, maggots.

Question.

How many of you have seen "The Wizard of Oz?" Classic American film, right? About as American as apple pie and baseball. It's served as a great inspiration for many people, myself included. Don't believe me? Take a look at this piece of Intel that the Major passed down. It's a video of Indian schoolchildren singing a song from the timeless classic. It seems like just an ordinary school performance. But there's far more to this performance than meets the eye. At least, Salman Rushdie would think so. Who's Salman Rushdie!? Maggots, don't you bother reading the bios anymore? Salman Rushdie's a world-famous essayist, and one of his more famous essays was actually about "The Wizard of Oz!" How would Rushdie interpret this special performance?

For starters, Rushdie would comment on the presence of women in the performance. Notice that, in the school performance, all but two of the students are female. They all take the main stage, singing, skipping, and dancing. The two boys merely sit off to the side, partaking in incredibly minor actions. In "The Wizard of Oz," many of the male figures do not act as independent heroes, and rely on the power of women. Dorothy Gale, Glinda the Good Witch, and the Wicked Witch of the West act as the triptych of power in "Oz." As Rushdie states within the essay, the power of men is "illusory; the power of women is real." The power of these girls is much akin to the power of women in the film.

In addition, Rushdie speaks about the morals of "Oz." To Rushdie, "Oz" teaches us "to build on what we have, to make the best of ourselves." In an impoverished country like India, the schoolchildren must really take this moral to heart and make the most with what they have. The film encourages them that there is truly "no place like home." As Rushdie says, "there is no longer any such place as home; except, of course, for the home we make, or the homes that are made for us..." These children enthusiastically sing one of Oz's songs, in unison. Despite poverty and other struggles, these children make the most of their education, their friendships, and their lives, and make a home for themselves on stage.

DIS-MISSED.