The ‘Wicked’ Fandom Reacts to Star Cynthia Erivo Raging Against the Memes With Even More Memes

Earlier this week, Broadway legend and Wicked star Cynthia Erivo started a social media storm when she posted a lengthy, hyperbolic rant about how a fan-made poster for the upcoming film is “the wildest, most offensive thing I have ever seen.” Too bad she couldn’t just… let it go.

Before Universal Pictures released the official poster for the film adaptation of the beloved Broadway musical Wicked last week, the stage show’s rabid online fanbase had hoped to see a live-action recreation of the musical’s iconic illustrated poster in which Glinda whispers into Elphaba’s ear while the brim of the latter’s hat conceals most of her face, with just a sly, suggestive smile peeking out. After all, every Millennial musical theater enthusiast has emotionally charged sensory memories of seeing the original Wicked poster plastered all over the streets of their hometown leading up to the touring production's stop at their mid-sized city, and the film adaptation featuring Erivo and pop star Ariana Grande as Elphaba and Glinda respectively was shaping up to be a massive hit among that demographic since before principal photography even began.

When the official Wicked movie poster ended up looking more like the Tubi thumbnail for a second-rate CW show rather than the faithful recreation of a classic piece of promotional art, the vocal and active Wicked fandom reacted by sharing memes, snarky tweets and Photoshop fixes of the Universal poster on Twitter and Instagram. Although a bunch of grown-up theater kids disliking the design choices of an advertisement should have been the most benign controversy in the history of Hollywood, upon seeing one remarkably tame fan poster, Erivo chose to sound off on the desired fanbase for her $145 million film in an explosive diatribe that she posted on her Instagram story, accusing the Photoshopping fans of degrading and dehumanizing her and her co-star.

And, because this is the Internet, Erivo's unhinged attack on her artistically inclined fans produced the exact opposite outcome that she intended, and the furious finger-wagging has only intensified the meme campaign that will probably haunt Wicked until its premiere next month. 

Here are the most pop-u-lar Wicked memes we've seen so far: