I think I’m going to miss you most of all.
– Dorothy, to the Scarecrow
What the hell, Dorothy?
Why do you have to ruin a beautiful moment by picking favorites like that?
Let me remind you that the Tin Man and Cowardly Lion risked their lives to save you. Infiltrating the Witch’s castle was a suicide mission, but they didn’t hesitate. That’s what friends do. And your with last words before you left them forever, you ripped their hearts out. (And the Tin Man had just gotten that heart.)
Let’s say my friends threw me a party before I went off to spend six months backpacking around Europe. I raise my glass and make a toast: “Thanks a lot, everybody! FYI, Bill is my favorite.” Is that remotely acceptable?
Look, I know she’s just a teenager. She’s at that Mean Girls age, where social politics is her whole world. Maybe to Dorothy, publically declaring your BFF is expected. But my heart goes out to the Tin Man and the Lion. They’re already broken up about her leaving, and then they have to hear her tell the Scarecrow that he gets a bigger slice of the friendship pie.
She doesn’t realize it, but that careless comment probably planted seeds of resentment — the Tin Man and the Lion can never truly be friends with the Scarecrow now. They’re going to be seething with bitterness that she picked him.
Dorothy entered Oz by dropping a house on the Wicked Witch of the East. She leaves it by dropping an emotional house on her friends.
UPDATE 2008-10-26: As a commenter pointed out, this exact observation was the subject of a riff on Family Guy. I totally didn’t know this, and I apologize. It’s both annoying and strangely flattering to inadvertently rip off a popular show. Here’s their take on it:
Wasn’t this a scene on Family Guy?
There’s a lot about The Wizard of Oz that doesn’t sit well with me.
But anyway, I found out about your site today in a link from IMDB. Very interesting and funny, but I’m sure you get that all the time.
Really? A lot about the Wizard of Oz, that doesn’t sit well with you. I can’t even comprehend that statement. It’s a children’s story and movie. Child pornography, human trafficking, war, hate, man’s inhumanity to man. These are the things that don’t sit well with me.
Belinkie, you’re forgetting a crucial aspect of her relationship with the Scarecrow as opposed to the other two: he was her first companion from Oz. Sure, she met the Munchkins and Glinda, but they left her once she reached the edge of Munchkinland. He was the first to stick with her on her journey. It must have been quite a relief when he agreed to accompany her to the Emerald City, for as much as she loved Toto, he couldn’t exactly provide conversation or companionship the way a biped with more cognitive capabilities could. So she probably harbored a special endearment to him, since he was the first to stick with her. And since it was just the two of them for a while (plus the dog), Dorothy and the Scarecrow had their own shenanigans, without anyone else there to take from the friendship pie. This gave them the opportunity to develop a relationship of more intimacy than the ones she developed with the Tin Man and Cowardly Lion, for the latter two had others there to share the pie with when they first arrived.
So yeah, maybe she was being a little insensitive toward the other two, but she WAS only a teenager; and really, all she was doing was being honest in the face of saying goodbye to someone so important to her. Call it the brutal honesty of the innocent, somewhat like when a three-year-old asks what the huge red spot (i.e. pimple) on your nose is very loudly. She was just speaking from her heart and stating the conclusions she had come to.
And here comes the book v. movie question. I have never read the book, but I am curious as to whether she says she’d miss the Scarecrow “most of all” or something along those lines in that case. I’m going to adjudge a guess of no, but if you or anyone else has read it and can clear it up, that would be awesome.
I heard that there was a whole subplot that got cut from the film involving a romance between Dorothy and the Scarecrow (who also, if you remember, was one of the farmhands).
There was no romance subplot in the book, which is good considering she was maybe 11. It’s unclear exactly how old Dorothy is in the film, but at least it’s older than that. I hope.
Dorothy had no manners or filter on her mouth. We all have that one person who may hold a special place in our heart however I would never bluntly state that in the presence of my other friends.