Dorothy: An Entitled Immigrant With A Yappy SideKick Dog

In his brilliantly critical- seemingly satirical- analysis of The Wizard of Oz, Salman Rushdie acknowledges some overlooked (and over-romanticized) themes in a relatively conservative home. The message that weaved its way along the yellow brick road- and that eventually concluded the film- "There's no place like home,"he argues, may not be synonymous with a "happily ever after." Rushdie claims that most adolescent adults struggle to rationalize their conflicting desires to both love "home" and also leave and live elsewhere independently. In a frustrating oversimplification of those complexities, the film's overarching message, "there's no place like home," creates a sense of doubt and disbelief among viewers. Rushdie's kurt impatience for Toto is surprisingly contagious; the closer the analysis, the more useless Toto appears, for this dog is hindering Dorothy's opportunity to truly transform and grow independently from Kansas.