Trump ally calls Wicked ‘racist against white people’ and Ariana Grande ‘obviously Hispanic’
Dr. Gina Loudon. (Clint Spaulding/WWD/Penske Media via Getty Images)
Gina Loudon, a former advisor to president-elect Donald Trump, has labelled Wicked “racist against white people” and insisted that Ariana Grande is “obviously Hispanic”.
The film, which has smashed box-office records for a Broadway adaptation, follows Wicked Witch of the West Elphaba and good witch Glinda (Grande) long before Dorothy dropped into Oz.
Hitting out at the film, Loudon, who was a member Trump’s 2020 campaign on the media advisory board, spoke about being “kind of sick” of storylines that portrayed white people as “dumb and evil”. Now a right-wing pundit, she made the comments on cable network Real America’s Voice, on Tuesday (3 December).
She “should have known it’s Holly-weird” and that the film would be “woke”, Loudon said.
“Let’s just start with the fact that they have Ariana Grande, who is obviously a Hispanic woman, playing the part of a ditzy, blonde, white villain, when it comes right down to it. The racism and the racial appropriation was offensive, frankly.
“All white people aren’t dumb and evil, and I get kind of sick of that storyline and feel that’s where it started. It kind of lost me there and it was three hours long.”
Loudon’s claim regarding Grande is incorrect: she is American, of Italian descent.
Wicked is reportedly facing censorship in Kuwait for its inclusion of an “LGBTQ+ cast”. Cynthia Erivo, who plays Elphaba, identifies as queer, while co-stars Jonathan Bailey, Bowen Yang, Marissa Bode and Bronwyn James are also part of the community.
Last year, Kuwait banned the Barbie movie, accusing it of “promulgating ideas and beliefs that are alien to the Kuwaiti society and public order”.
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