Timeline for Why does Scarecrow in The Wizard Of Oz get the Pythagorean Theorem wrong?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
12 events
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| Sep 30, 2022 at 14:14 | comment | added | releseabe | Just an aside: There remain, according to IMDB, at least a couple cast members from the movie. Both were kids in crowd scenes, villagers and/or Munchkins and both are over 90. I think one cast member from Gone With the Wind and probably some other surprises. | |
| Sep 29, 2022 at 1:44 | comment | added | JS. | To back up that that it was well known the wizard was a fraud, the lyrics to America's "Tin Man" from the 1970's has the line, "But Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man; That he didn't, didn't already have." | |
| Sep 28, 2022 at 18:07 | comment | added | Mike M | thanks, @JeffBowman -- that, in the link, does sound like what I learned a long time ago and I see it may have been more clever than well-supported | |
| Sep 28, 2022 at 13:31 | comment | added | user1629060 | WRT why the witches put up with him: In the book, the Wizard says that the good witches tolerated him because they were good and he was trying to be a good ruler of the Emerald City. The evil witches left him alone because they thought he was more powerful than them, which is why it was important for him to maintain the fraud of being a Wizard, even though he was really a humbug. | |
| Sep 28, 2022 at 13:27 | comment | added | user1629060 | I went back and read the corresponding chapters from the original Frank L. Baum novel. It doesn't have a similar quote, but it's quite clear that the wizard knows he's a fraud, and that he believes that all the scarecrow needs is to believe in himself. He already can think, but lacks experience, which he is gaining every day. The scarecrow spends the next few days thinking thoughts that he doesn't share because he knows no one will understand them. | |
| Sep 28, 2022 at 0:29 | comment | added | releseabe | @dan04: yup: it had to stored, transported and guarded and then stored again. Probably had to be counted and authenticated (at least weighed in those less sophisticated days). I bet the total cost was easily 1 percent of value. | |
| Sep 28, 2022 at 0:18 | comment | added | dan04 | In that case, "tons" was literal: The payment was $7.2 million, with the price of gold being set at $27.86 per troy ounce, so that works out to 258 435 ounces, or 8.038 metric tons, of gold. | |
| Sep 27, 2022 at 22:14 | comment | added | releseabe | @JeffBowman: I never found the monetary thing compelling but maybe someone who lived in those days would have. Or even Baum was subconsciously affected by what seems to me now to be a quaint controversy given how far away we are from silver and gold-backed money. There are of course plenty of people who still want gold-backed currency -- very complex issues, out of scope for here and way too complex for me. One thing: no matter how much gold is worth per ounce, physically holding it and moving it is a big expense. When US bought AK, tons of gold were sent to Russia. | |
| Sep 27, 2022 at 18:14 | comment | added | Cristobol Polychronopolis | So the Scarecrow may be the first cinematic example of the Dunning-Kruger effect! | |
| Sep 27, 2022 at 17:54 | comment | added | Jeff Bowman | @MikeM The monetary policy thesis is a really interesting theory, and one I hadn't read before, but it doesn't seem to be a mainstream or confirmed interpretation. | |
| Sep 27, 2022 at 14:46 | comment | added | Mike M | this answer is more to the point of the story. The wizard is a fraud and what people needed was confidence. This particularly fits the written work behind the film, which I believe was a commentary against the gold standard for US currency (the gold road to the house of green is a hollow fake, use confidence = fiat trust instead) | |
| Sep 27, 2022 at 3:08 | history | answered | releseabe | CC BY-SA 4.0 |