By Malia Mendez | LA Times
Wicked” actor Marissa Bode is speaking out against the ableist discourse surrounding her character, Nessarose, after the movie musical’s debut.
The 24-year-old, who makes her feature film debut in “The Wizard of Oz” prequel adaptation, is the first wheelchair user ever to be cast as the “tragically beautiful” younger sister to Wicked Witch-to-be Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo). But her complicated character was met with mixed reactions after “Wicked” was released in theaters last week and broke the box-office opening record for a film based on a Broadway musical.
“It is absolutely OK to not like a fictional character,” Bode said in a TikTok posted Saturday, acknowledging her bias toward the “complex” Nessarose. “‘Wicked’ and these characters and the movie wouldn’t be what it was if there weren’t different opinions on the characters and who’s truly wicked or not.”
“That being said,” she continued, “aggressive comments and ‘jokes’ about Nessa’s disability itself is deeply uncomfortable because disability is not fictional. At the end of the day, me, Marissa, is the person that is still disabled and in a wheelchair. And so, it is simply a low-hanging fruit that too many of you are comfortable taking.”
Bode quoted some of the jabs she had read online, from insensitive quips like “Stand up for yourself” to more “aggressive” and “very gross” comments suggesting that Nessarose “deserves her disability.”
“When these jokes are being made by non-disabled strangers with a punchline of not being able to walk, it very much feels like laughing at rather than laughing with,” she said. “This goes so far beyond me, Marissa, just needing to ignore comments on the internet.”
Noting that she was “shaking a bit” as she spoke, Bode said that the “most frustrating” thing about calling out ableism as a disabled person is being told to “just take a joke and that they’re asking too much.”
Bode encouraged viewers to listen to the people that the joke affects about how it makes them feel rather than “dismissing one another and claiming an experience can’t be true because you personally don’t feel that way about a joke that wouldn’t have affected your demographic anyways.”
She has learned that ableist jokes are “made out of ignorance,” she said, and should not be taken personally.
“I couldn’t say the same about Marissa 10 years ago,” she said, adding, “I’m worried that a young version of myself is somewhere on the internet and is harmed by these comments.”
Bode started performing onstage when she was 8 and continued to do so after a car accident when she was 11 paralyzed her from the waist down.
“I love seeing disabled characters be played authentically by real disabled people, because no one knows us better than us,” Bode recently told The Times.
“Representation for authentically disabled people is already quite minimal, so to have the opportunity and make a point of it, especially in a huge project that’s beloved by so many people, that’s incredibly important, especially in terms of sending a message to other projects that it’s possible to include disabled people in your casts,” she added.
“Wicked” director Jon M. Chu also told The Times that “there was no compromising” when it came to casting a wheelchair user as Nessarose.
Bode will reprise the role in “Wicked: Part Two,” which is slated for theatrical release in November 2025.
