Why Nessarose's Slippers Are Silver (& Not Ruby) in 'Wicked: For Good'

Wicked and its sequel, Wicked: For Good, draw from iconography introduced in the 1939 classic, The Wizard of Oz, yet one notable item is different. Nessarose, also known as the Wicked Witch of the East, is seen wearing a pair of enchanted shoes that used to belong to her mother, which her father gave them on their first day at Shizz University. Fans know these to be the signature shoes Dorothy will wear after her Kansas home lands on the Wicked Witch of the East, killing her. However, the iconic shoes in the 1939 film are bright ruby red, whereas in Wicked, they are silver.

Why did Wicked change the color of the most famous footwear in cinema history? Well, it all comes back to the original book and copyright law. However, Wicked: For Good does manage to pay homage to the classic ruby slippers in its own magical way. Here is why Nessarose, and later Dorothy Gale’s, shows in Wicked: For Good is silver instead of ruby.

The Ruby Slippers Are Owned by MGM

In the original Wizard of Oz book, Dorothy acquired a pair of Silver Shoes from the deceased Wicked Witch of the East (in Wicked, named Nessarose). However, when the feature film was put into production in 1939, the decision was made to change the slippers from silver to ruby. The suggestion came from one of the film’s screenwriters, Noel Langley, and the cosmetic change was made to take advantage of the three-strip Technicolor film that The Wizard of Oz was being shot on. This simple change would result in one of, if not the most, iconic film props of all time. Unfortunately, it would also become a key element that audiences associate with the franchise, which other entries are not allowed to use.

The ruby slippers are an iconic part of The Wizard of Oz iconography, but are unique to the film version. Because of this, the ruby slippers are currently trademarked by MGM Studios and are now owned by Warner Bros. Pictures, which acquired all of MGM’s pre-1986 films. This means that while The Wizard of Oz books are in the public domain, the iconic ruby slippers are not, and any Wizard of Oz production that wants to use them must license them. In 1986, when Disney made Return to Oz and pitched it as a sequel to the 1939 classic, they had to pay MGM to use the ruby slippers.

Due to MGM and now Warner Bros. owning the image of the ruby slippers, most adaptations of The Wizard of Oz have opted to return to the original Silver Shoes design. When Once Upon a Time decided to adapt The Wizard of Oz for its third season, one of Disney’s many attempts to cash in on The Wizard of Oz, they featured the Silver Shoes. Sam Raimi’s forgettable prequel, Oz: The Great and Powerful, didn’t even highlight the Wicked Witch of the East’s shoe wear, despite the character being a prominent part of the movie. Even if they did want to show them, Disney likely wasn’t going to pay to license the ruby slippers again.

How ‘Wicked’ Manages to Pay Homage to the Ruby Slippers

While Wicked and Wicked: For Good could not feature the ruby slippers directly, both films get around it in their own unique ways. In Wicked during “Popular”, Galinda (Ariana Grande) pulls out a pair of ruby shoes for Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) before tossing them aside. Then, in Wicked: For Good, when Elphaba enchants the shoes her mother gave Nessa (Marissa Bode), the magic allows her to fly, and the silver begins to glow red. The idea of the shoes’ magic enchantment showing a red-coded activation color actually originates in the Wicked stage production.

Since the slippers themselves are not red, and only appear that color briefly when the spell is activated, they seemingly are allowed to skirt around the copyright claim since ruby colored magic can’t exactly be copyrighted (because if it could, Disney and Marvel Comics would have locked that down for the Scarlet Witch a long time ago). It is a clever way to get around the copyright of the ruby slippers and honors the legacy of The Wizard of Oz that most people expect to see in a new adaptation. The change also provides a meta-layer to their power: Elphaba enchanted the very shoes that will allow Dorothy to get home, and in the Wicked lore, when Dorothy clicks her silver shoes together, they will glow ruby red. Wicked honors both L. Frank Baum’s original stories and the 1939 film by merging the two color-coded shoes into a single pair.