Cultural Impact
Regarding the original Baum storybook, it has been said that "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is America's greatest and best-loved home grown fairytale. The first totally American fantasy for children, it is one of the most-read children's books . . . and despite its many particularly American attributes, including a wizard from Omaha, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has universal appeal."
The film also has been deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress, which selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry in 1989. In June 2007, the film was listed on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register. The film placed at number 86 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments. In 1977, Aljean Harmetz wrote The Making of The Wizard of Oz, a detailed description of the creation of the film based on interviews and research; it was updated in 1989.
Quotes from the film such as, "I'm melting! I'm melting!", "We're not in Kansas anymore" and, "There's no place like home" can be heard in numerous films such as Field of Dreams, Spaceballs, The Matrix, Avatar, and Twister, as well as in numerous television shows, and have become common phrases.
When Ray Bolger, the last survivor of the major players, died in 1987, a Chicago Tribune editorial cartoon portrayed the Scarecrow running over the rainbow to catch up with the other characters.
The Wizard of Oz was one of the main inspirations for the commercially successful 1999 survival horror video game Silent Hill. One of the main characters from the game Lisa Garland was named to pay homage to the film's star Judy Garland.
The pairing of the 1973 Pink Floyd music album The Dark Side of the Moon with the visual portion of the film produces moments where they appear to correspond with each other in a music video-like experience. This juxtaposition has been called Dark Side of the Rainbow.
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Famous quotes containing the words cultural and/or impact:
“The rumor of a great city goes out beyond its borders, to all the latitudes of the known earth. The city becomes an emblem in remote minds; apart from the tangible export of goods and men, it exerts its cultural instrumentality in a thousand phases.”
—In New York City, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“One can describe a landscape in many different words and sentences, but one would not normally cut up a picture of a landscape and rearrange it in different patterns in order to describe it in different ways. Because a photograph is not composed of discrete units strung out in a linear row of meaningful pieces, we do not understand it by looking at one element after another in a set sequence. The photograph is understood in one act of seeing; it is perceived in a gestalt.”
—Joshua Meyrowitz, U.S. educator, media critic. “The Blurring of Public and Private Behaviors,” No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior, Oxford University Press (1985)