Wow my favorite movie of all time. I watch this the same way now as when I was a kid. I love it for its magical being. A great fantasy that trying to dissect it or figure out alterior things about it - only an adult would do that. When I watch the wizard of oz I am a kid again. Being almost 67 I need a break from being an adult sometimes.

I would say quite the contrary. Reason being, they have the impression that the Wizard can do anything, then when they arrive, they discover him to be nothing more than a man behind the curtains pulling levers and shit. Then he tells them that they have it within themselves to accomplish what they set out to do. That does not seem to support religion to me, either that or my memory of the movie is not worth a plug nickel.

It’s also about 19th century American politics, or the European Renaissance, or whatever else you want to make up.

Never made the connection to religion. Control and power over women; teaching women to hate other women sure.... but formal religion per se I do not see it.

Many do this seems more like friends and family

Oh I don't know. Maybe it's just thinly disguised Hollywood Right Wing subliminal propaganda, as so much of Hollywood is, funded and controlled by corporate military industrial complex structures. Don't ask for anything, just do it yourself, or put up with what you have, and don't expect anything, if you are not lucky enough to be rich, like us. The wizard is the government, or the public interest.

Can't say I've ever had much time for that movie, even less now that it has been revealed that they drugged poor Judy, and all the men, munchkins included, molested her when they could. Charming. Hollywood, a "dream factory" built on the pretense of glamour, based on pure capitalist exploitation at its worst.

likewise dumbo.

g