winged monkeys
Winged monkeys (often referred to in adaptations and pop culture as flying monkeys) are characters from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, of enough impact between the books and the 1939 movie to have taken their own place in pop culture, regularly referenced in comedic or ironic situations as a source of evil or fear.
Baum
In the original Oz novels, these were just what the name implies: intelligent monkeys with wings. They were controlled by a golden hat, initially worn by the Wicked Witch of the West who used it to set the monkeys upon Dorothy and her friends. At one point they destroy the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman entirely, leaving them scattered across the landscape.
An account in the The Wonderful Wizard of Oz explained that the hat was made and imbued with power by a princess named Gayelette. When she was to marry a man named Quelala, the monkeys played a prank on him. Angry, she made the cap, and gave it to Quelala as a wedding present. Quelala merely ordered the monkeys to no longer play pranks, but after he died, the cap fell into the hands of the Wicked Witch. After her death, Dorothy used the cap three times, and finally gave it to Glinda, who ordered the monkeys to carry Dorothy's companions back to their homes in Oz, and then to cease to bother people, and then gave them the cap as their own, to free them.[1]
They were never included in any of the subsequent Oz books.
Depictions in modern fiction
In the film version of The Wiz, the Flying Monkeys are a motorcycle gang, whose leader is named Cheetah, after the Tarzan character. Their metal wings are part of their motorcycles, but these apparently dissolved with the witch's other magic, as their are absent when carrying Dorothy and her friends back to the Emerald City.
In Gregory Maguire's revisionist novels Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West and Son of a Witch, the flying monkeys were created by Elphaba (the Witch) as part of her experiments on the nature of the soul and what distinguishes non-speaking animals from intelligent, speaking Animals. In these novels, most of the flying monkeys cannot speak, but Elphaba's favorite (named Chistery) has a distinctive speech pattern characterized by the repetition of similar-sounding words. In the musical adaptation, the monkeys gain wings as part of a magic spell gone awry.
The Vertigo comic book series Fables features a flying monkey named Bufkin, who may be a survivor of a conquered Land of Oz.
The Harpeth Hills Flying Monkey Marathon refers to the legendary breed of flying monkeys, the Harpeth Hills Flying Monkeys, named after the geologic region where they reside.
Political interpretations
Some historians who interpret The Wizard of Oz as a political allegory suggest the Winged Monkeys represent African-Americans, oppressed by an overbearing force and who are relieved to be free of that bondage when the evil force is terminated. Others see them as hired Pinkerton Agents who worked for the Trusts in the 1890s and hounded labor unions. (L. Frank Baum made an explicit reference to Pinkerton agents in a later book, "Lost Princess of Oz," p 211)
References in pop culture
- Flying monkeys have appeared in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and The Simpsons.
- In the movie Jumanji, monkeys see inside a TV shop on a television the winged monkeys from the Wizard of Oz, so they break inside the shop and steal TV sets.
- In the 1973 movie Hunter, actual footage from the Wizard of Oz movie is used to brainwash a race-car driver, terrorizing him until he screamed the line "Stop the monkeys! PLEASE Stop the monkeys!"
- The music video for "Heretics & Killers" by Protest The Hero opens with a shot of the front page of a newspaper stating 'The Witch is Dead: Flying Monkeys Out of Work'. The remainder of the video features the bandmembers dressed as the Flying Monkeys, trying (and failing) at various jobs, begging on the street, getting thrown out of a bar, and rocking out.
- In the DCOM movie Halloweentown High Debbie Reynolds' character Aggie Cromwell say "Whoever heard of hockey without Flying Monkeys".
- United States Naval Academy midshipmen refer to West Point cadets as woops because of the similarity between the cadet's gray, high collar uniforms with those of the flying monkeys.
- In the Being Ian episode Is There an Ian in the House?, Nurse Sturgeon yells out "RELEASE THE FLYING MONKEYS!" Her assistant than says that flying monkeys don't exist.
- A Harpeth Hills Flying Monkey Marathon in Nashville, TN honors flying monkeys which runners believe to have been spotted in a local park there.
- Political humorist Lewis Black made reference to evil flying monkeys while referring to North Korea in one of his stand-up bits.
References
- ^ Michael O. Riley, Oz and Beyond: The Fantasy World of L. Frank Baum, p 55, ISBN 0-7006-0832-X
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