i think it's a tad reductive to say people are ignoring or bastardizing glinda's canon characterization when they focus on the ways, despite her privilege, she does struggle and is isolated from society
there's some people that try to justify everything she does and kinda brush over the very obvious commentary on white privilege in the process. like obviously glinda's character is a commentary on the privilege the white the wealthy and the beautiful have, and how, especially when left unchecked, that privilege hurts others. if you miss that you're hella dumb and if you ignore that you're probably a little racist. she does, on some level, have to be vapid and shallow and ignorant at the beginning so she can grow into the person she becomes at the end. otherwise she'd just be a boring character with no arc, and we wouldn't want that now would we???
but she's never just been that. gregory maguire talks about how much of the way he characterized her in the wicked novel was inspired by the fact that he was never really convinced of billie burke glinda's fairy princess good witch thing. in the 1939 mgm movie, she very much reads as campy, performing an ideal of femininity that she's trying too hard at and not quite reaching. others have compared her to a drag queen before, and she really does come off as an old hag performing functioning society woman drag in the 1939 movie. like ma'am you are fooling no one we know you're a queer
and this makes her interesting because she's a character that exists in this position of privilege and in many ways embodies the faults of the privileged, but she's also one that continually fails to fit into this role she aspires to fill. this is really explicit in the novel, where it's pretty obvious none of the wealthy girls at shiz actually like her and she's always just, comically and annoyingly wealthy and out of touch as an adult, to the point where you the reader can't even hate her cuz it's just so ridiculous. like how do you fit that many micro aggressions into one conversation and then talk about hiring a guy to fix the belvederes? at your surrogate sister's funeral of all places??? this is why no one likes you
musical/movie glinda makes her straight up popular, which works with the themes of the play, but i do think she retains this element of queerness, for lack of a better term, and it's an important part of her character. on the stage it's a little bit lost, because the medium of theater always plays everything up to 110%, but ariana encapsulates it really well with the "she thinks she's a swan but she's not." her movements are often stiff and awkward cuz she's trying too hard and everything is too practiced and rehearsed to be natural
and while she may have shiz and eventually oz fooled, that doesn't mean she actually fits in. in DTL glinda's dance movements are intentionally a little bit off. ariana says its cuz she claps on one and three, which is the most accurate glinda analysis ever and the most devastating burn ever. but it also leaves her not quite in rhythm with the rest of the ensemble. despite her best attempts, she still doesn't quite fit in. she can only ever be loved superficially, and doesn't let anyone see the "real her"
it makes morrible's "i have no faith in you" somewhat layered because on one hand morrible sees past glinda's privilege and sees that she doesn't have potential, at least not like elphaba does. and this makes glinda extremely jealous cuz she's not used to being told no or someone not blindly following her. but morrible also sees past the crafted popular girl facade and decides the girl underneath is worthless. when she finally does "accept" glinda at the end of DG, it's for the facade, not for glinda herself. and i think the privilege reading and the dismissal of the "real" glinda reading don't oppose each other and can and must coexist to understand her character and the text as a whole
where elphaba's relatability comes from the fact that she can't hide her otherness and is therefore automatically isolated for it--something i think everyone, especially poc and queer ppl and neurodivergent ppl have felt--glinda's comes from the fact that despite her best efforts to appear like some societal ideal, she's missing the mark and is still a weird little freak. and i do think the glinda of it all is something everyone's also felt at points in their lives. like, most of us aren't 100% elphaba and wear everything on our sleeves like her. most of us have done things to be more societally palatable at one point or another and completely missed the mark
glinda's layered. you pull back the facade of the good witch and you see the privilege that's propping her up, often at the expense of someone else. you pull back the privilege and you find parts of her that are queer and different and socially unacceptable (first and foremost her love for elphaba) that she hides or suppresses. the trailers show glinda keeping the real parts of her in a literal closet because she knows much of the real her can't be revealed or she'll be cast out and isolated the way elphaba (who never has the luxury of a closet to hide in) has been
i do think glinda can be extremely relatable to people like elphaba can, albeit in a different and complementary way. i personally don't find one more relatable than the other, and rather can see parts of myself in both of them and at various points in my life felt like one more than the other. i also don't think relatability is the only metric for engaging in media, or even a particularly good one. they're very much two halves of a whole for me
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