Wicked - Melanie Marie - We Can Build Her - Sce... (2026)

| Element | Symbolic Weight | |--------|----------------| | | The social label for those who resist control. | | Melanie Marie | A double first name suggests duality (public self vs. private self). | | We Can Build Her | Technological/hubris theme; erasure of the organic. | | Sce... | Beginning of "Scene" = theatricality of identity. |

The phrase “We Can Build Her” echoes the hubris of a techno-patriarchal society. It suggests that womanhood is a project, an engineering problem rather than an organic state. In Wicked , Elphaba is not built; she is born green. Yet the Wizard and Madame Morrible attempt to rebuild her into a "Good Witch" or a scapegoat. When she refuses their mold, they construct the narrative of the "Wicked Witch of the West." Melanie Marie, in this context, is the prototype. She is built from childhood via toys that teach nurture, media that glorify thinness, and language that polices tone. When she deviates—speaking too loudly, wanting too much power—society performs a second construction: the villain edit.

A glitch allows fragments of her former self to surface. A young technician (a Glinda-like foil) tries to befriend her, but Melanie realizes this is another form of control. She escapes, leaving the facility in flames.

At its core, Wicked is a story about two women navigating a patriarchal society that seeks to control and manipulate them. Elphaba and Glinda's complex and often toxic relationship serves as a commentary on the ways in which women are pitted against each other in the pursuit of power and acceptance. This theme is echoed in Martinez's "We Can Build Her," a song that appears to be about the construction of a female identity through societal expectations and pressures.