What Is Oz Without Ozma

What Is Oz Without Ozma is a satirical song performed at the Philosophy Club in Shiz, a bawdy send-up of the royalist sentiment that mourns the deposed Ozma line while mocking the Wizard's regime. The song serves as a piece of underground political commentary, blending nostalgia for the lost monarchy with the club's characteristic decadence and irreverence.

Performance and Context

The song was performed by a chanteuse at the Philosophy Club, a notorious dive in Shiz known for its illicit entertainments. The performance featured a "send-up of 'What Is Oz Without Ozma'" and the singer teased herself with a parrot-colored feather boa while a small band of elves tootled and rattled out a tinny accompaniment. The club itself was a place where Animals, humans, dwarfs, elves, and tiktok creatures mingled, and the song was part of a larger evening that included a girlie show and dancing. The performance occurred on the night that Boq, Avaric, Crope, Tibbett, Fiyero, Shenshen, and Pfannee visited the club after the funeral of Ama Clutch, a night of drunken revelry and escape from grief.

Political and Thematic Significance

The song's title and content directly reference the deposed Ozma line, the rightful queens of Oz who were overthrown by the Wizard. By asking "What Is Oz Without Ozma," the song implicitly critiques the Wizard's regime and expresses a longing for the lost monarchy. This royalist sentiment was dangerous in the Wizard's reign, as the Ozma line had been suppressed and its supporters driven underground. The performance at the Philosophy Club, a space of transgression and freedom, allowed for the expression of such seditious ideas under the cover of entertainment. The song's bawdy, satirical tone also mocks the pretensions of both the royalists and the current regime, reflecting the club's ethos of hedonistic rebellion against all forms of authority.

Narrative Role and Evaluation

The song functions as a piece of diegetic music that reveals the political undercurrents of Shiz's underground culture. It is one of several instances in the novel where popular entertainment becomes a vehicle for political commentary, alongside the Clock of the Time Dragon and Madame Morrible's Quells. The performance also serves to characterize the Philosophy Club as a space where the boundaries of acceptable discourse are pushed, and where the characters, particularly Boq and his friends, encounter the darker, more transgressive side of Shiz society. The song's presence underscores the novel's theme of the intertwining of pleasure and politics, and the ways in which art can be used to both critique and escape from oppressive regimes.