Wicked’s Marissa Bode calls out "aggressive" jokes about Nessarose's disability

2 December 2024, 12:55 | Updated: 2 December 2024, 15:13

Wicked’s Marissa Bode calls out "aggressive" jokes about Nessarose&squot;s disability — Wicked’s Marissa Bode calls out "aggressive" jokes about Nessarose's disability. Picture: Universal Pictures, @marissa_edob via TikTok

By Sam Prance

Like Wicked's Nessarose, Marissa Bode is a wheelchair user in real life.

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Wicked's Marissa Bode has posted a video calling out "agressive" jokes fans are making about Nessarose's disabilty.

In the Wicked movie, Marissa Bode has made history as the first wheelchair user to play Elphaba's sister Nessarose. Despite the fact that Nessarose is written as a wheelchair user in the musical, every actress who has played her in professional productions of Wicked on stage has been able-bodied. Marissa is finally changing that on screen.

Fans of Wicked will already know that Nessarose is a divisive character who takes on a large role in Part 2. However, since Marissa was cast as Nessarose, she has been subject to trolling online. She's also revealed that she's seen people make ableist jokes about both her and Nessarose and she's taken to TikTok to ask people to stop.

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In a TikTok video that's now been viewed over 3.6 million times, Marissa said: "It is absolutely OK to not like a fictional character. I am going to be admitting my bias in the way that I have a lot of different feelings on Nessa than a lot of you do, and that’s totally fine. I think Nessa is complex, but that’s the beauty of art."

Marissa continued: "Wicked and these characters and the movie wouldn’t be what it was if there weren’t different opinions on the characters and who’s truly wicked or not. Not liking Nessa herself is OK. Because she is fictional, that’s totally fine.”

Marissa then revealed that she is "deeply unserious" and enjoys "silly, goofy, harmless” jokes about Nessarose. However, she also explained: “Aggressive jokes and comments about Nessarose’s disability itself is deeply uncomfortable because disability is not fictional."

She added: "At the end of the day, me, Marissa, is the person that is still disabled and in a wheelchair. And so, it is simply a low-hanging fruit that too many of you are comfortable taking.”

Marissa then said that she has been harassed with ableist jokes on social media: “Before even being cast in Wicked, I had received comments, just as me, as Marissa, not Nessa, around the words of ‘stand up for yourself,’ ‘I guess you can’t stand him,’ et cetera."

She continued: "These comments aren’t original, and when these jokes are being made by non-disabled strangers with a punchline of not being able to walk, it very much feels like laughing at rather than laughing with.”

Marissa ended the video by saying: "One of the major themes within ‘Wicked’ is having the ability to listen and to understand one another. I hope that is something a lot of you can practice more and take with you.”