Video taking off 5.8x its usual first day

Matt Fradd asks: "Is The Wizard of Oz Demonic?"

Carrie Gress connects Baum's fantasy to Matilda Gage and the occult, while viewers offer a different interpretation of the yellow brick road.

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Matt Fradd Story of November 7, 2026Trari Newsroom

Why this story? The video opened at a pace of 64,071 views a day, 5.8 times a normal first day on this channel (11,117).

Is The Wizard of Oz Demonic?

Matt Fradd thought The Wizard of Oz was "an okay movie." Carrie Gress offers him a very different reading, tracing its good and bad witches to the ideas of author L. Frank Baum's mother-in-law, Matilda Gage.

In "Is The Wizard of Oz Demonic?", Fradd opens by asking whether describing first-wave feminism as inspired by the demonic amounts to hyperbole. Gress responds with Gage's story, describing her involvement in the occult and arguing that she passed those ideas to her daughter and Baum. In Gress's reading, the Wizard represents the patriarchy.

"I had no idea," Fradd replies. The Short distills that exchange into a provocative literary question, rather than a detailed examination of the book or its film adaptation.

It has drawn about 43,000 views in eleven hours, with its estimated first-day audience running nearly six times the channel's usual Short. That stands apart from channel-wide daily viewing, which is slightly below its usual pace.

The comments add another reading: several viewers bring up the interpretation of Oz as an allegory about gold, silver and monetary policy. Others distinguish Baum's books from the familiar film, or ask where Return to Oz fits. Fradd also posted a longer Gress discussion titled "You'll Never See the Wizard of Oz the Same" on the same day.

Published on Trari

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What viewers say

I was taught that The Wizard of Oz was a political allegory for the gold and silver monetary standards. I'm sure it has multiple layers, but look it up. Its a pretty widespread interpretation of the books.
@nathanpuckett9715See it on YouTube
so how does pink floyd come into this
@speakingrandomsquashSee it on YouTube
Man that movie creep me out when I was a kid
@Dianne-k4eSee it on YouTube

Public comments from the video's page on YouTube