Wicked is defying fans not to buy its merch

Wicked is, among other things, the story of how a corrupt and capitalist society refused to heed the warnings of a whistleblower when she tried to reveal the utter emptiness at its core. So why not sell a bunch of meaningless crap to commemorate her journey in our corrupt and capitalist society! It’s not like Elphaba continually judges Galinda for her inclination towards excess and Galinda in turn spends the musical learning what’s really important or anything like that. That would be absurd.

Anyway, no good deed goes unpunished and now we’re going to have to deal with a truly staggering amount of Wicked merch on shelves and unskippable YouTube ads for the rest of the year. “[O]ur global merchandise program across retail and theme parks reflects the film’s empowering themes and bold iconography,” said Universal Products & Experiences president Vince Klaseus in a statement today (via License Global), neatly summing up all the ways he misinterpreted those very themes.

If not-so-magically turning your house green and pink sounds inspiring to you, here’s an exhaustive list of all the brands that can help you do it:

Beis, Bombas, Cambridge Satchel Company, Camilla, Daniela Villegas, Eugenia Kim, Lingua Franca, Naeem Khan, Pyrrha, Rebecca Minkoff, Swarovski, Sydney Evan, Voluspa, Accessory Innovations, Aykroyd TDP, Brand Alliance, Bioworld, Cakeworthy, Caprice, Crocs, Ground Up, High IntenCity, High Point Design, Hybrid, Kipling, Lola + the Boys, Loungefly, Mad Engine, Poetic Brands, Sahinler, Sunstache, Vera Bradley, Aekyoung, Beekman 1802, Blissy, Conair, Dreamtex, Franco, Hunter Price, Hygge & West, LUSH, Maxwell & Williams, Makeup Eraser, Manyo, Wet Brush, Zaks, Mattel, LEGO, Bitty Boomers, Build-A-Bear, Chasing Fireflies, Disguise, Fisher-Price, Funko, Hallmark, Harper Collins, Hasbro, Hunter Leisure, Insight Editions, JAKKS Pacific, Jazwares, Kid Designs, The Noble Collection, Theory 11, Random House, Ravensburger, RMS International, Rubber Road, Rubies II, Snapco, Spin Master, ALDO, Amazon, Bloomingdales, Box Lunch, Cotton On, El Corte Inglés, Forever21, Kohl’s, H&M, Her Universe, Hot Topic, JCPenney, Kiabi, Liverpool, Primark, Roots, Target, Walmart, and Universal theme parks.

…oh my.

It’s clear that Universal is trying to make this into the next Barbie, at least from a branding perspective. (You’d be forgiven for not noticing it in the mess above, but Mattel is listed as a partner so there are probably actual Wicked Barbies coming down the pike.) But despite the obvious merch tie-in opportunities for that film, part of the fun of the whole Barbenheimer phenomenon was how organically it sprang up—it was the two-blockbuster weekend, not the merchandise, that captured the zeitgeist. You’d need a real magic wand to recreate those conditions, but that clearly isn’t stopping Universal from trying. They’d better hope the movie actually flies with audiences come this fall.