Actor Michelle Yeoh covers the December 2025 issue of L’Officiel Worldwide [IG]. Luca Falconi styles Yeoh in Ami Paris, Chanel, Givenchy, Loewe, Marc Jacobs, Roberto Cavalli, Schiaparelli, Tom Ford and more.

Photographers Domen & Van de Velde [IG] are in the studio, with an interview by Leigh Belz Ray. / Hair by Issac Yu; makeup by Sabrina Bedrani

Michelle Yeoh in ‘Wicked: For Good’

The Oscar-winning Malaysian actor and action star known for doing her own stunts is presently making her ‘Wicked’ character terrifying to all who view her. ‘Wicked: for Good’ opened Friday [Nov 22, 2025] and Apple News decided to deliver a horror story of a review to Anne’s Saturday inbox: ‘Wicked: For Good’ Is Very, Very Bad.’ Thanks Apple. What a way to start my day.

The title alone of Justin Chang’s New Yorker review caused such consternation that AOC couldn’t believe we were so stupid as to recommend that Britain’s Mulberry brand back the symbolically-rich sisterhood-in-action vision of Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande together in their return to Oz.

Writing for the New York Times, Manohla Dargis is kinder than Justin Chang to the women of Oz, and Anne stopped holding her breath in psychic, emotional, pre-French roast in bed agony.

It’s Madame Morrible — not Elphaba — Who Is Wicked

Yeoh explains to L’Officiel’s Leigh Belz Ray that the real Wicked Witch isn't Elphaba, but her own character, Madame Morrible. Turn her name upside down and what stares at you from your digital screen? WW.

It’s Madame Morrible, who schemes with the wizzard himself, played by Jeff Goldblum, in bringing fascism to ‘Emerald City’.

“Together, they rule over Oz with wide smiles, an ethos of abundance, armed troops and a class of enemies among the land’s talking animals, whose rights are being rapidly erased and whose dire predicament foretells other oppressive moves”, writes Dargis.

"I think the lesson to be learned here is don't get corrupted by your own desires and ambition," says Yeoh to ‘L’Officiel’. "Because [Madame Morrible] forgot about compassion and kindness, which is something she had right at the beginning. And then she got lost in her own tempest."

MAGA’s Outrage Machine Takes Aim

I can hear Trump’s right-hand man Stephen Miller, Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, losing his mind over ‘Wicked: For Good’. Once again, Hollywood is destroying American culture.

Written in 1900, long before the global rise of fascism, the original ‘Wizard of Oz’ story is widely interpreted as a political allegory for the Populist movement. Viewing Oz as a critique of fascism is a more recent-decades idea, one brought to life in the two-part ‘Wicked’ movie.

After a deep scan, AOC has landed on ‘The Socialists and Suffragettes of Oz’, written by Jesse Walker for ‘Reason’ magazine — “dedicated to free minds and free markets”. Anne did not know that the stories of Oz by L. Frank Baum is a multi-volume series that even takes a crack at the international monetary system. Who knew?

There’s a larger point I wish to make in short order, but some serious mental processing is required. There is no doubt that ‘Wicked: For Good’ is being interrupted as a Hollywood attack on Trump and MAGA.

But a much larger brew in American politics is stirring. Oh yes, our beloved Bernie is still here and his bros align with Trump as often as twith he new mayor of New York City Zohran Mamdani. In fact, Trump seemed so superficially attracted to Mamdani in their White House meeting on Friday that the US president said it was no problem that this young political upstart from Queens called him a fascist.

America’s political class — including Anne — was dumbfounded watching Mamdani and Trump together. That’s another ingredient in the soup now brewing on the back burner of our American political stove. However, it isn’t the big one hardly getting any notice.

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Required for America’s Salvation: Women With Backbone

My blood pressure got minor stabilization in early November with the elections of two women governors, who are also married moms with military backgrounds and seven children between them. They are also close friends and were roommates in Congress: Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill, governor-elect of New Jersey. Both women had blockbuster wins that set Republicans back on their heels.

Being scrupulous in my research about Virginia governor-elect Abigail Spanberger’s funding sources before voting for her — which I would have done, no matter what — I expected to find more than one source of progressive values money in her pipeline. Yes, Planned Parenthood was represented, along with Everytown Gun Safety and the Clean Virginia [environmental action] fund and also Vote Vets.

Yes, Reid Hoffman was in for $350,000. Virginia does not have limits on individual contributions for state races. Spanberger says she does not accept corporate money, which is true. It is also true that a small percent of other PAC contributions are carrying corporate money donated to them. In Spanberger’s case, it’s estimated to be about 3% of her total.

One PAC had contributed a staggering amount of money — way out ahead of all other funders: DGA-PAC, representing America’s creatives and movie production staffs large and small. The PAC was created in 1996 by the Directors Guild of America.

Hollywood and the Heartland

Within the last month, I touched yet again on America’s McCarthy hearings past, when my first New York landlord, a playwright, went to prison. Rich Hollywood Jews and other talents — and poor creative Jews as well — were under viscious attacks from Republicans in Washington. [Note: do not fall into the trap of not remembering that plenty of Southern Democrats were also aligned against the Jews, and many Republican politicos were on my team of people embracing more progressive ideas.]

I actually found some comfort in understanding that the DGA could emerge as Spanberger’s top funder since 2018, when she arrived in Congress. Before all else, the DGA stands for protecting free speech and not burning books.

In the coming years, women with backbone, nerves of steel, tremendous empathy and deep focus will be required to fight fascism in America.

Once asked what she ate for breakfast, Speaker Amerita of the House and retiring San Francisco Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi answered “nails”. Both Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill are cut from that same Nancy Pelosi cloth.

Elphaba and Glinda Get It Together

Much has changed for women in American politics in 2025. The list of bad policy from the Trump Administration is a long and terrifying one. On a positive note, the volume of anti-white women commentary from the Democratic and Independent left political commentary class has dropped to a quiet hum and even none.

This new American political reality — if we can hold it — is expressed symbolically in ‘Wicked: For Good’.

Now demonized as the Wicked Witch of the West, Elphaba lives in exile in the Ozian forest, while Glinda resides at the palace in Emerald City, reveling in the perks of fame and popularity. As an angry mob rises against the Wicked Witch, she'll need to reunite with Glinda to transform herself, and all of Oz, for good.
In the process, Glinda may discover new truths about her own power, when she uses it for her country and all of its peoples — and especially, her soul-sister Elphaba.

I’ve lived my life looking out for my soul-sisters, but powers and pressures from the left — along with some of my closest friends over decades buying into this new ‘liberation’ thinking — have taken a great toll on those relationships.

These days, ripping into white women who lived on plantations 300 years ago might make you feel good. But it does nothing to save America from fascism in 2025.

This topic is verbotin in Democratic politics; and so we’ve lived with this Pandora’s box of little white lies for decades. If Elphaba and Glinda can get it together in Oz, so can the rest of us get it together in America.

All I know today is that we are on our way, traveling a new highway that may be a catalyst for big changes in our center left American voter coalition. This change is absolutely necessary, if we are to save American democracy from the Wizzard and all his blood-thirsty minions.

Not falling asleep at the wheel and landing in the ditch of division will be a huge challenge. Be sure to take your vitamins, my friends.

As for me, my breakfast is micronized creatine orange drink, pepped up with Lions Mane, avocado toast with raspberries and a new, fortified brand of Nancy Pelosi and Elphaba-approved nails. Onwards. ~ Anne