No Bad News: A case for Evillene

The Wiz, 1978 is one my absolute favorite movies of all time. And like…Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, the music, the dancing, the energy– TOP TIER! Nothing can or has ever compared to this rendition, and that, in a nutshell, is true black artistry.

A few years back I made an instagram post extending understanding, empathy even, for the character Evillene. The caption read:

“Being an adult is realizing that Evilene wasn’t a terrible person… people just kept bringing her bad news. She probably even had really exciting things going on in life, but the humans around her kept dumping a bunch of shit that wasn’t hers to carry, never giving her a moment to talk about or enjoy the positive stuff going on and she snapped. I totally understand and empathize.”

At the time it felt like a funny observation.

But the older I get, the less funny it feels.

Because when you listen to Evillene’s big villain song again as an adult, it doesn’t sound like cruelty anymore.

It sounds like burnout.

So I listened to the song differently.

Line by line.

https://open.spotify.com/track/0ymZebSCZoPaSNcoush2L6?si=247e3b126eb44238 (If you’d like to give a(nother) listen)

“When I wake up in the afternoon / Which it pleases me to do”

First of all: rest.

There is nothing that regulates me faster than peace in the morning.

Nothing throws a day off faster than someone waking up and immediately dumping an emergency in your lap because they didn’t plan well the day before.

Someone else’s emotion.

Someone else’s panic.

Someone else’s crisis.

It hijacks your entire nervous system before your feet even hit the floor.

So yes.

Waking up slowly in the afternoon?

That actually sounds… wonderful.

It sounds like peace.

“Don’t nobody bring me no bad news”

People hear this line and think: villain.

But what if it’s actually a boundary?

What if it’s simply someone saying:

I have reached capacity.

“Cause I wake up already negative / And I’ve wired up my fuse”

This line hits very differently if you know what hypervigilance feels like.

A lot of Black women wake up already bracing.

Not because we’re pessimistic.

Because from childhood we’ve been trained to anticipate everyone else’s needs.

You stabilize the room.

You handle the problem.

You take care of the men.

You take care of the family.

You take care of everyone.

Your own needs somehow come last.

So you wake up scanning the horizon:

What’s coming?

Who needs something?

What emergency is about to land in my lap?

That fuse didn’t wire itself.

Life wired it.

“If we’re going to be buddies / Better bone up on the rules”

This is where the song starts sounding less like tyranny and even more like boundaries.

If you’re going to be close to me, you need to understand something.

My presence is not an emotional dumping ground.

“You can be my best of friends / As opposed to payin’ dues”

Friendship should not be an economy of suffering.

It shouldn’t mean:

I carry your chaos.

You carry mine.

We prove loyalty through exhaustion.

Real friendship doesn’t require emotional dues.

It simply requires respect.

You can be my friend.

Just don’t assume I exist to carry your mess.

“When you’re talking to me / Don’t be cryin’ the blues”

At one point in my life I realized I couldn’t stay on the phone with some of the women in my family for more than about twenty minutes.

Because they weren’t just bringing their problems.

They were bringing everyone else’s problems too.

Someone said this.

Someone did that.

Someone’s struggling.

Someone’s upset.

And eventually your body just says:

I cannot carry this.

My grandmother’s phone never stopped ringing.

People brought everything to her.

She became the family bearer of bad news.

The bone carrier.

And if she carried it forward, it just became a circulation of misery.

Her sisters do this too sometimes.

Just constant reporting on what everyone else is doing.

At some point I realized it was irritating my soul.

So I stepped away from those conversations.

Naturally, that made me selfish.

Apparently I “only want to do for myself.”

Which is interesting.

Because the adults had been adults my entire life.

And I eventually had to ask myself:

How am I supposed to build stability for my own life if I’m constantly stabilizing everyone else’s?

“You can verbalize and vocalize / But just bring me the clues”

This line basically says:

Get to the damn point.

Some people want you to sit inside their misery with them.

They circle the story.

They drag it out.

But if you actually need help, say the thing.

What happened?

What do you need?

Let’s move forward.

“Bring some message in your head / Or in something you can’t lose”

This line feels like she’s saying:

Process your chaos.

Think about it.

Hold it.

But don’t automatically hand it to me like I’m the designated container.

You can be around me.

Just don’t bring your emotional overflow with you.

“If you’re gonna bring me something / Bring me something I can use”

This might be the most radical line in the entire song.

If you’re bringing something to me, bring something constructive.

Bring an idea.

Bring a solution.

Bring clarity.

Don’t bring endless misery.

The Factory

Now look again at the scene itself.

Evillene sits in the middle of a factory that never stops.

Machines clank.

Workers shout.

Metal grinds against metal.

Things are constantly being dismantled and rebuilt.

Her costume alone looks like she’s wearing an entire junkyard.

Layers of buttons, metals, trinkets, fabrics, mechanical pieces.

It’s almost like she’s physically wearing the debris of the world.

There is no silence anywhere.

The environment itself is overstimulating.

And then people walk in.

With more problems.

More updates.

More bad news.

The Sister

There’s another detail that matters.

Evillene lost her sister.

For black women, sisterhood is the one place where you can finally put your armor down.

Where you’re understood without explaining yourself.

Where someone shares your language.

When that disappears, something shifts.

Especially when the world still expects you to carry everything.

The story never pauses to give her space to grieve.

It just labels her the villain and moves on.

Which… frankly feels familiar.

The Misery Economy

As I’ve gotten older I’ve noticed something else.

In some families, suffering becomes the language of belonging.

Many women from older generations were taught a very specific formula:

You endure.

You carry everyone.

You don’t complain.

And the endurance itself becomes your identity.

So misery becomes a kind of currency of legitimacy.

You hear it all the time:

“That’s just how life is.”

“We all had to go through it.”

“You’ll understand when you’re older.”

Not because they necessarily want you to suffer.

But because suffering was the framework they were given for adulthood.

The Silence

There’s something haunting about the factory scene.

The machines only stop when Evilene dies.

The noise disappears.

The space finally becomes still.

And there’s something deeply saddening about that.

Because sometimes it feels like the only time the world allows Black women peace is when they’re gone.

But maybe peace isn’t something you earn through sacrifice.

Maybe peace is something you choose while you’re still alive.

Maybe Evillene Was Just Tired

Maybe she was overstimulated.

Maybe she was grieving.

Maybe she had reached the point where she simply could not carry one more person’s chaos.

Maybe the tragedy isn’t that she said:

Don’t nobody bring me no bad news.

Maybe the tragedy is that nobody ever stopped long enough to ask her:

What do you need? (and made true effort to assist her)

Maybe Evillene wasn’t evil at all.

Maybe she was just the first woman in the room to say:

I’m not carrying this anymore.