My friend, who I saw the original stage production with when we were 10 years old, and I saw “Wicked” the Tuesday leading into Thanksgiving break. The show was each of our introductions to theater, which made my confused and mildly unpleasant viewing experience a feeling I was not happy with.

While I was stunned by practical sets and vocal performances by a striking cast, my mind lingered on every viral moment that stood between me and immersion in the land of Oz.

This film’s marketing campaign was plagued with controversy that made the film’s exceptional cast, set design, costumes and music a sidekick to dolls with QR codes that led to adult content sites, an odd advertisement with Samsung and iPhones, as well as other out of place consumer driven collaborations. Combined with Ariana Grande and Ethan Slater’s showmance gone wrong, and the disaster only continued to get out of control.

This problem showed most in the performances of Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba and Grande as Glinda. Press with film director Jon Chu defended these artists’ abilities to be swallowed by their characters on set, making their performances raw and exceptionally played, but never was it touched upon the painful overbearingness of their on-camera persona’s off-set as well. The abundance of in-character content from the two leads in their press interviews transformed the Ozians into caricatures of their character’s most prominent mannerisms and traits.

The recent trend in the media has had humor as the chosen way of getting clicks instead of honest and standard promotional tactics. While I see where the confusion may be for companies who see the continuous reiteration of Cynthia Erivo’s “Defying Gravity” riff by people online and think they’ve scored the jackpot of comedy and content, they actually diminished the most powerful moment of “Wicked”’s first half. This didn’t end with just that iconic riff.

This perpetuated the whole film, from Nessa’s few moments of screen time producing a slew of mocking TikTok’s on the character’s voice, disability and demeanor. Grande’s performance has only been accompanied by a resurfacing of her constantly changing racial profile, accent and attitude. Her press being a more realistic and modernized iteration of Glinda only furthered allegations of her picking and choosing her personality to appease the media space she’s occupying.

This sentiment that more virality also equates to better content is trivial and not a way to sing the praises of films. While “Wicked” will go down as a good-looking and well-cast box office giant, the virality has overshadowed its true successes for a style of making fun that can ruin its legacy.

Erivo and Grande engaged in one of the most egregious forms of method we’ve seen in recent years, taking their characters’ relations, mannerisms and quirks to every interview and press tour they attended. For some the appeal of a never-ending stream of Elphaba and Glinda content is exciting. I can understand why the two leads felt the need to inject every stream of media with these two beloved and familiar characters, but it made the marketing easy to make fun of.

These two blurred the lines between where the film ended and where the lighthearted fun of press and PR began. While I found many of the viral moments on social media funny, and the film overall enjoyable, I cannot shake that the perception and audience reaction for many would have been different if people weren’t reminding themselves of all the Glinda is dating Spongebob from “Spongebob Squarepants: The Broadway Musical,” or that it was Erivo’s line or holding space for queer media.

It broke the facade that movies are supposed to cast. The bubble you should enter when you step into a movie viewing experience should not be easily popped by the content of the very film itself.

This was only the first half of the story, so I can only hope that the second film’s publicity emphasizes the serious shift that the story will take, rather than prioritizing its clickable moments for a quick audience grab. Maybe the leading ladies can step out of their respective green and pink personas and not bring their characters fully into the real-world press, leaving the movie magic to the big screens of cinemas and not on your iPhone.