Many times, what seems to be one theme can be reinterpreted to mean something else, way beyond the creators intentions.
For example, the film The Wizard of Oz. Most people take it at face value, the story of a little girl who just wants to go home (be her journey real or just a dream). However, I look at it as Dorothy being used as a catalyst for the purposes of reorganizing the political structure of Oz, an unintentional revolutionary if you will.
Think about it: In filmdom, has any one person done so much damage to the existing power structure as Dorothy? She assassinated 1/2 of Oz’s ruling elite, and then tricked the Wizard (who was the leader of the biggest urban agglomeration in the land) into giving up his power and giving it to her “friends” (who, btw, were all-too-conveniently waiting to be discovered by Dorothy on her journey).
Viewing it in this light, one is compelled to ask: for whose benefit? Who stands to gain from the power vacuum created by Dorothy? Who is ready to step in and take control?
Glinda. The bitch. After the death of the first witch, she saw her opportunity, set this all up and now she and her evil minions are now in control of 3/4’s of Oz, and it’s largest industrial complex. Oz now wails and gnashes their teeth under the cruel whip held by Glinda and her cohorts.
No wonder she didn’t tell Dorothy that she always had the ability to go home!
What other films/books lend themselves to radical reinterpretations?
I think you probably can radically reinterpret all literature. There’s nothing unique about the Wizard of Oz in that way. That’s why there are so many postmodernists running around.
My personal favorite is the reinterpretation of the Star Trek series, particularly TNG, as propoganda films for an opressive, Communist “Federation” that stifles individual initiative and keeps undeveloped systems in their primitive state via the “Prime Directive.”
Then there is David Brin’s reinterpretation of LOTR, with the Hobbits etc. representing backwards, oppressive feudal societies and Sauromon representing scientific enlightenment, industrialization and freedom.
The movie Naked Lunch was an absolutely radical reinterpretation of William S. Burroughs’s book Naked Lunch. It’s hard to pick out any resemblance at all. The book is psychotic, the movie is psychedelic.
