But it is not only contemporary films which can teach us about personality type by showing it to us. The 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz, in my opinion one of the greatest films of all time, also has much to teach us about type. The Academy Award - winning song "Over the Rainbow", sung by Judy Garland as Dorothy near the beginning of the film, leaves me with no doubt that though Dorothy is fictional, she shows us an accurate portrait of someone with a preference for Intuition.
Somewhere over the rainbow way up high
There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby
Somewhere over the rainbow skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.
Sensing types are focused on the realities of the present, but Intuitives, in contrast, are focused on possibilities in the future. This first stanza is about possibilities. Dorothy sings about the possibility, or even probability, that there's a beautiful land somewhere, which she has never yet seen, where our dreams can turn into realities.
The next stanza is about the future. Someday.
Someday I'll wish upon a star
And wake up where the clouds are far
Behind me
Where troubles melt like lemon drops
Away above the chimney tops
That's where you'll find me
The song concludes by shifting back to possibilities. Somewhere.
Somewhere over the rainbow bluebirds fly
Birds fly over the rainbow. Why then, oh, why can't I?
If happy little bluebirds fly
Beyond the rainbow why, oh, why can't I?
Someday. Somewhere. Do these sound like the words of a detail - oriented Sensing type, focused on present realities, paying attention to factual and concrete information, someone who is practical and literal? I think not. They sound much more like the words of a future and possibility - oriented, imaginative Intuitive, described under the letter N in the poster below.
I believe a case can be made for the idea that Dorothy's three companions on her journey to the Emerald City are also Intuitive types. Like Dorothy, they all have a vision of the future and of something glorious to be found there. In Dorothy's case this vision is of a special place where her need to get home to her family will be met. The visions of her three friends are of the special contributions that they each might make to the world of the future with the gifts they hope to obtain from the Wizard. The Tin Man dreams of having a heart and being able to love, the Scarecrow of having a brain and wisdom, and the Cowardly Lion of having courage and being King of the Forest.
Of course, Sensing types also have dreams, but the characters in this story are consumed and guided by their dreams and visions of how things could be, like a ship is guided by its rudder. I believe their dreams would be more down to earth if their preferences were for Sensing rather than Intuition.
At the beginning of The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy's dream is to find that unique, beautiful, trouble - free place over the rainbow. But after she is carried to Oz by a tornado, her dream soon changes into the desire to return home to drab, black and white Kansas. I believe that learning to appreciate her home, the here and now that she had but took for granted, shows us that her Sensing preference is beginning to develop.
Perhaps Dorothy has preferences for INFP or ENFJ. Either of these type codes would have Sensing as its tertiary preference. Although she appears to be far too young for her tertiary preference to start becoming noticeable to herself or others, perhaps it is just starting to peek out and make its presence known as Dorothy starts to recognize her love for her home, family and friends.
Are the heroes and heroine of The Wizard of Oz really Intuitive types? We can't know for sure. Not only are the characters fictional, but the book on which the film is based was published in 1900, 23 years before the English translation of Carl Jung's Psychological Types on which the MBTI(R) tool is based. The film itself is four years older than the first version of the MBTI assessment, so any portrayal of various type preferences would not have been deliberate on the part of the author or screenwriters, but simply a result of their observations of human personality types. But does the evidence suggest that Dorothy has a preference for Intuition? I think it does, and that a case can also be made for the assumption that the Cowardly Lion, Scarecrow and Tin Man are Intuitives also.
The Wizard of Oz is a film about four friends following their dreams. They are willing to risk everything to go over the rainbow to the Emerald City, to obtain the character improvements and the better future that they seek. They all have a vision of who they can be and how these priceless qualities can help them meet their potential.
As an Intuitive myself, perhaps that is why "Over the Rainbow" makes me feel wistful whenever I hear it. Perhaps that is also why this song, voted in 2001 as the top song of the 20th century by the Recording Industry Association of America, rarely leaves me dry - eyed.
Corliss, Richard. "The Eternal Oz." Life Books - The Wizard of Oz: 75 Years Along the Yellow Brick Road, (2013), p. 8.