Marissa Bode Slams 'Aggressive' Comments About Her “Wicked” Character's Disability as 'Gross and Harmful'

“Listen to the people or to the person that it is affecting and how it makes them feel," said Bode, the first wheelchair user ever to play Nessarose

Marissa Bode is speaking out about the “very gross and harmful” comments she has seen directed at her Wicked character and her disability.

The 24-year-old actress — who plays Nessarose, sister to Cynthia Erivo’s Elphaba, in the box-office hit movie musical — condemned the insensitive and hateful remarks that have been directed toward her character in a new video shared a week after Wicked hit theaters on Nov. 22.

In the Nov. 30 TikTok, Bode, the first wheelchair user ever to play Nessarose, began by thanking people for the “love” they’ve shown the film before sharing that there’s “something that’s made me a bit uncomfortable — and as somebody who’s disabled with a platform, I just wanted to talk about it real quick.”

"It is absolutely okay to not like a fictional character,” Bode said. “I am going to be admitting my bias in the way that I have a lot of different feelings on Nessa than a lot of you do, and that’s totally fine. I think Nessa is complex, but that’s the beauty of art. Wicked and these characters — and the movie — wouldn’t be what it was if there weren’t different opinions on the characters and who’s truly wicked or not.”

Related: Wicked Star Marissa Bode Teases How Part 2 Will Depart Dramatically from Stage Musical: 'Less Like a Fixing Moment'

The actress also prefaced her message by saying that she is a “deeply unserious person” who enjoys a joke when “the basis of the joke is fictional” before getting into the crux of the video: she has no time for jokes about Nessarose’s disability.

“Aggressive comments and jokes about Ness's disability itself is deeply uncomfortable because disability is not fictional,” she explained. “At the end of the day, me, Marissa, is the person that is still disabled and in a wheelchair. And so it is simply low-hanging fruit that too many of you are comfortable taking.”

Bode went on to explain that prior to her Wicked casting, she experienced similar jokes to those she’s seen people make at Nessarose’s expense. “These comments aren’t original,” she said. “And when these jokes are being made by non-disabled strangers with a punchline of not being able to walk, it very much feels like laughing at rather than laughing with.”

Noting that she was “shaking a bit” as she spoke, the actress explained that the “most frustrating” part of the situation is actually “how scared” she was to speak out — “which is also the bigger reason as to why I'm making this video in the first place,” she said.

“This goes so far beyond me, Marissa, just needing to ignore comments on the internet,” Bode said. “These comments do not exist in a vacuum. Aggressive comments of wanting to cause harm and push Nessa out of her wheelchair, or that she deserves her disability, are two very gross and harmful comments that real disabled people, including myself, have heard before.”

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The actress is also “scared,” she explained, because she has “seen firsthand what has happened to my disabled peers who are outspoken online” about ableism: “they're told to just take a joke and that they're asking for too much and to stop complaining.”

Instead of treating people who speak about ableism like this, she said, “Listen to the people or to the person that it is affecting and how it makes them feel.”

"Thankfully, I’m at a place in my life today where I can recognize these jokes about disability are made out of ignorance," Bode said. "I couldn’t say the same about Marissa 10 years ago, and it would have affected younger me a lot more, and I’m worried that a younger version of myself is somewhere on the internet and is harmed by these comments.”

“Lastly,” she concluded the video, “I want to say one of the major themes within Wicked is having the ability to listen and to understand one another — and I truly hope that is something a lot of you can practice more and take with you.”