Who can invade an exotic country and force the inhabitants to do slave labor? The Candy Man can!
Since Roald Dahl published Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in 1964, kids, adults, and comrades alike have questioned the ethics of the Oompa Loompas. Where did they come from? How are they paid? Do they have a union?
Thankfully, Dahl gave us some answers to these questions. He originally described the Oompa Loompas as African pygmies that Wonka “rescued” and brought to his factory. As to their compensation, they are “paid in cocoa beans” and for the question of a union, one TikToker sees the Oompa Loompas for what they are, an oppressed class dying for a labor revolution.
Owen Walsh, a folk musician who started uploading Oompa Loompa strike songs to his TikTok in the style of Woody Guthrie sings “So come my fellow Oompas and don’t you be a scab/if you work for Wonka, it’s our backs that you stab.”
Walsh’s strike songs have garnered over 100k views on TikTok and inspired countless hopefuls ready to join the Oompa Loompa resistance. eBaums World caught up with Walsh to learn more about his class-conscious Wonka work songs and his thoughts on the new Wonka movie.
What brought on the inspiration to make an Oompa Loompa strike song a la Woody Guthrie?
I’m a folk-singer by trade, so I have a natural affinity for protest songs and strike songs. And growing up, probably like most kids from my generation, I watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. I’m honestly not sure how the two became intertwined. But on a site like TikTok, I feel like the combination of seriousness and silliness are great ways to get people to take notice. Posting a straight-ahead protest song with no “angle” or humor to it probably wouldn’t have garnered a quarter of the attention that these seem to. I think it also is a nice way to introduce people to a musical genre–such as folky protest songs–that they might otherwise be off their radar.
Did you're realization of how the Oompa Loompas were mistreated happen before or after your personal class consciousness?
It had to have happened afterward, I think. Growing up and watching the film, I was just hypnotized by the bright orange skin, mysterious green pompadours, and their ominous songs about the various children’s fates. It wasn’t until I got older that I started asking questions about what’s going on beneath those flashy colors and choreographed dance moves.
Wonka-purists love to comment on my videos, how the book explains that Wonka actually saved the Oompa Loompas, and blah blah blah. There’s no getting around the fact that portraying one powerful man at the head of a big company, who has a group of people from a foreign place do all the work, never lets them leave, and doesn’t actually pay them in any real currency is reflective of exploitative labor practices throughout history and today.
Where do you get your inspiration both musically and politically (specifically worker's rights)?
Musically, I get inspiration from all kinds of genres. Specifically for protest music though–Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger are obvious classics. Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam” is probably the greatest protest song ever written. But you also can’t forget Lisa Simpson and her stirring anthem against the tyranny of power plant owner Mr. Burns.
With worker’s rights, I don’t pretend to be an expert on the subject. But the current, enduring system in which one person—or a small group of people—amass more and more wealth, while the people doing the work aren’t earning enough for basic necessities like nutritious meals, housing, or health care… well it’s a great system if you’re at the right end of it. Quite nearly all of us, however, are not.
In your opinion what would an Oompa Loompa revolution look like?
I don’t know how it begins and ends, but I imagine that at some point as the Oompas are seizing the means of candy production, Wonka is restrained and forced to ride through that hellish boat tunnel for several hours straight.
Are you writing more songs in this same vein?
I usually don’t plan these things too far in advance. I realized too late into the Christmas season that I should have done something with Santa Claus’s elves rising up against his unethical, unregulated working conditions at the North Pole. I’m keeping my eyes open for the next example of a fictional, exploited class of workers crying out for an anthem of their own.
Do you have any plans to put the Oompa Loompa strike songs on streaming? You have enough songs on TikTok for a whole Oompa Loompa Union EP.
You know, that’s something that I’ve thought about and am still on the fence. On the one hand, I have my more “serious” music on Spotify and other streaming services and I’m not sure how these fairly silly Oompa Loompa songs would fit next to all that. Then again, my most listened-to song on the streamers (“Where Is He Going (The Chris Song)”) came from a completely improvised, unserious song my friend and I (mxzpop on TikTok) made up and posted on TikTok. I’ve also been getting requests to sing the Oompa Loompa songs at gigs lately. So maybe it’s better to just let the two sides of my music, the serious and the silly, live side-by-side. And people can choose which they prefer to hear.
Also, I do already have Oompa Loompa unionization propaganda available on my Patreon, and before anywhere else, that’s probably where I’d post an Oompa Loompa EP.
Have you seen the new Wonka movie despite them not including Oompa Loompa Hugh Grant singing your strike song?
I haven’t seen the new Wonka movie. I think I’d just be waiting for a miniaturized, CGI Hugh Grant to break into one of my songs. The disappointment of that not coming to pass might be too much to bear.
Have your TikToks gained the notice of Warner Bros/makers of the new Wonka film? How do you think you'd react if they did?
If Warner Bros or the movie’s producers have noticed my TikToks, they haven’t let me know about it yet. I imagine they’d either offer me a handsome salary to begin writing the soundtrack to a gritty, film noir told from the point of view of Oompa Loompas. If not that, they’d probably consider me a threat to the status quo and have me disappear before the day was done.
Also between Gene Wilder, Johnny Depp, and now Timothee Chalamet, who is the better Wonka? Who is the worst Wonka?
Best Wonka for me is Gene Wilder for me—he brought this complexity to the role—he could turn from jovial and giddy to treacherous and terrifying on a dime. Timothee Chalamet is the worst. Granted I haven’t seen his version, but we’re roughly the same age, and he’s cuter and more successful than me, and I—for one—resent that.
What else would you like people who've seen your Wonka TikToks to know?
I'm coming at it from a light, humorous angle. But I hope in some small way that these videos have gotten some people more interested in folk music as a vehicle of dissent, and as an effective rallying cry against injustice.
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While the Oompa Loompas have undergone some drastic changes over time to make them more palpable to modern audiences (and less racist) even the latest (unionized) star to personify them onscreen, Hugh Grant “couldn’t have hated the whole thing more.” And he was paid in cold hard cash, not cocoa beans.
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