Auntie Em – Heroes & Villains of MBTI

The Supervisor

Oz Month is back, and we begin again by looking at the folks from Dorothy’s “real world,” that star called Kansas.

Dominant Function – Extraverted Thinking/Te, “How To Do It”

Auntie Em is without a doubt in charge of the family farm. She’s constantly in motion, and constantly making sure others are, too. She wastes no time rescuing the baby chicks from the broken incubator, and prods the farmhands into action. She’s not easily fooled by their excuses, but she also feeds them to make sure they’re not working on an empty stomach. She’s sensible and straightforward and thinks Dorothy is worrying over nothing—at least until Miss Gulch shows up with a sheriff’s order for Toto.

It’s then that she takes offense at a horrible woman like Miss Gulch trying to tell her family what to do. “Just because you own half the county doesn’t mean you can run the rest of us!” she says. It’s quite a showdown between the two women, cut short only by Auntie Em’s Christian morals preventing her from saying what’s really on her mind.

Auxiliary Function – Introverted Sensing/Si, “What Was”

Those Christian morals are part of the traditional standards that Auntie Em follows in life. They probably give her a desire to be a decent, honest, hard-working woman. They also prevent her dominant Extraverted Thinking function from coming out and saying what she truly thinks of Elmyra Gulch–but they also tell her that the woman is no good.

Even though we don’t see much of Auntie Em’s life outside of her scenes with Dorothy, I imagine she’s a very traditional woman who believes in good, old-fashioned—yet timeless—values. She certainly shows loyalty to her family, taking in a girl who isn’t hers and caring for her like she were her own daughter. Dorothy tells Professor Marvel that when she was little and had the measles, Auntie Em never left her side, even for a moment.

Tertiary Function – Extraverted Intuition/Ne, “What Could Be”

Auntie Em has clearly played out her confrontation with Miss Gulch in her head for a long time: “For 23 years I’ve been dying to tell you what I thought of you…” and I’m disappointed every time I watch the movie that we don’t get to hear whatever brilliantly scathing put-down she had ready.

Inferior Function – Introverted Feeling/Fi, “What Is Important”

Auntie Em is a tough cookie that doesn’t readily show her emotions, but it’s clear that she knows who and what is important to her. She resists being dragged into the storm cellar because she wants to find Dorothy. Although she doesn’t understand at first that Toto is in real danger, she cares for the dog just as much as Dorothy does. “He’s really gentle, you know,” she says to Miss Gulch, “with gentle people, that is.” She’s not an unfeeling woman, but most of the time she has to be stern and focused to get her work done and to take care of her farm and family.