Shakespearean Contracts and Marriage as Misdirection

Throughout Shakespeare’s work, contracts, whether in the form of a literal written document (such as the picture above) or a spoken promise of sorts (such as Viola/Cessario’s promise to Olivia that she/he will never marry a man), often play a key role in both the surface and underlying functioning of the play. Specifically, it is in Shakespeare’s focus on language and word play, and the deceptions/complications possible through this, that these contracts draw much of their significance/power in his works (the specificity of Shylock’s own contract proving to be his undoing). Yet the contract of marriage remains surprisingly untouched; while individuals (such as Bertram in All’s Well) might be “tricked” into getting married to someone in the first place, the actual marriage often appears to lack duplicity or major incident, the characters simply marrying once the time has come. I wonder, was this simply necessitated by each play’s narrative (the weddings serving often acting in part as a conclusion) or was this more of a reflection of the age Shakespeare inhabited and perhaps his desire to (while still playing with the lines of gender and sexuality) not alienate his potential audience through a total break in the current social norm?

It seems likely, or at least possible, that Shakespeare’s preservation of the “sanctity” of the marriage contract would've been used to simultaneously mask the often more fluid treatment of gender throughout the rest of the work[s]. Consider the conclusion of Twelfth Night. The Duke continues to refer to Viola/Cessario as his “boy,” even after the reveal of Viola’s true nature; this appears to be playing with the notion of the Duke’s sexuality, with a possible interpretation being that the Duke would/does/will love Viola Cessario no matter her/his form. However, it is made clear that before the wedding of Viola and the Duke, Viola will once more dawn her “woman’s weeds.” Thus, the two will be married as man and wife, adhering to the social standard, and in doing so possibly reassuring the piece’s original audience. A similar situation occurs in As You Like It, with the relationship of Orlando and Ganymede/Rosalind toeing the line between homosocial and homoerotic, until the quadruple wedding, at which point Rosalind abandons her disguise and returns to what would be considered the feminine norm in the play/society.  These examples lend credibility to the argument that Shakespeare might have in particular sought to preserve the “sanctity” of the marriage contract to allow for the relatively gray area of each couple’s sexuality to be addressed while still adhering to the social norm.

Shakespeare Plot and Modern Counterparts

We’ve seen a lot of deception in the past few plays: As You Like It, Merchant of Venice, and Twelfth Night. When I looked at the basics of these plots, I realized these plays are similar to many movies today. There’s the double-identity plot in As You Like It, manipulative scheming in Merchant of Venice, and the imposter and cross-dressing of Twelfth Night. These elements are certainly not limited to Shakespearean theater, and if you think about it, they are probably present in some of your favorite movies.

For example, here are some of my favorite plot counterparts:

You’ve Got Mail (1998)

Like Rosalind, Joe Fox (Tom Hanks) acts as both Kathleen Kelly’s (Meg Ryan) best friend and object of her affection. She doesn’t realize that Joe Fox, who she actually hated at first but then befriended—is also the man she met online. By acting as Kathleen Kelly’s best friend, Joe Fox asserts her feelings for himself, the anonymous email buddy—just as Rosalind does. The big reveal of Joe Fox as her online love interest ends in the epic line: “I wanted it to be you” (sobs), as sweet as Orlando’s realization, “If there be truth in sight, you are my Rosalind” (5.4.108).

Mean Girls (2004)

If you really think about it, this classic is not far off from The Merchant of Venice. Just hear me out. Cady (Lohan) pretends to be friends with the most popular girls in school in order to get closer to Aaron and secure her friendship with Janis and Damien. In a similar way, Portia impersonates a judge to secure her finances (Bassanio’s debt) and her husband’s loyalty. In both situations, the impersonators seem to bite off more than they can chew: Portia ruins the life of Shylock by taking away his livelihood; Cady hurts Janis and Damien by becoming a mean girl herself. Portia nearly loses Bassanio’s loyalty when he says “I would lose all [wife and life], ay, sacrifice them all / … to deliver you [Antonio]” (4.1.281-2)—willing to get rid of his own wife for the sake of his best friend. Similarly, Cady loses her true friends when Janis says, “You’re a bitch. You’re a mean girl.” Luckily, both heroines win back the affection of their friends and lovers by revealing themselves as imposters. Cady reconciles with her friends by breaking the tiara and apologizing; while Portia succeeds in her scheme and asserts her success, “You are all amazed” (5.1.265).

Some Like It Hot (1959)

Like Viola and Sebastian, Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon) are forced to flee from dire situations. The shipwreck of Twelfth Night is similar to the mob killings Joe and Jerry witness, leading them to run from the mafia with an all-girls singing group. Dressed in drag, like Viola, both men end up falling for their lead singer, Sugar (Marilyn Monroe). While Joe ends up with Sugar, Jerry has to ward off the millionaire Osgood who fell in love with him in drag. Most interesting about this relationship is Osgood’s response to Jerry: when Jerry says, “I’m a man!” Osgood responds, “Well, nobody’s perfect.” Osgood’s quasi-acceptance of the gender-reversal loosely parallels Orsino’s continuing habit of calling Viola “boy” (5.1.260). Overall, the tension between the characters in and out of drag is portrayed as comical and seemingly experimental. 

What does this say about Shakespeare? His works are indeed everlasting, and in part for their timeless drama and plot devices. If we look closely, we can see a lot of similarities between the works of old, like Shakespeare, and the new.

Cross-Dressing in Modern Media: Progressive or Harmful?

In several plays we have read this semester, it is clear that Shakespeare is addressing gender roles in his work.  In both As You Like It and The Merchant of Venice, female protagonists don the clothes of men in order to solve a dilemma that the male characters have failed to figure out.  As we have noted continually in class, Shakespeare complicates this further by acknowledging that these characters are played exclusively by men.  Yet, this is hardly the last time cross dressing has been addressed in storytelling.  Countless depictions of cross dressing have entered the video landscape since the medium began in the dawn of the twentieth century.  B films such as Glen or Glenda, Hollywood star driven films like Mrs. Doubtfire and Some Like it Hot, and even TV shows such as Portlandia present characters who wear clothes of the opposite sex.  But do these works attempt to tackle the problem of gender roles in society?  Or do they use this tactic exclusively for the sake of laughter?

While Shakespeare was forced to write for a royal audience and had to be mindful of making a political statement, his implementation of cross dressing characters such as Portia and Rosalind subtly craft an argument against restriction of hetero-normative gender roles.  In The Merchant of Venice, Portia dresses as Balthazar, a doctor of the law.  Without her help, Antonio would have been convicted and Bassanio, her husband, heartbroken.  In the majority of historic drama, females create problems, and males have solutions.  Odysseus in the Odyssey leaves an island filled with female sirens, just to name one example.  Here, however, Portia independently creates a plan to save Bassanio.  Yet, at the plays end, Bassanio eventually offers Balthazar his wedding ring, despite her telling him to never lose, sell or give it away.  He breaks the sanctity of his promise with his wife in order to save his best friend.  True, their marriage is restored at the end of the play-stabilizing a heteronormative state- but this can be attributed more to Shakespeare’s royal audience than the content of the play itself.​  Shakespeare presents cross-dressing not as a focal point for comedy, but as a vehicle for portraying the unfair inequality between gender roles.  Male’s, almost by default, are allowed more agency than females.  Only by wearing the wardrobe of a man can Rosalind achieve this independence.

However, modern media does not have royal audiences as an excuse.  In Some Like it Hot for example, a pair of jazz playing musicians cross dress in order to escape from mafia gangsters.  The humor is centered on the males acting in feminine ways: talking in high pitched voices, fretting over expensive luxury items, and wishing for the attention of men.  Soon, their objective becomes not only simple escape from members of the mafia, but of seducing Marilyn Monroe’s character (with her typical ditzy attitude) as well.  Lines such as “I wish I could just go out with you!  You’re so much better than most men!” reveal the misogyny present in the film.  The jazz musicians take advantage of their close proximity on women to spy, gain insight, and generally act creepy.  It’s harmful because it’s logic emphasizes that men act one way, and women act another.

While films such as Mrs. Doubtfire at least have some sort of motivation other than laughs (he wants to be around his children), it’s hard to argue that all of modern media is more progressive than that of the 1950’s in this regard.  White Chicks, while interesting when examining racial differences, offers the same blasé attitude of simple “laughs” while cross-dressing.  On the other hand, Portlandia is noteworthy in its handling of gender roles.  In some of the sketches, the leads (Fred Armisten and  Carrie Brownstein respectively) switch their gender to male and female respectively.  Yet, similar to Shakespeare’s male only cast playing females, it is never acknowledged that this is happening.  The humor is based off wordplay, satire, and other jokes.  The cross dressing is an aspect of it, but it’s not the focal point of the humor.  It is not making fun of it for a laugh.

Modern media’s cross dressing is a mixed bag.  Some of it is harmful and would probably have Shakespeare weeping soliloquy’s in his grave.  Yet, shows such as Portlandia provide interesting dynamics between genders, and at least provoke thought in the minds of Netflix bingers everywhere.

Crossdressing: Can it be taken seriously?

In William Shakespeare’s As You like It, many characters are forced to dress as the opposite Gender. Rosalind is disguised as a man as well as Lauren who is forced to also dress as a man under the circumstances of her situation. The play brings up many social issues regarding to homosexuality and gender identity, but one thing that stands out is the crossdressing of the play. Because the play is meant to be a comedy, it is hard to take the roles of the characters seriously when they are dressed as the opposite gender. That being said, can crossdressing be identified or taken seriously for something other than comedy?

Historically speaking, crossdressing has only been used for comedy. Take Eddie Murphy’s Nutty Professor. In the story, Eddie Murphy not only place obese yet remarkable scientist Professor Clump, but he also play just about everyone in Clump’s entire family, including his own mother. When doing so, Eddie Murphy portrays the mother as a caring if not enabling mother who wants to make sure that her son is well fed and nourished, often offering food as a way of making him feel better. In short, Eddie murphy plays the stereotypical yet loveable mother figure, and goes over the top to do so. In short, it is still a comedy role, and therefore hard to take seriously.

There of course have been roles in which crossdressing is often seen as a serious issue, or at least used to take a look at more serious issues. Take the popular film Franchise of Tyler Perry. In many of Tyler Perry’s movies, Tyler Perry plays an overly active older black woman named Medea. Medea’s attitude and funny remarks make the role one of comedy, yet in many of her movies Medea’s role as a family member allows her to consul her family when things turn for the worst. In turn, Tyler Perry’s movies show good old-fashion family values through a crossdressing effort.

Whether or not crossdressing can be taken seriously remains to be seen. Can it be seen as more than just a role for comedy? Are there case in which characters who are dressed as the opposite gender can be taken seriously?

Parable As You Like It: A Consideration of Cross Dressing

In Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower, the audience is presented with a character, Lauren, who chooses/if forced to cross dress as a man due to the circumstances of her environment. She makes it clear to her travelling companions (Henry and Zahra) the importance of keeping her true gender a secret from any others they should encounter in their travels, the potential risk the group faced should it be revealed. However, despite this, Henry still proves incapable of keeping said secret, referring to Lauren as her in front of another group of wanderers. When called out on this, “smiling embarrassingly” (Butler 212) he replied “I’ve known you all my life. It isn’t easy to remember to switch all your pronouns.” (Butler 212)

            Yet in As You Like It, no such slip is made, nor even apparently a worry. Celia shows little apparent difficulty in altering her referral to Rosalind/Ganymede, and is able to keep the truth of the matter a secret until the appropriate time. This raises the question then of whether or not Parable of the Sower’s presentation of Henry’s difficulty in adapting is reasonable and truly a simple mistake on the character’s part when compared to the fluidity shown in Shakespeare.

            I believe much of the variation in these situations can actually be attributed primarily to the underlying needs of the narratives themselves, and the differing themes Shakespeare and Butler were concerned with addressing. The comedic nature of As You Like It might have potentially benefited from an accidental reveal of Rosalind’s identity; however, the removal of the actual “reveal” would have cheated the piece of a measure of its ability to play with and blur the lines of gender. Alternatively, the far more grim nature of Parable of the Sower, the society it chronicles spiraling into dystopia, creates a greater necessity for this accidental reveal. The added tension of Lauren’s true gender being revealed, even if only slight, builds on the already substantial strain placed on Lauren, and sets in motion key events of the narrative. The accidental reveal in this case, the questioning of Lauren’s “true” gender, is something the text needed to address to continue to build on its concepts, where the same accidental reveal/questioning would have likely proved damaging to the pursuits of As You Like It. 

 "Boys in the Head:" Gender Policing in Shakespeare's As You Like It 

       Shakespeare's As You Like It features a female character pushing the limits of  conventional gender and sexuality; Rosalind achieves her goals, but at what cost? Popular in plays like Merchant of Venice, All's Well That Ends Well, and Titus Andronicus is the success of its female roles, but at the expense of others. Certain aspects of Shakespeare's writing does lend itself undeniably to enlightened and progressive ideals of gender and sexuality, but I can't help but wonder... it is it doing more harm than good?

          In As You Like It; Rosalind dresses as a man and flees to the forest. Rosalind calls herself Ganymede, an androgynous sex symbol that quickly enchants Orlando and Phoebe. In Rosalind/Ganymede we are presented with one of the most kick-ass examples of fluid sexuality and fluid gender, but at the expense of the female sex. Yes, one could argue that the rail against the character of Phoebe by Rosalind  is used to show the constraints placed on them, but I find her rant somewhat offensive to the female gender. This is not to say that Rosalind isn't a hero, which she is, but the policing of her own gender detracts from her appeal. The conversation between Celia and Rosalind after Ganymede/Rosalind's lesson with Orlando is particularly interesting because Celia points out that Rosalind, "'...simply misused our sex in your love prate. / We must have your doublet and hose plucked over your head, and /  show the world what the bird hath done to her own nest'" (As You Like It 4.1.Ln.172-4). What Celia is saying is that in order to gain ground with Orlando she had to betray her own gender.
        
                     In order to put this in a modern day perspective; I have chosen magazine covers to illustrate my meaning in regards to Rosalind in As You Like It. What these covers have in common besides all the women featured on the front are beautiful, and uphold current beauty standards, but the headlines and content around them is most startling. "50 Ways to Seduce a Man," "Sex Survey, Thousands of Guys Reveal What Really Flips Their Switches," "What Guys Really Think About You!" The list goes on and on, we as consumers see these in our everyday life, but what are the repercussions of this kind of advertising? By focusing on what men want from women instead of what they want out of themselves is counterproductive. This has been called "Boys in the Head," and it can be seen in instances where women enforce the gender binary on themselves without there needing to be a man physically present. We as girls have experienced this throughout school and our adult lives. "Slut shaming" is a popular form of gender policing , as well as female relational aggression,  a direct result of women not being allowed to experience, nor exhibit aggressive behavior.  It is easy to make the connection between gender policing and Rosalind/ Ganymede's comments to Orlando, and it is no doubt problematic, but Shakespeare redeems the misogynistic undertones of the play by shedding light on gender policing through the role of Celia.

The Cross Dressing in the Room

As we have discussed heavily in class, cross dressing female characters within the play AND their cross dressing boy actors are a huge elephant in the room that must be addressed.

In both The Merchant of Venice and As You Like It, the two main female characters, Portia and Rosalind, disguise themselves as men in order to gain the power they need to make things right for themselves and those around them in their respective plays.

If these women were not in drag they wouldn't have been able to assert themselves in the same way they were both able to dressed as men. They are both clearly strong women (and human beings in general…) but unfortunately their position against the male characters would have fallen short in the end. SO, they both do what they have to in order to achieve their successes.

The big reveal in the end of both plays is the best part of this mixed up situation! Portia reveals to everyone when they are finally back in her home and she calls Bassanio out for giving her ring away and confesses that she was the lawyer who saved Antonio’s life when he was about to be skinned alive by Shylock. In As You Like It, Rosalind comes back from removing her disguise and the men were all like oh we knew it was her all along….. Okay, maybe but no. Let her have her success since this was the only way she was able to get it in a patriarchal society.

The Epilogue in As You Like It twists this crazy situation even further by having the boy actor who played Rosalind give the epilogue saying something along the lines of…. I know women aren't usually the ones to read the epilogue and this play really doesn't even need one but we’re just going to trip you up because I’m really a boy still just dressed up like a woman. Wait…. Who are you? 

Shakespeare's Lesson on Queer Attraction

     Out of all of the Epilogues in Shakespeare’s play, the most memorable is the one in As You Like It where Shakespeare specifically addresses that queer attraction is present throughout society.

                                    Rosalind.    My way is to conjure you;

                                    And I’ll begin with the women. I charge you, O women, for the love you

                                   bear to men, to like as much of this play as pleases you.

                                    And I charge you, O men, for the love you bear to women—as I perceive

                                    you by you simpering none of you hates them—that between you and the

                                    women the play may please. If I were a woman I would kiss as many of

                                    you as had beards that pleased me, complexions that liked me, and

                                    breaths that defied not. And I as sure as many as have good beards, or good

                                    faces, or sweet breaths will for my kind offer, when I make curtsy, bid me

                                    farewell. (Epilogue. 9-19)  

Through the Epilogue, Shakespeare informs the crowd that queer attraction isn’t something only present in plays, but as the audience consumes the display in front of them, they are also experiencing queer attraction themselves. Rosalind states that if “the love you bear to men” pleases the women watching the play, then they may enjoy the entire play, even the female leads because they are also men. And if women still find the male actor attractive while he is in drag, then there’s more of a queer attraction present since they’re enjoying the appearance of a lady more so than a man. On the other hand, the men that are watching and believing in the beauty of Rosalind are technically

believing in the beauty of the male actor in drag which in itself is queer attraction. If the boy chooses to “kiss as many of you as head beards that pleased” him while assuming the part of Rosalind, no man would “defied not” the boy’s in drag “kind offer”. If this is true, then the men watching the play are definitely experiencing queer attraction. Therefore, while Rosalind resolves the queer attraction conflict in the play by revealing herself as Ganymede, the Epilogue creates another conflict involving the audience and their possible queer attraction towards her/him.

     While Shakespeare is well known for exploring queer attraction throughout As You Like It, this exploration still continues throughout movies today. In movies like Tootsie (1982), Juwanna Mann (2002), White Chicks (2004), Jack and Jill (2011) they deal with men dressed in drag as women. Throughout each movie, the woman, who is actually a man, is forced into a conflict of sorts when a man falls in love with “her”. While drag is done in these types of movies for comedic relief, they make sure to take the precautions seen in As You Like It and resolve this queer attraction through the cross-dressing man revealing his deception and ending up with, usually, the woman he’s supposedly likes. But while in most movies this conflict is resolved, one movie that never reveals that the woman is actually a cross-dressing man is Tyler Perry’s Madea. Tyler Perry allows Madea to maintain the 

identity of a woman, and not a man dressed in drag, by never acknowledging the fact that she's a man in drag and never revealing himself at the end of any movies. But throughout all of the Madea movies there isn’t a single occurrence of a man showing interest in her because, if there was, then that would create a queer attraction conflict that can only turn out in one of two ways: 1)Tyler Perry would have to reveal Madea as a man or 2) the queer attraction would still exist by not outing Tyler Perry as Madea which, as Shakespeare has shown, is a predicament that cannot persist. So in order to keep up the perception that Madea is a full-fledged woman and not a man in drag, the queer attraction is avoided by Madea never possessing a love interest.

      Just like Shakespeare shows that queer attraction exists in Elizabethan society through As You Like It, movies today show that queer attraction is still present throughout society, whether it’s purposeful or not. Shakespeare uses the Epilogue in As You Like It to teach the audience that queer attraction isn’t just for entertainment and plays, but it’s a complexity present throughout human society.

Acting Styles in AS YOU LIKE IT and Beyond

ROSALIND: By no means, sir. Time travels in divers paces with divers persons.

(As You Like It 3.2.280-81)

            As Tom mentioned in class the other day, Shakespeare is meant to be performed, not read. The discrepancies in script as well as character theories and analyses divide rather than bring together a consensus. Rosalind makes a good point when she says times moves at different speeds depending on the person: the staging of a Shakespearean play will move differently depending on the period in which the performance is produced. Not only is the approach to the material different, but so is the approach to acting style and methods.

            Preparation for theatre in Shakespeare’s time can be assumed to be more of an individual process, as things could only be written by hand by then – or memorized. The chances actors each had a full script are pretty much next to none. So, what else would they do but only memorize their own lines? Shakespeare’s plays are pretty hefty, so any chance of actors, or players, memorizing the whole thing is, again, pretty much next to none without tons of practice, which they did not always have. The characters themselves have some large monologues and soliloquies, and throw in iambic pentameter on top of that and that’s quite a bit to memorize. People in Shakespeare’s time didn’t speak in iambic pentameter, so memorizing it during Elizabethan theatre was probably as difficult as it is now in present day.

            Acting was even more individual-focused in Shakespeare’s time than theatre today, even with the contributions of Stanislavski and others. There is little stage directions in Shakespeare's works, which is typical in theatre in general, but the severe lack of stage directions – or even, in fact, when they are missing entirely and it is up to scholarly speculation – indicates there is more to analyze in the script for acting rather than the actor looking beyond the words on the page. The blog Shakespeare Workshops explores the notion that the psychology of Shakespearean or verse acting was completely different based on 1) the actors being most fully focused on their own lines rather than the action that surrounds them onstage and 2) the lines themselves indicating exactly what the character is feeling. This differs from modern-day acting because it leaves out, as Shakespeare Workshops points out, the idea of preparation and subtext. A play today rehearses together for a certain stretch of time before their performance and must constantly go to each rehearsal or performance prepared for what will happen throughout each encounter and make sure each time they move or react is authentic to not only the character but also themselves as an actor. However, a Shakespearean play would allow the actor to fully feel more being in the moment since they are so focused on their individual journey with the lines rather than getting caught up in the subtext of a situation.

JACQUES: All the world’s a stage, / And all the men and women merely players. / They have their exits and their entrances, / And one man in his time plays many parts…

(2.7.139-142)

            Shakespeare’s players thrive on feeling, not thinking deeply about how their actions affect the rest of the group of actors and instead turning it in on themselves. Lines like “your experience makes you sad” (4.1.24) and “I had rather hear you chide than this man woo” (3.5.66) feel surface-level, but it is the characters contextualizing how they feel about the situation rather than putting a group of characters in a certain situation. The characters control the situation through their words, through expressing their emotions, and that in turn shows a very different acting style for the staging of a Shakespeare play like As You Like It than any other modern day play, in which the characters depend on the situation they’re placed in (and I can say that as a studying actor). More on these differences in both acting and staging another time, perhaps. Thoughts?

(My reference and for more information on Shakespearean acting: http://shakespeareworkshops.blogspot.com/p/the-modern-actor-and-performing.html)

Lesbihonest… Are there really any boundaries to friendship?

Girlfriends, circa 1600s 

Like Antonio and Bassanio of Merchant of Venice, Rosalind and Celia portray the liberal love between two (usually) heterosexual friends. These two women of As You Like It exemplify the loyalty of true friendship. We see their relationship and admire the ways that they look out for each other and partake in mischievous schemes together. If we look a little closer, though, we might detect some homoerotic or homosocial behavior in their relationship. Some people would say that the "friendship" between Celia and Rosalind is actually a true love affair. Whether or not there is any actual homosexual desire between the two women, it is undeniable that they are at the least very devoted friends: 

   "The Duke's daughter [Celia] her cousin so loves her, being ever from their cradles bred together, that she would have followed her [Rosalind's] exile, or have died to stay behind her…Never two ladies loved as they do" (1.1.93-97)

   "If [Rosalind] be a traitor, / Why so am I [Celia]. We still have slept together, / Rose at an instant, learned, played, eat together, / And wheresoever we went, like Juno's swans / Still we went coupled and inseparable" (1.3.66-70)

Girlfriends, circa 2000s

But let's be honest, is their relationship that much different from best friends' today? Think about some of those Buzzfeed lists you see on social media and immediately forward to your friends, with titles like, "19 Signs Your Best Friend is Actually Your Soulmate," "16 Times You Realized You and Your BFF Have No Boundaries," "18 Female Friendship Truths, as Told by Bridesmaids." We admit to all the really weird things we do with our best friends: peeing, sleeping, and cuddling together, swapping clothes and personal items with each other, inadvertently dressing and acting the same, etc. You've probably seen your best friend naked, experienced her most personal habits, learned every nasty detail about her life, and maybe even (drunkenly?) made out with her. Also, you've probably responded to such incidents with some kind of brush-off "No homo" remark. But it is pretty "homo." And it's also okay.

The problem is that we strive to label everything as black and white, straight or gay. Maybe critics are genuinely shocked by the relationship of Celia and Rosalind because they find the liberality of such a feminine relationship of that time strange. Or maybe they are oblivious to how homoerotic or homosocial their own relationships and the relationships of people around them actually are. On the other hand, maybe there is something deeper between Celia and Rosalind. Celia could be in love with Rosalind, but we'll never really know. Personally, I read their relationship and mischief as Sex and the City-esque: two friends sticking together with the idea that "maybe our girlfriends are our soul mates and guys are just people to have fun with."



Here are the links to those lists… In case you need to gush about them with your BFF.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/kristinharris/21-signs-your-best-friend-is-actually-your-soulmate#.dcMvBKd9V
http://www.buzzfeed.com/kirstenking/no-boundaries-with-my-gal-pals#.denZ8AnPw
http://www.buzzfeed.com/erinlarosa/18-female-friendship-truths-as-told-by-bridesmaids#.yaGLkxZlp

Sneaking Around the Censors

Perhaps the funniest part of As You Like It, to me, is the way it screws everything up so badly that Hymen, the literal god of marriage himself, has to swoop in just to make heteronormative sense of everything again.

It’s hard not to come away from As You Like It with the impression that Shakespeare was taking on the task of accessing homosexuality, or at least, homoeroticism of some sort. In the world of comedy, Shakespeare can slip in depictions of love between characters of the same gender, because it’s all a joke, right? All he has to do is make sure the higher-up governing officials of London – his era’s dreaded Network Censors – are pacified by the onslaught of heteronormative marriage at the end.

Shakespeare’s specific vehicle for accomplishing this mess is through crossdressing, and perhaps “cross-acting” in a sense as well. Ignoring the boy actor playing her for the moment, Rosalind’s triple nature makes her the perfect way to draw everyone in.

Dressing as Ganymede, Aliena’s companion on the road, Rosalind seems to act more as a lover than a brother to Celia in her new identity, even they're called ‘cousins.’ The way their relationship is described as “dearer than the natural bond of sisters” makes me think more of the Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune version of cousins, though. As Ganymede, Rosalind also finds that Phoebe falls in love with her, and towards the end of the play she says to Phoebe, “I would love you, if I could... I will marry you, if ever I marry woman,” showing some degree of requitedness in that relationship. Then, she begins to act as Orlando’s “Rosalind,” adding a third identity to the mess, and allowing Orlando to act like a man in love with a man, Ganymede... Because he’s acting in love with Rosalind.

And all of this homoeroticism going around is allowable because of Rosalind’s crossdressing. These romances can occur and Hymen can detangle them at the end, combing them out into four neat male-female couples just like that.

In the modern world, devices like crossdressing aren’t always necessary any longer. While queer representation on TV is still flawed, it exists – an impressive step forward.

However, children’s television has yet to catch up to the crowd. There have been a few recent strides forward, such as a kid on Disney with two moms, or the eventual romance between Korra and Asami, but for the most part the censors won’t allow even hints of queer relationships to slip through. Not even five seconds of a literal Love God doing his thing. Not even a couple of unnamed characters kissing briefly in the background. That’s a pair of recent examples out of many. Ouch.

So, like Shakespeare, some creators of children’s television have resorted to more covert means, hoping to get some queer representation out in the world. Recently, the show Steven Universe has done a pretty impressive job of it. Shakespeare imagined women dressing as boys to cause a stir. Steven Universe takes the idea of messing around with gender and identity to produce queer relationships a step further.

In the world of Steven Universe, there are alien characters called “gems.” Steven himself is half-human, half-gem, and has many of the abilities of other gems. One such ability is fusion: the ability to combine himself with another person to create a bigger, stronger person made of their combined identities. At first, Steven doesn’t know he possesses this particular ability, but when he tries in the episode “Alone Together”, he finds that he can fuse with his female friend, Connie.

The first time they meet, Steven accidentally uses his gem powers and they get trapped in a bubble.

The result is Stevonnie, an individual of unknown gender, seemingly in their teenage years, and absolutely gorgeous.

Stevonnie likes to dance.

In fact, Stevonnie is so gorgeous that when they go to get a donut at the local shop, both Sadie and Lars, a teen girl and a teen boy, are equally stunned and start blushing everywhere.

Maybe the humor of Lars and Sadie both finding Stevonnie attractive makes it okay, like the comedy in As You Like It?

And the censors are fine with this! After all, Sadie’s attracted to the boy part of Stevonnie, and Lars is attracted to the girl part of Stevonnie, right? Or at least, that’s the excuse you can give to any nosy execs who might think you’ve gone too far. Since the Stevonnie episode, the creators of Steven Universe have even used gem fusion as a smokescreen for queer content a second time, revealing in “Jailbreak” that the character of Garnet is the fusion of two gems who are pretty obviously in love, but still just sneaky enough to get past the censors.

But not that sneaky.

Shakespeare had his crossdressing, and here in the future, we have our… uh… strange alien power combination identity analogue. Hopefully at some point these kind of tricks for pulling off romances that aren’t straighter than a block of wood won’t be necessary, and queer kids can see themselves in their media without this kind of hassle. But, even so, it’s still entertaining to see how ways of sneaking queer content in have evolved over the past centuries, expanding into new genres with new smokescreens. Pushing the boundaries seems like an important part of writing that will never change.

The Utility of Marriage in As You Like It

Everyone gets married at the end of As You Like It and then they all dance. It’s a common social convention that everyone is supposed to be happy and dance and eat cake and get super drunk at weddings, but does that mean everyone involved is actually happy? Nope. In fact, at the end of this play, I would argue that the majority of the relationships solidified at this mass wedding (horrifying in itself) are pretty undesirable. Really, only one of the pairs seems to be mostly happy and has a good future outlook.

            There are four marriages at the end of As You Like It: Rosalind and Orlando, Celia and Oliver, Phoebe and Silvius, and Audrey and Touchstone. Rosalind and Orlando’s relationship seems to be one based mostly on deception and it would be highly unlikely that after spending so much time with Ganymede that Orlando would just go back to being madly in love with Rosalind. Celia seems to just marry Oliver to be with someone because she obviously doesn’t have a shot with Rosalind, who she’s clearly in love with. Phoebe was tricked into marrying Silvius (happens to the best of us), which leaves Audrey and Touchstone, who are the only two people who seem to be content with their marriages.

            So what does this say about marriage in general, that to be happy in marriage, do we just need to say “yes” and not think? Is marriage even meant to be something we’re happy to be in? We’d maybe like to think that marriage should be a happy venture, and it certainly is for some, but given that the majority of marriages in As You Like It and even today are relatively unhappy and unsuccessful, why do people continue to glamorize it? Taking it a step further, do we tend to feel pressure from society to get married even if it isn’t something we would want? 

Everyone's Getting Married!

At the end of Shakespeare’s play, As You Like It, it seems that everyone and their dog gets married. There is Rosalind and Orlando; Audrey and Touchstone (I have a feeling this relationship wouldn’t last); Celia and Oliver (does Oliver love Aliena or Celia??); Phoebe and Silvius (all I have to say is, poor Silvius). I couldn’t help comparing this marathon wedding to a Good Morning America special I saw on ABC the morning of Valentines Day. Are you ready for this… “25 Couples Get Engaged in Epic Live 'GMA' Proposal.” Yes, 25 couples, a little more than Shakespeare’s four. Granted it’s not entirely comparable because in As You Like It couples are sharing their matrimony ceremony not their engagement.

The gangs all here and engaged! 

We live in a culture that hypes up weddings and engagements. Think of the TLC show “Four Weddings.” A majority of the price tags for those weddings, especially on the east coast are well over $40,000. Or, how about the countless Pinterest posts that are of overpriced, over edited, engagement pictures.

I couldn’t help by wonder as I was drinking my morning coffee watching GMA on that Valentine’s Day morning and watched 25 men get down on one knee, on ice, in ice skates, with Christina Perri blaring in the background, if these women, and men (there were a few same-sex couples, GMA is sooo progressive) cared that they were sharing this exciting moment in their relationship with other couples. Not to mention the cheesiness of the whole ordeal, I’d be so annoyed if I had to share my engagement with 48 other newly engageees and the entire GMA viewership. I can’t even imagine sharing my wedding (Oops, maybe I am guilty of falling into the societal trap that glorifies the marriage process).

Prom 2004 or Act 5 Scene 4 As You Like It?

How do you think those who were asked the “big” question on GMA’s proposal extravaganza feel about their proposal? How do you think the Shakespearian couples feel about sharing their weddings? Was this a normal occurrence for the time? 

I will say that Rosalind and Celia successfully accomplished my best friend’s and my life goal, without the questionable lesbian relationship between the two of us, of marrying brothers… wealthy brothers, so kudos!