A Feminist Bard?

It's nearly impossible to take any figure, public or private, and declare them unproblematically feminist. For one, people are multifaceted and contradictory within themselves, and hardly ever conform to one ethical ideal. On top of that, the accepted definition of 'feminist' has morphed enough since its creation that it can be difficult to pin down exactly what the qualifications are, never mind whether all self-declared feminists will agree on whatever you decide.

Of course, people try to declare each other feminists anyway. Sometimes most people agree on a verdict; Laverne Cox is a feminist, Bill O'Reilly is not. More often, particularly with historical figures who are too dead to directly ask, there is some contention. Shakespeare is a fine example of the latter, and it's doubtful that critics will ever totally agree.

Feminism as we know it today was not even a twinkle in the eye of Elizabethan writers. Our understanding of gender has progressed astronomically in the four hundred years separating Shakespeare and bell hooks. Asking what Shakespeare thought of the construction and deconstruction of heteronormative gender binaries is a moot point; the thought as we think it would never have occurred to him. There was no word for heteronormativity in Elizabethan England, it just was.

Calling Shakespeare a feminist is a bit like calling Socrates a communist; it's more than a little anachronistic. Still, taken in the context of his time, Shakespeare can certainly be read as an advocate for gender equality and transgression – a sort of proto-feminist, an early example for later creators to follow. His separation from the words and theories we have today doesn't preclude a relatively radical view of gender and sexuality reflected in his work.

Analysis of ideals in Shakespeare's work that could translate to an analogue of feminism requires presumption of authorial intent, which is, particularly on its own, a questionable method of critique. However, with historical context taken into account, it's possible to make guesses at the way a typical audience of the time would have perceived his work – and, therefore, to make even more abstract guesses at the sort of reactions he might have attempted to provoke with particular plots or lines. And though nearly every play he wrote ended in a reversion to heteronormative standards, the meandering queerness of the meat of his plays suggests at least a passing interest in transgressing gendered expectations.

Would Shakespeare have ascribed to generalized 'feminist' ideals were he alive today? It's impossible to know, but his work says maybe.

Love Triangles

Love Triangles

In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, the entire story is based around one other thing besides crossdressing: a love triangle. Duke Orsino has fallen in love with Olivia, Olivia has fallen in love with Cesario - who is actually Viola in disguise – and Viola has fallen in love with Duke Orsino. In the end, there is confusion but a happy ending with the marriage of Duke Orsino and Viola.

Love Triangles are an interesting twist in literature, but are they ever a good idea in real life or anything beyond fiction?

Now in fiction, a love triangle makes for an interesting plot twist, keeping the reader or viewer – whatever the medium is - on the edge of their seats with suspense as to who will fall in love with who. In real life, however, such an act of compassion could have undesired consequences, and might not end with a happy ending.

The best reflection of this is TV’s sitcom How I Met Your Mother. The series follows one Ted Mosby on his quest to find true love while dealing with the lives of those around him. On the sitcom, Ted falls in love with many girls, often at the same time. The most notable and perhaps well known of these times is when he is dating Victoria and is still friends with Robin. Now, Ted initially was in love with Robin, who did not return Ted’s affection at first. When Ted meets and starts dating Victoria, a little baker in New York, Robin realizes that she has feelings for Ted, but chooses to ignore them so that he may be happy. Then Victoria moves to Europe, and Ted finds out that Robin has feelings for him. In the End, Ted eventually gets together with Robin, but only after going through an awkward breakup and interaction with Robin as friends.

Another example of this is the Relationship between Robin and Barney. Barney initially only sees Robin as a target for intercourse, which luckily Robin doesn’t return. When Barney becomes in love with Robin, he tries and tries to understand his feelings while trying to get Robin to see how he feels. They wind up together, but it ends badly and the two go through one of the rockiest break-ups seen on television. Eventually, they try dating other people, only to hoo0ok up once more and end badly, with Robin choosing someone else over Barney, and Barney left with nothing.

Series like How I Met Your Mother are hilarious, but often times leave us with reflections on how things like Love Triangles can really affect those involved and those around you. So it begs the question:” is it ever a good idea, really?”

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.

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?

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)

"All's Well That Ends Well & Gender Constraints in the Workplace"

 Helen in Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well is a strong, intelligent, and goal-oriented woman. In order to get the man that she loves and move up the ranks in society, she is willing to do whatever it takes. In the beginning of the play we get the King of France that is dying of a fistula, and all the male physicians can’t seem to find a cure for him. Helen, the late daughter of a doctor, and taken in by Bertram’s mother, is able to gain an audience with the king to deliver a cure in exchange for the means to marry whomever she wishes. What is hard core about Helen is that she is willing to sacrifice her life, if the cure does not work, and that she is unapologetic in her abilities to obtain her goals. This of course, our “dear” Bertram has a serious problem with. What I found interesting is the exchange between Helen and the King when she is trying to convince him to accept her father’s cure. One would think that the King would be up for anything in order to live, but this is not the case. The King blatantly admits that her credibility as a physician is considerably less to non-existent due to her gender. When Lafeu enters and addresses the King, he notifies him that there is someone there that can cure him, it is the king that automatically assumes that the physician is male.

            This kind of sentiment is nothing new. Since the nineteenth century women have been fighting for the rights of women, and the destruction of female gender constraints.  Gender inequality in the workplace has been a long struggle for women trying to break into a male dominated arena. This is especially true in the field of medicine. “The entrance of women into American medical practice during the mid-nineteenth century was a direct outgrowth of the social reform movements that characterized the period.” – http://www.hws.edu  the early female physicians faced many struggles in order to achieve success and acceptance. This is still a problem for women and the LGBTQA in the workplace. Females in male dominated professions still make less money on the dollar to their male counterparts, and members of the LGBTQA are harassed in the workplace, and denied jobs based on their sexuality. This is evident in All’s Well That Ends Well. In 2.1 of the play Lafeu has to remark on Helen’s qualifications and credibility, and makes it seem like a major accomplishment considering that she is female. “With one that in her sex, her years, profession.” (2215) Even though Helen is not a physician herself, she is obviously intelligent enough to interpret her father’s work, and deliver a cure to the king. The king tells Helen that he is not going to put his trust in her ability when all the male doctors before her that are among the Assembled College of Physicians (2215) have declared that medicine cannot beat nature, and that he fully expects her to fail (2216). Helen hearing this tells the King that she is willing to put her life on the line, and offers up her price for healing him.  If it had been another male who had offered a cure to the King and the price would have been a wife, and not a husband, it is Bertram that would have received no resistance, and Helen would have submitted to being a prize against her wishes.

Did all really end well?

While reading All's Well That Ends Well, I was initially pleasantly surprised by the amount of agency that Helena had. There have been some fairly strong female characters (like Tamora) in the plays we've read so far, but I don't think any one of them stood out to me as much as Helena did. This woman knew what she wanted, and she made sure she got it. But, considering the way in which she got it (all puns intended), should we really hail her as an ideal heroine?

Think about it. Helena came up with a plan to save the King's life so she could ask for Bertram's hand in marriage (a woman asking for a man's hand - Shakespeare sure was more progressive than many people today).

Even when Bertram made it pretty clear that he didn't want to have anything to do with her...

When thou canst get the ring upon my finger which

never shall come off, and show me a child begotten

of thy body that I am father to, then call me

husband: but in such a 'then' I write a 'never.'

(Act III Scene 2)

...Helena kept pursuing him. I couldn't help but wonder: How would we (progressive people) be feeling about this situation if the tables were turned - if Bertram was a woman and Helena was a man? 

I'm pretty sure it would enrage a lot of us. I'd certainly be pissed off. It would be the classic narrative of a woman who makes it clear that she isn't interested, but the self-righteous man just has to keep forcing himself on her. There's even a meme about this.

And when all else fails, he resorts to manipulating her. I guess I could play devil's advocate here and say that All's Well That Ends Well is different -  Bertram was being snobby, or shallow, or whatever because he first rejected Helena due to her social ranking. But, doesn't he have the right to choose? 

Later on in the play, when Helena works out her scam (aka when Helena makes a deal with Diana to switch places so that she can have sex with her husband without him realizing), we see Bertram stripped of his agency even more. It's bad enough that he got stuck with a wife he didn't want and had to escape to war. Now, she's tricking him into sleeping with her so he has to be with her forever, too?

When gender roles are reversed, there's actually a name for this kind of deception that Helena pulls. It's called reproductive coercion. We usually see this term being applied to cases when:

1. A woman's sexual partner pressures her (sometimes with threats or acts of violence) into having unprotected sex to get her pregnant, or when the partner pressures her into continuing or terminating a pregnancy.

2. There is birth control sabotage. This includes verbal sabotage (which is verbal/emotional pressure not to use birth control or to become pregnant), and behavioral sabotage (which is the use of force to have unprotected sex/not to use birth control), and actual acts of sabotage such as poking holes in condoms or flushing birth control pills down the toilet.

Reproductive coercion is a form of domestic abuse. There are campaigns about it (see below).

I am in no way trying to diminish the experiences of women who endure this kind of abuse. I know quite a few that have dealt with it, and it pisses me off. But at the same time, aren't we kind of excusing Helena's behavior just because she's a woman? She, in a sense, rapes Bertram when she tricks him into impregnating her so she can force him to stay in the marriage.

This reminds me of the myth I sometimes hear floating around that women can't be perpetrators of sexual violence or abuse.

That's not true. Abuse is abuse, regardless of the gender of the perpetrator.

In this play, Helena has all of the qualities that would set off a red flag in my mind about someone. Helena, despite being a strong female character, is also obsessive and manipulative - quite like Tamora, actually.

All may have ended well for her, and that is just not sitting well with me.

"Gorgeous hair is the best revenge."

While reading Titus Andronicus, I couldn't help but think of the television show Revenge. Both the play and the television series are essentially centered around a woman's thirst for vengeance, despite being presented as the typical tale of the epic hero's fall.

In Titus Andronicus, the play really gets going after Tamora's son is killed. Pretty much everything that happens - Lavinia's rape, Bassianus's murder, etc. - is a result of Tamora's desire for revenge. Similarly in Revenge, Emily Thorne (the character around whom the show is centered) is somewhat of a Tamora figure who is determined to avenge the supposed framing and murder of her father. It is very interesting to see how both Emily and Tamora are either presented or perceived (by people in their respective fictional realms, and outside those realms) as psychotic, villainous characters.

However, what I appreciate about Revenge is that instead of forcing Emily to fit into a Madonna/whore binary, the show allows her character to have depth and complexity - just like a real woman does. Emily can be conniving and ruthless, but no matter what kind of twisted things she does, she still has her humanity. Instead of painting Emily as a woman who is evil to the core, the show places the emphasis on her actions - and not all of her actions are bad. Emily is frequently depicted showing remorse for those that she injuries on her quest for revenge, including people who have betrayed her.

On the other hand, Shakespeare, in Titus Andronicus, doesn't afford Tamora much humanity. By contrasting Tamora with the angelic Lavinia, Shakespeare presents Tamora as the "whore". Not once does she seem like an actual human being - she's just a fair-skinned devil.

Perhaps if Tamora's character was given more humanity (such as in Julie Taymor's film interpretation of the play), I would've enjoyed the play more.

This all led me to think about the reason that we still have so many strict gender binaries even though we are centuries past Shakespeare's time. If women are constantly being presented in literature and pop culture as either vindictive wenches or virginal paragons of virtue, then that's what people will expect women to be. Revenge (even with their many flaws) are a step in the right direction.

 It is a bit sad that we aren't at a place where we can see ridiculous representations of women and critique them or understand the irony behind those representations, but shows like

Until our society is at a point where it is the norm for female characters to be portrayed with the same complexity as male characters, I'll take solace in the fact that it's the genius female characters like Emily and Tamora who are responsible for some epic revenge.

Lady MacBeth, Meet Grindr.

Whenever I (hesitantly) re-download the gay hook-up app Grindr, I am immediately and constantly plagued with the same question- over, and over, and over again.

“Are you masc, or fem?” 

This question may look easy to answer. But that’s where you’re wrong. It nags and gnaws at me with a ferocious appetite, one that I can never quite satisfy with the correct answer. 

Recently, I’ve discovered that I’m not the only one with this problem. Thousands of other users on Grindr complain that they, too, are harassed and pigeonholed daily by men who feel the overwhelming need to put a label on everything.

My personal problem with this is that I don’t identify as either masculine or feminine. There are things I do that are masculine, and there are some that are feminine. I don’t see a need to be put in a place where I don’t belong. In a perfect world, I would be able to embody both of these gender and sexuality roles seamlessly, but we do not live in a perfect world. This blend of masculinity and femininity has only been pulled off, successfully,  a few times in literature. One of those times was with William Shakespeare’s character Lady MacBeth in MacBeth.

In the play, Lady MacBeth is struggling to get one thing- the crown. She wants to be queen and see her husband become the king of Scotland so bad, that she’ll do anything in her power to do it. Sadly, she doesn’t have much power, because she is a woman. She is supposed to follow the unofficial female rules of that time period; keep your mouth shut and keep your husband happy while he fights for honor and works for glory. Most women abided by these rules at the time.

However, Lady MacBeth is not like most women. When she sees an opportunity to become the next queen, she takes matters into her own hands by throwing a party for the king and planning his assassination that night. She is not taken seriously by the men invited based on her gender, but little do they know of her masculine power hiding underneath. 

I identify a lot with Lady MacBeth’s struggle to break out of her assigned gender stigma. While she is trying to prove her masculine power trapped in her feminine confines, I am trying to prove to men that I am a balance of both. I find it funny that something so old can still be so relatable to men and women today. 

Law and Order: Shakespeare Victim Unit

In the Play of “Titus Andronicus”, Shakespeare’s character Titus is a Roman general who gives up the throne to another and kills the son of Tamora, the Queen of Goths, who later plots revenge against him. This revenge is the rape and brutal savagery attack of Titus daughter, Lavinia, by Tamora’s sons, Demetrius and Chiron, who cut off Lavinia’s hands and tongue so that she will not speak of her rapists. Titus’s who has gone insane, kills Tamora’s sons Demetrius and Chiron and has them baked into a pie, which is eaten by Tamora and others. In the end, Titus has his revenge after killing his own daughter, and almost everyone important to the story is dead.

Given the plot of the play, how would Shakespeare react to the modern crime show “Law Order: Special Victims Unit.”

Let’s take a moment to explore how similar the two forms of entertainment are. “Law and Order : SVU’s” episodes are mostly filled with cases of rape and brutal murder, more than often enough young females. While the show’s main target of villains is perverts and aggressive men, once and a while the show’s victim is a victim of revenge, due to jealousy or wrath that the villain felt for the character. Shakespeare’s rape victim, Lavinia, is the product of revenge on Titus from Tamora, who ordered it for the death of her son. In addition to victims of crimes, Law & Order: SVU has the father or close confidant of the victim target the rapist out of revenge. In Shakespeare’s case, it is Titus killing and cooking Tamora’s sons into pies.

Both the show and the play portray the darker sides to humanity and society of mankind. Do you think that Shakespeare would be appalled by “Law and Order’s” plots? Is it possible “Law and Order: SVU” is inspired by the play of Titus Andronics? What are your thoughts?