Queered Villainy Just Keeps Happening

While reading Shakespeare’s bloody “Titus Andronicus,” I couldn’t help but find a wellspring of commentary on harmful masculinity. For Rome and its patriarchy, Titus feels that he must kill Tamora’s son Alarbus at the beginning of the play, and this action sparks a revenge plot so twisted that by the end, for the patriarchy, Titus must kill his sullied daughter Lavinia to restore his entire family’s honor. Masculinity and patriarchy are the root of all evils.

So why hasn’t that message translated quite so well to the modern screen?

Of the men of the play, in terms of general terribleness, Chiron and Demetrius, Lavinia’s unrepentant rapists who are in it for the “fun,” top the list. In Titus (1999) they are depicted as Tamora’s golden boys, one with shoulder-length blond hair, and the other with short hair clearly bleached blonde. They embody 90’s era stereotypes about young goths (the black-wearing kind, not the long-gone civilization kind) as well as LGBTQ young men. They horse around, shout at each other, and even play video games – and if that last part doesn’t come straight out of theories about the Columbine shooting which took place earlier that year, I’ll eat my hat.

"Rape" even has moose antlers and blush.

It’s kind of incredible how de-masculinized they are in Titus, actually. In the play, the stage says that Chiron and Demetrius enter “braving,” presumably fighting with swords while arguing about Lavinia. It’s not hard to imagine a pair of knightly boys fencing over a woman, is it? Yet in the movie they are armed with tiny little daggers, and even rip their outer clothes off as they get into the fight, taking a bestial tone rather than a courtly one.

Then, to really hammer the nail in, they show up in their outfits for their mother’s cunning plan to trick Titus Andronicus. “Murder” appears in a tiger’s habit, and “Rape” appears in a bra and make-up, with an animal fur draped over his shoulders. They seem animalistic and feminine, especially next to Tamora (who really only resembles a very pointy knife-y Star Trek: Voyager Borg Queen). In plain words: they look really, really stereotypically weird-animal-queer.

Borg Queen on left, "Revenge" on right. See it?

So here’s my question to this adaptation of “Titus Andronicus.” Why are your rapists the most queer-coded characters in this story? Titus Andronicus is full of criticism of a heteronormative patriarchy. When you make Chiron and Demetrius deviant stereotypes, you take away some of the impact of that narrative, you know. Suddenly, there’s a force other than straight masculinity at play, and it’s not only doing harm, but it’s doing some of the most violent harm in the story.

Worse still, this cruelly mischaracterizes LGBTQ individuals, a problem which has been around in mainstream media for a while and shows no signs of going away.

The Silence of the Lambs (1991) features the serial killer Buffalo Bill, infamous for his (or her?) long, drawn out scene where he horrifically dons his make-up and dances in womens’ skin – violating their bodies in a whole new way. Modern procedural shows like Psych and NCIS often have large casts without a hint of LGBTQ representation but episodes where lesbians and trans women are murderers.

If Titus was going for something “modern” and “edgy” with its interpretation of Chiron and Demetrius, I’m gonna say it completely missed the mark, falling short of even Shakespeare's commentary on masculinity, written in Elizabethan times. This film just played into some nasty tropes that harm people instead. 

Rape, Mutilation, and Cannibalism

Titus Andronicus has it all: human sacrifice, murder, rape, dismemberment, filicide, and cannibalism.

In the apparent anticlimax of the cannibal banquet scene, cannibalism is the play’s central metaphor and it provides a mechanism that victims and victors can demean/debase each other. In Titus, eating destroys, but produces no sustenance or regeneration for either party like normal eating is supposed to do. This is not the only play in which cannibalism exists and it is interesting to note that it still exists in modern day movies and TV series. Cannibalism for Titus is used as a medium to convey emotions of love and revenge.

Tamora only has a few seconds of horror after being exposed to her son’s whereabouts before being killed, and has no time for anguished speech. Tamora is the first of many to die in this gruesome final scene, and by having everyone in the scene who partook in the cannibalism killed, I feel that Shakespeare does not view cannibalism as socially acceptable.

In comparison to Titus Andronicus is a modern day satire episode of South Park. In “Scott Tenorman Must Die,” Cartman is tricked by an older boy (Scott Tenorman) that buying pubic hair from him will make Cartman reach puberty. When Cartman realizes that he has been tricked, he plots his revenge on Scott. Cartman tries various methods to get his money back, but is outwitted by Scott each time. Cartman eventually plans a chili cook-off, Cartman plans an elaborate scheme similar to Tamora and Aaron’s that results in the killing of Scott’s parents. Cartman then cooks Soctt’s parents in his chili and serves it to Scott.

Episode link if you want to watch it: 

http://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s05e01-scott-tenorman-must-die

I would argue that Tamora was better off being killed after eating her children then to live with the memory and disgust like Scott has to in South Park (though they are both fictional stories). Similar to Titus Andonricus, Cartman also uses cannibalism to enact revenge, yet it differs because it does not have as gruesome of an ending outside of the cannibalism.

If you are further interested: Pictures from theatrical versions of Titus Andronicus. 

Warning: Contains graphic images.

https://transmedialshakespeare.wordpress.com/2012/09/20/rape-mutilation-and-cannibalism-shakespeare-style/