@cordeliaistheone / cordeliaistheone.tumblr.com
Once you become a certain age, it is your responsibility to unlearn behaviors that hinder your growth as a person.
Man I cannot stress this enough. The “this is how I am, take it or leave it” attitude is an act of immaturity. We all have toxic traits that we need to work on and as an adult it’s our responsibility to recognize the damage that they can do to the ones we love. We all need to put in more effort in becoming better individuals.
Got this talk as an education major too. If you’re going into public service you serve all of the public.
I’ve read a lot of scholarly articles on Much Ado About Nothing that dismiss Don John as a terrible villain, or criticise Shakespeare for the lack of finesse in constructing him, but honestly, I’ve always felt like that’s the point.
Don John is no sly, silver-tongued Iago – he is crude, brash and malicious. He makes statements like “I am a plain-dealing villain,” goes about attended by idiot henchmen, and takes advice and inspiration for his plots from others around him.
But even so, this weak caricature of a villain nearly brings ruin upon all of Messina.
How?
Because, even before he had made plans to trick Claudio into thinking Hero was unfaithful, the culture of Messina had already done most of the work for him. Don John is not the true villain of this play; he is merely an agent. The real villain of Much Ado About Nothing is the culture of misogyny in Messina.
From the moment Benedick and the soldiers return to Messina, they engage in lewd sexual banter and joke about horns, adultery and cuckoldry. Leonato’s first instinct upon greeting them is to make such a joke, for when Don Pedro politely inquires if Hero is his daughter the old gentleman immediately quips, “Her mother hath many times told me so.” This banter speaks volumes about the underlying misogyny and anxieties about female sexuality that the men share, and it works to create an atmosphere that is ripe for Hero’s shocking rejection.
Thus, all Don John has to do is suggest to Claudio that Hero is unfaithful, offer him a sliver of proof, and the prince and Claudio, made susceptible by popular myths of female inconstancy, find the rest of the proof themselves. Claudio starts to see certain cues as evidence of Hero’s guilt where before they were badges of honour. He declares, “Her blush is guiltiness, not modesty.” And so Hero, by the simple machinations of a cardboard cutout villain, is publicly disgraced, left for dead, and threatened with death by her own father, showcasing how quickly those seemingly harmless jokes about women can escalate to actual violence.
What’s more, this culture of misogyny is what keeps Benedick and Beatrice apart. These two dorks start the play madly in love with each other, but their shared fear of horns and cuckoldry divides them. Beatrice is also repelled by Benedick’s attitude as a self-confessed “tyrant” to her sex, and patriarchal culture has convinced her that no marriage could ever be happy, and no man faithful. Both of them (but especially Benedick) must thus overcome and abandon patriarchal values and the culture of misogyny they are entrenched in. Again, the culture of Messina is the antagonist, not Don John.
Beatrice has the advantage of being resentful and rebellious towards patriarchal culture from the very beginning, and so it is Benedick’s conquering of his sexist attitude that becomes the axis on which the rest of the play turns. He starts off entrenched in a culture of toxic masculinity, but once he acknowledges his love for Beatrice, and after he sees Hero disgraced and left for dead, he becomes sickened by the views he once held. Beatrice flies into a rage at her cousin’s treatment, and in no uncertain terms rails against misogyny and the patriarchy and the culture that nearly killed Hero. She wishes she “were a man for his [Claudio’s] sake,” telling us that, were she a man, she would use her position of privilege and power to protect women rather than abuse them. Her next wish, “that I had any friend would be a man for my sake” is a challenge to Benedick to do what she, as a woman, cannot: defend her cousin with action, not words, and publicly oppose the culture of misogyny in Messina.
This makes her initial request, “Kill Claudio,” less a demand that Benedick murder his friend and more a plea that he break with the toxic culture of male camaraderie. And Benedick agrees. In the midst of a play saturated with jokes about women’s volubility and defined by the rejection of a supposedly unfaithful woman, he then makes the monumental decision to trust Beatrice. He listens to her when she grieves and finally asks her a single question: “Think you, in your soul that Count Claudio hath wronged Hero?” When she replies in the affirmative, her word is all the proof he needs to part with the prince and challenge his best friend.
When he meets with Don Pedro and Claudio, they are keen for him to validate their treatment of Hero with his witticisms, plainly desiring to hear the japes about cuckoldry he had trotted out at the start of the play. But with Hero almost “done to death by slanderous tongues,” Benedick knows tongues are as deadly as swords in Messina, and so leaves his wit in his scabbard. He challenges Claudio and informs the prince he intends to discontinue his company, officially cutting his ties with their little boys’ club.
Speaking to Margaret shortly after, Benedick claims he has “a most manly wit… it will not hurt a woman.” He no longer uses his tongue to scorn or denigrate women. Instead, he uses it to delight them, turning his efforts to poetry and song, and courting Beatrice with the jokes and witticisms he once reserved for his male friends. Shakespeare uses Beatrice to convince Benedick, and by extension the audience, of the shortcomings of masculine culture and shows us that true valour comes from men using their strength to protect women rather than hurt them: for this alone may Benedick call his wit “manly.”
Through their love, Benedick and Beatrice conquer the true villain of the play: misogyny. Don John, who is merely the agent, is instead undone by Dogberry and his idiot watchmen, who discover the plot and bring the truth to light. With all put right, the end of the play provides the denouement where Benedick, having proved his valour and cast off misogyny, is at last free to marry the woman he adores. He makes a speech where he mocks the old views about women and marriage he held, gaily advises the prince the marry, and tells Claudio “love my cousin,” the implication being that the only way Claudio and Hero will live happy is if Claudio follows Benedick’s example, throws off misogyny and loves and trusts his new wife as Benedick does Beatrice.
Much Ado About Nothing, quite simply, mocks the hypocrisy of patriarchal society at every turn. It questions why men should demand chastity in women when they display none themselves, and why women are thought of as sexually insatiable when experience generally showed the opposite. The play’s accompanying song Sigh No More is even about the unfaithfulness of men. The lyrics declare “Men were deceivers ever… to one thing constant never,” and the men of Much Ado tend to live up to this, being generally lusty and faithless while the women are constant and faithful. Shakespeare disproves common myths about female inconstancy by making Hero the blameless victim of men’s obsession with female chastity, a scapegoat onto whom all their repressed fears are projected. And Don John, the active agent of the culture of misogyny, is a bastard, living proof of men’s infidelity and unfaithfulness.
So yes, Don John is a terrible villain – but that’s precisely the point. His weak characterisation feeds neatly into the play’s subversive agenda. For what could this bitter, scheming man have accomplished had the culture of misogyny not predisposed Don Pedro and Claudio to suspect unfaithfulness? What power did he have over Benedick and Beatrice, and how did he serve as their antagonist?
Don John is not the true villain. Misogyny is. Hero’s shocking rejection and near-death proves how dangerous misogyny is, and how easily violent words lead to violent actions. Meanwhile, the witty, sparkling lovers journey together to overcome their internalised prejudices, and provide vivid proof of what happiness a marriage based on trust and true equality can bring.
Much Ado About Nothing is play about a battle of the sexes – and only once the two sides call a truce and join forces to overcome the real villain, misogyny, may the happy ending be achieved.
This whole post (and its comment section) is worth reading – it’s written in response to an interview on NPR Fresh Air about a documentary on “sounding gay” but also stands well on its own.
(via fools-game)
“I think prejudice is always going be there. We just have to trump it. We just have to keep on exposing it and trumping it and revealing it and naming it and making it clear and bringing it out into the light, out into the open to see it for what it really is. And then it really, truly has no power.”
"talking about sexism or racism on Tumblr doesn’t solve anything"
really? because I am absolutely certain that I am a better, less bigoted person than I was a few years ago and that is most certainly due to the people I met and things I read on Tumblr
perhaps it doesn’t do anything for the worst of the worst but there are still plenty of people who do learn from impassioned Tumblr posts
Plus, we all co-construct the social world together all the time, in the everyday ways - the things we say, the things we do, and the way we act; and in the bigger ways - who we vote for in our own countries, which charities we support, laws we protest, and who we help. Prejudice is structural but it’s also cultural. Change people’s attitudes and you help to change both.
Nelson Mandela
In the Flesh + Real World Issues
Petition to ban old men from writing books just because they don’t know how to use an iPhone
Petition to have the youth in this country to actually educate themselves instead of spitting out some bullshit they read on some shitty post on facebook that’s untrue, and continues to spread like wildfire.
In 2012, young adults set the record of completing both high school and college and are on course to become the most educated generation in American history. Maybe you should follow the example of ‘the youth in this country’ and do the same.
that’s fucking hardcore
She is a shining beacon of courage. You go, girl.
"Er—yes, I think so" said Ron. “I think Mum’s got a second cousin who’s an accountant, but we never talk about him." Literally the first conversation Ron and Harry has, and he says something off color about muggles.
(via fattiesinlove)
Loving this post but "Some people are prejudiced because they are evil"? - yeah, I'm pretty sure they're results of toxic society too. ie. Malfoy. Even Tom Riddle was to an extent affected by his upbringing, and his parents' genes and his intelligence made him go 'evil'.
Unnecessary “fillers” in our speech. I’d rather have “like” than up-talking, though (if we had to choose one, that is). Ewwww, up-talking. Then again, a combination of the two would render me homicidal maniac.
Like, did you ever notice? That, like, the speech patterns people, like, think are stupid? Are, like, commonly associated with, like, women?
And, like, there’s this thing? Where, like, women aren’t supposed to be, like, assertive? So they, like, qualify their speech? Because, like, we’re not supposed to, like, stand by our opinions?
1) humiliate women so they don’t feel qualified to speak authoritatively about anything
2) humiliate women for speaking in such a way that reflects how you treat her
3) laugh, you are superior because you don’t use words like “like.” It isn’t as if being a huge stupid asshole has ever made you worse than a woman who speaks with verbal tics.
And like? It is super annoying when the speaking habits of a particular area or sub-group is treated as ignorant, because they don’t live in somewhere considered smart.
Oh frick this post made me so mad at first but then it turned out okay
ugh
The Fabric of Internalized Sexism, Journal of Integrated Social Sciences (2009)
Ron Weasley’s character is consciously written as somewhat racist. Not as racist as Malfoy, of course - he doesn’t scoff at mudbloods and halfbloods, and he doesn’t see himself as superior at all. Still, he unquestionably accepts the inferior position of house elves (they love serving), when he finds out that Lupin’s werewolf his reaction is not only scared but also disgusted (Don’t touch me!) and he is clearly very uncomfortable finding out that Hagrid is half-giant (giants are wild and savage).
And this is brilliant. Because it demonstrates that racism isn’t only present in clearly malicious and evil people, in the Malfoys and Blacks - it’s also there in warm, kind, funny people who just happened to learn some pretty toxic things growing up in a pretty toxic society. And they can unlearn them too, with some time and effort. Ron eventually accepts Hagrid’s parentage, lets Lupin bandage his leg and in the final battle, he worries about the safety of the house elves.
Some people are prejudiced because they are evil, and some people are prejudiced because they don’t know better yet. And those people can learn better, and become better people. And that’s an important lesson. The lesson taught about discrimination shouldn’t be “only evil people do it”, because then all readers will assume it doesn’t apply to them. Instead old JK teaches us “you too are probably doing it, and you should do stop ASAP”.
#can we just stop and appreciate Harry’s face in this scene? #I mean, he’s literally waiting for someone to say something about Hermione’s blood status #she’s the only Muggleborn in the slug club full of purebloods and well known people #and Harry’s there just like “say something I dare you” #and if you look at her face, you can see the actual hesitation and somewhat fear of what will happen next after telling of her parents occupation #Harry truly is acting like Hermione’s big brother, which I absolutely love #i just adore this scene
SCROLL through the titles and subtitles of recent books, and you will read that women have become “The Richer Sex,” that “The Rise of Women Has Turned Men Into Boys,” and that we may even be seeing “The End of Men.” Several of the authors of these books posit that we are on the verge of a “new majority of female breadwinners,” where middle-class wives lord over their husbands while demoralized single men take refuge in perpetual adolescence.
How is it, then, that men still control the most important industries, especially technology, occupy most of the positions on the lists of the richest Americans, and continue to make more money than women who have similar skills and education? And why do women make up only 17 percent of Congress?
