Apparently I should be checking out this miniseries adaptation of Shakespeare’s history plays, immediate-style.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, WRONG! A black woman playing a white English queen? And I’m not even talking about the armour nonsense. What’s next a native american roman emperor wearing a grass skirt? A white Ghandi wearing ripped jeans and psychedelic shirts?
If you throw reality and historical accuracy out of the window for being PC you’re movie isn’t worth watching because it can have no real message.
Oh quit bullshitting like this isn’t about your racism. Anthony Hopkins did Titus Andronicus as a half-dream half art piece with Saturnius and Bassanius using podiums and 1950′s style microphones to argue which one of them should be king. Kenneth Branagh did Hamlet in the Victorian Era. David Tennant did Hamlet in a fucking t-shirt. “Sons of Anarchy” was based on the story of Hamlet and it was about a motorcycle club running guns to the IRA. Don’t give me any shit about fucking ‘historical accuracy’ you fucking ponce, it’s SHAKESPEARE- it’s literally been done by a dog dressed in little hats and jackets (Wishbone, I never forgot you) and Wednesday and Pugsley Adams. If you have a problem with this you are not only a racist asshat, but you are so damn ignorant of Shakespeare I don’t even fucking know why you bothered to have an opinion except to let people KNOW you are a racist asshat.
And I mean, all good Shakespeare companies blind cast. Shakespeare companies pretty much invented that. An African-American actor was playing King Lear in the 1820s in London, yet yt people still get bent out of shape over actors of color in Shakespeare in the 2010s. It’s a long tradition, unlike the movie and TV tradition of casting people of color mostly in small roles and only “when there’s a reason for it.”
I love you for bringing up Ira Aldridge because now I have an excuse to post portraits of him starring in Shakespeare plays in London:
[Ira Aldridge as Othello; portrait by William Mulready c. 1840]
[Taras Shevchenko. (Ira Aldridge, as himself) 1858]
And 30k notes later, people are acting as if Black actors in Shakespeare plays are brand new. Nice to see we’ve progressed since the frigging 1800s….oh, wait. :|
These responses are beautiful. And I didn’t know about Ira Aldridge!
Ok, I absolutely love all of this, but come on, no pictures of the dog dressed in little hats and jackets? What character did he play?
But we can all agree that THIS take on Shakespeare is trash, right? Like... the absolute worst?