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Thinky Shakespeare thoughts
Mar. 5th, 2006 04:47 pmI’ve been rereading "the Tempest" for class, and having tremendous litgeekish fun at flipping ideas around with regard to Miranda’s rape and its implications. The more I look at the text, the more I really do wonder what went on between she and Caliban, and what part Prospero had in it.
A digression—this is the absolutely fabulous thing about Shakespeare. The body of work isn’t just words, but a living theatrical tradition. Interpreting the plays isn’t just a matter of scholars quibbling or splitting hairs. It’s an essential part of any halfway decent Shakespearean production. You have to deal with the issues of the plays if you’re going to produce them with any honesty. And because the Shakespearian tradition is so old, and because the plays are performed so frequently, there’s a lot of room for play and experimentation. A few years ago I saw “the Taming of the Shrew” done in Stratford, Ontario as a spaghetti western. We just plopped “As You Like It” into the sixties here at school, and it was just ungodly fabulous. You’re not going to have a chance to set Sartre or Young in wacky time periods or scenarios—there’s a right way and a wrong way to do most shows. But Shakespeare is open. The sky’s the limit. It's like fic, in a way, except that it's alive and collaborative and aewsome.
Because we can interpret these plays thus boldly, I’d be very tempted to see what would happen if Miranda’s rape were taken as a fiction created by Prospero. If the racial subtext of the play were literalized, I can very much see a sort of “To Kill a Mockingbird” scenario working.
There are no men on the island besides Prospero other than Caliban, and the Miranda that we see in the text is definitely past puberty, of a marrying age. There’s a long-established racist narrative wherein a white woman desires a black man and someone cries rape. Perhaps it was Miranda, seeking to escape her father’s anger. Perhaps it was Prospero, completely in denial over his daughter’s sexuality. Prospero does play the part of the puppeteer, and it’s not such a great stretch to suggest the presence of some brainwashing in his relationship with all three of his inferiors: Miranda, Ariel, Caliban.
This narrative of sexual desire between the white woman and the black man being taken as evidence of rape supports both patriarchal and racial oppression. It affirms the “black man as animal with unrestrained and bestial sexuality” meme, and also holds up the standard that women have no sexual agency or desire. It’s the ultimate tool of the status quo, a win-win scenario for an oppressor. And Prospero, even without the racial subtext of the play, certainly has some issues with power. The dubious virtue of his magic is seen throughout, highlighted by the comparisons to Sycorax and by Miranda’s honest horror at some of his workings.
God, I totally want to write fic about this, or get it onto stage. For one thing, it actually makes Miranda interesting, and gets some sexual tension going on. She and Ferdinand have all the chemistry of a wet dishrag, and I say this as a girl whose S.O played Ferdinand not too long ago and was very sexy in his period gear.
Am working on several theories about Rosalind's crossdressing and any similarites thereof with what we do as slash fen that are being very shiny. God, I love Shakespeare. Yo go, man!
A digression—this is the absolutely fabulous thing about Shakespeare. The body of work isn’t just words, but a living theatrical tradition. Interpreting the plays isn’t just a matter of scholars quibbling or splitting hairs. It’s an essential part of any halfway decent Shakespearean production. You have to deal with the issues of the plays if you’re going to produce them with any honesty. And because the Shakespearian tradition is so old, and because the plays are performed so frequently, there’s a lot of room for play and experimentation. A few years ago I saw “the Taming of the Shrew” done in Stratford, Ontario as a spaghetti western. We just plopped “As You Like It” into the sixties here at school, and it was just ungodly fabulous. You’re not going to have a chance to set Sartre or Young in wacky time periods or scenarios—there’s a right way and a wrong way to do most shows. But Shakespeare is open. The sky’s the limit. It's like fic, in a way, except that it's alive and collaborative and aewsome.
Because we can interpret these plays thus boldly, I’d be very tempted to see what would happen if Miranda’s rape were taken as a fiction created by Prospero. If the racial subtext of the play were literalized, I can very much see a sort of “To Kill a Mockingbird” scenario working.
There are no men on the island besides Prospero other than Caliban, and the Miranda that we see in the text is definitely past puberty, of a marrying age. There’s a long-established racist narrative wherein a white woman desires a black man and someone cries rape. Perhaps it was Miranda, seeking to escape her father’s anger. Perhaps it was Prospero, completely in denial over his daughter’s sexuality. Prospero does play the part of the puppeteer, and it’s not such a great stretch to suggest the presence of some brainwashing in his relationship with all three of his inferiors: Miranda, Ariel, Caliban.
This narrative of sexual desire between the white woman and the black man being taken as evidence of rape supports both patriarchal and racial oppression. It affirms the “black man as animal with unrestrained and bestial sexuality” meme, and also holds up the standard that women have no sexual agency or desire. It’s the ultimate tool of the status quo, a win-win scenario for an oppressor. And Prospero, even without the racial subtext of the play, certainly has some issues with power. The dubious virtue of his magic is seen throughout, highlighted by the comparisons to Sycorax and by Miranda’s honest horror at some of his workings.
God, I totally want to write fic about this, or get it onto stage. For one thing, it actually makes Miranda interesting, and gets some sexual tension going on. She and Ferdinand have all the chemistry of a wet dishrag, and I say this as a girl whose S.O played Ferdinand not too long ago and was very sexy in his period gear.
Am working on several theories about Rosalind's crossdressing and any similarites thereof with what we do as slash fen that are being very shiny. God, I love Shakespeare. Yo go, man!