Do Shakespeare plays make the perfect rom-com IP?

Thus asks Entertainment Weekly, riding the wave of Shakespeare articles let by the success of Sydney Sweeney’s Anyone But You.

This is what I’ve been saying! So glad to see similar thinking. I’ve written several times that I was pleasantly surprised to find the amount of Shakespeare I did in Sweeney’s movie. It’s still a by-the-numbers romantic comedy that I’m probably a generation too old to enjoy. But when its popularity began to skyrocket, there was an obvious reason.

It’s the Shakespeare, stupid.

We Shakespeare geeks have known this for years. 10 Things I Hate About You remains popular 25 years after its release. And not just because Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles knocked it out of the park. It’s the dialogue and the setting and plot that allowed them to do that. When the remodeling shows on the other TV channels talk about renovating houses, they talk about “good bones.” Shakespeare gives today’s screenwriters exactly the good bones to build stories that are new and old at the same time.

The linked article isn’t just a rehash of the same teen Shakespeare adaptations that my readers already know. It’s an actual interview with the writers of 10 Things, Get Over It, and She’s The Man. I love the idea that executives for Get Over It said, “Put in more Shakespeare.”

Speaking of Teen Adaptations

But wait, maybe you are looking for a list of teen Shakespeare adaptations. I can’t be the only one who still clicks on all of them. You know, just to see if something might be different this time. Will they realize that every adaptation doesn’t have to be a romantic comedy? Does it include Lion King? Is Romeo+Juliet their #1?

I’m happy to report that Paste Magazine completely surprised me. Their list includes neither Lion King nor Romeo + Juliet, no Hamlets, and one movie I didn’t even know about! I’ve really got to catch up on some of these.

I love Shakespeare merchandise. A long time ago I came up with the term “decorating your life” with the things you love. This is kind of like my introvert’s version of manifesting — when people into my sphere of influence they see the Shakespeare and presto, we’ve got something to talk about. I make new friends all the time this way.

I’ve even got some of my own merchandise. After all, you’ve got to rep the product, right? When my daughter speaks at a conference in Detroit this fall, I’m hoping to adorn her in Shakespeare Geekery.

But it is very rare indeed that I find myself in possession of Shakespeare Geek merchandise that I did not make. Check out what Bardfilm got me for my birthday!

For as long as I’ve been doing this, people have wanted to discuss whether Shakespeare was gay. And Christopher Marlowe (although I think there’s more agreement there). Then there’s the debate about whether half the individual characters in Shakespeare’s works were trying to tell us something. But I seem to have ultimately missed the idea that Queen Elizabeth’s successor, King James I was gay.

I guess there’s some new TV series, Mary & George, that looks more closely at this particular side of history. I’ve only just heard of it; people are starting to write articles that are showing up in my newsfeeds. I don’t have STARZ, so I’m not sure I’ll be able to watch it.

When In Doubt, Ask The Historians

I started googling around for information on the subject and got plenty of hits dating back years. They didn’t all come from “wishful thinking” sites, either. Because, let’s face it, I’m in the blogging business, not the research business; I can’t just grab a link to a random article and say, “Here’s your proof.”

That is, unless Reddit’s famous Ask Historians group has tackled the question. I love this group. They’re legit historians who hold themselves up to a particular academic standard. They don’t editorialize or go off on hypotheticals. They only tell it like it is when they have documentation to back it up. They even helped me research the whole Starlings / Shakespeare connection years before these folks got all the credit.

So, let’s see what they had to say about King James, shall we?

TL;DR Too Long, Didn’t Read

How many people clicked on that link? How many people read it all? That’s the only real problem with that group. This is the internet. People don’t want an academic answer to their question, with citations. They just want the answer. So, let me see if I can sum it up. I’m not promising I won’t use AI to help me with this.

(A) The article starts with a reminder that terminology is essential as it changes over the years. The word homosexual is not even recorded until 1890. So we are left to search for terms like sodomy, which was a different and very specific (criminal) thing. Other, broader terms were also used, but more in the sense of leading a sinful life. None are very confident indicators of what we would think of today as sexual identity.

(B) Independent of what term you apply, evidence does exist that King James was sexually attracted to both men and women. The article goes on to identify the “candidates,” with detailed documentation about why people have come to think as they do.

Conclusion

It seems to be that there’s no real debate, other than perhaps what terminology is fair. I trust the word of the historians on Reddit (mostly because they cite all their sources, even if I never do go check those). King James I likely had romantic relationships with men. Whether or not it’s fair to reduce that down to King James I was gay, that’s a different story.

Saying something is cringe is cringe, old man.

Bea, Anyone But You

This interview with Will Gluck, director of Much Ado About Nothing adaptation Anyone But You, caught my attention for all the wrong reasons. The director “breaks his silence” over the “Shakespeare cringe scenes.”

Shakespeare is the cringe part? Really? This is a movie that’s gone viral on TikTok for images of girls trying to hide their boyfriends’ eyes during the completely gratuitous shower scene. If you’re Gen X like myself, you no doubt remember the gratuitous topless scenes of movies in the 1980s. People don’t typically remember that even John Hughes’ PG-rated hit Sixteen Candles (1984) had a ridiculously bad one where the stars watch the popular girl shower for no reason other than to check that box for the marketing department.

Then there’s the scene of the random guy in the outdoor shower washing … well, everything. While engaging in conversation with another guy.

Or Glen Powell, our Benedick character, panicking about something, stripping off all his clothes, and then throwing them *off a cliff* as his first reaction.

There’s a lot in this movie to cringe at. Part of the opening scene is the classic “went to the restroom and got sprayed by the sink so now people are going to think I peed myself” trope. There’s not a great deal of effort put into these scenes.

But the Shakespeare scenes are cringeworthy? I was ready to throw hands in a comment section, let me tell you.

Luckily, the director is on the right side for this one.

All the cringe scenes in this movie are taken directly from William Shakespeare. The tropes that all the romantic comedies have now, he started it back in sixteen-whatever. That’s where they began. So, yes, you’ve seen it millions of times, but this was honoring the goofiness of that.

I feel like this guy gets it. I was pleasantly surprised by how the Shakespeare references were dropped into what is otherwise, as noted, a pretty by-the-numbers R-rated romantic comedy. At the time, I wrote, ” banking mostly on Sydney-Sweeney-in-a-bathing-suit popularity, but once you’re in your seat, it’s not afraid to say, Ha! This is actually Shakespeare!” and I definitely think this confirms it. I was very surprised when it started breaking records, and people started talking about how this could represent a resurgence for the genre. Gee, I wonder what the secret sauce might be. Is it the gratuitous shower scene? We have the internet now, that’s not as exciting as it once was. Same for the two guys that get nearly naked – if that’s what you want to see, there are plenty of other places to see it.

It’s the Shakespeare, stupid. The Shakespeare structure doesn’t make this movie cringe-worthy. It’s what makes this movie successful. Some of the dialogue is actually Shakespeare, and many of the parts that aren’t are just modern language updates. The irony that the direct tributes to the man are the ones that modern audiences are saying “meh” to bothers me greatly. But then again, a very long list of Gen Z stuff bothers me (and most of Gen X), too, so we should keep things in perspective. If spoon-feeding people Shakespeare against a backdrop of hoping they get to see Sydney Sweeney in the shower is what it takes, well, then let’s keep doing that.

Paul Giamatti is all over my newsfeeds this morning, and not just for his Oscar-nominated turn in The Holdovers. It seems that Mr. Giamatti has joined the ranks of celebrities having their genealogy researched, and … we have a Shakespeare sighting, people! Specifically, Giamatti appears to be a direct descendant of Malcolm III.

“I learned that in my genealogy I am evidently directly descended from Malcolm the Third. King Malcolm III, known as ‘King Malcolm III – The Big Head’,” he said. “I think like ‘The Big Cheese’ is what they meant. Apparently I am a direct descendent.”

Giamatti does have a little Shakespeare in his resume of 118 IMDB credits. However, although he was both in The Ides of March (2011) and played King John in Ironclad (2011), neither is a Shakespeare adaptation. In 2013, he played Friar Laurence in Julian Fellowes’ adaptation of Romeo and Juliet.

Wait, Those People Were Real?

Coincidentally, I had just been researching this when a Reddit thread came up asking about the true role of eldest sons in ancient Scotland, whether Malcolm would have succeeded Duncan, and whether Duncan’s choice had to be approved. I think most people realize that Macbeth was a real king, but not necessarily that most of the characters—Duncan and Malcolm in particular—were also real.

Although this history is so ancient that it’s hard to know for sure (did Banquo and Fleance even exist?), the story goes very similar to how Macbeth wrote it—Macbeth killed Duncan, and Duncan’s son Malcolm killed Macbeth. The big factual difference between history and Shakespeare’s story is that the real Macbeth had a stepson, Lulach, who became king after Macbeth was killed. No matter, though—Malcolm killed him, too.