Dismissing Romeo and Juliet as dumb horny teens is OUT, crying because every attempt these children made to show love, kindness and tolerance in the face of senseless hate only led to more violence and death is IN
crosspoint: the entire thing was that they were dumb kids. reading R&J growing up goes in stages: “this was so sad” “they’re so fucking dumb what the fuck” “this was so fucking sad”.
they’re dumb kids. there’s plenty of textual evidence they are both sort of selfish in their love (ie Romeo’s on the rebound, Juliet just super doesn’t want to get married to Paris and is desperate for anything-except-that-guy) and a lot of evidence they didn’t truly know each other/see each other for anything but for a romantic ideal (the entire “but soft” monologue intentionally uses grandiose terms and basically translates to “oh fuck she’s pretty”). they literally can’t even communicate essential information correctly. in my opinion they’re not a good match – and shakespeare knows how to write a good match.
but they should have been allowed to be dumb kids.
the families had gotten to a point that even love – even stupid, selfish, childish love – devolved into violence. while the scenes they share are peaceful until the end, their solo scenes are dominated by violence – romeo with physical violence and juliet suffering the violence of having been essentially sold to an older man. they took the violence that they were surrounded by and turned it onto themselves. they had been raised in it, had been cultivated by it, and when they faced adversity, violence was inevitably the only thing they knew how to control. juliet – soft, innocent, sympathetic juliet – is the final death. and hers is by a wielded blade.
they weren’t trying to be a beacon of kindness or tolerance. but they were just kids. and what had seemed perfectly sensible (after all, the feud had resulted in death in either side, the rage made sense), the suddenness of a truly…. senseless death – who else can the families blame but themselves. no more finger pointing. after trying to hurt each other for so long, they only hurt themselves.
i’m convinced r&j isn’t about a one true love. juliet is the only one who calls it true love, the narrator certainly doesn’t. the first monologue describes it as “piteous“. instead, i think it’s about how it shouldn’t have been their last love. romeo and juliet could have been a romantic comedy about how fast kids fall in love with the stupidest things, how they make declarations of true love by the hour, how they float from one person to another, how they call crushes true love without knowing each other’s middle names.
it could have been a comedy. and i think, kind of, that’s what makes it such a perfect, terrible tragedy.
and then romeo-kun and juliet-chan inevitably committed the seppuku
sugoi. what light through the window comes, desu? it is the east, and my waifu is the sun.
did my kokoro doki till now? forswear it, sight! for i ne’er saw true kawaii till this night.
o romeo-kun, romeo-kun, doushite art thou, romeo-kun? deny thy otou-san and refuse thy namae, or, if thou ja nai, but be sworn my daisuki, and i’ll no longer be a capulet-sama.
I’ve only seen this legendary post in screen shots
me thinking about shakespeare normally: mercutio was gay
me thinking about shakespeare at 3 am: romeo and juliet is underrated as a story. why? because everyone treats it as a love story when they should be treating it as a commentary on how children are too afraid to come to their parents with a problem or even voice their opinions on things without fear of facing repercussions. juliet didn’t want to marry paris, some old guy she didn’t know. so OF COURSE she was going to choose romeo, some hot young thing that talked nice and looked nicer and probably made her feel special. she had had at least a conversation with the guy. but no. she can’t tell her father that she doesn’t want to marry and would rather try to get to know that nice montague boy that was chatting her up while crashing her party. but of course she can’t. both of because societal expectations and because of the whole blood feud. and then there’s romeo. we all call him an emo fuck but the fact remains that it is highly hinted that he had depression and while finding someone “to love” doesn’t automatically fix that in a person, him “loving” juliet definitely did seem to improve his mood while his parents just brushed him off. and in the end of the story, they’d both rather kill themselves then tell their parents that they’re going to be disappointing them by telling them who they “love” and that’s just fucked up. these were teenagers. and while this may have not been old billy shakes’ original message, it stands that this interpretation could benefit being taught to a lot of students and even some parents.
me thinking about shakespeare at 3:30 am: also know what was fucked up? mercutio and tybalt died without even knowing what they were dying for. they literally say in the beginning of the play that no one remembers why the blood feud started. and mercutio wasn’t even an capulet or montague. this wasn’t his fight. but he died anyways, under romeo’s arm, by tybalt’s hand. sure, they were fighting because tybalt was pissed about romeo seeing juliet and shit, but mercutio didn’t know that. he thought tybalt was just starting shit just to start shit. he didn’t know what he was dying for. “a plague on both your houses” indeed. and then tybalt. fucking firey tybalt. like i said before, no one knows why the blood feud started. he essentially just died because his family hates another guy’s family probably over something like the 13th century equivalent of a sports rivalry. that’s so fucked up. while i don’t remember what their exact ages were, i’m pretty sure they were teenagers too. what the fuck.
me thinking about shakespeare at 3:35 am: and then benevolio. oh god benevolio. what even happened to him??? first, he watches this guy who was always a jackass to him but he’s probably known all his life get killed, then his (boy)friend dies all because of something his cousin does, and then his cousin is exiled/flees before he’s exiled. he’s then all alone for like the rest of the play, until he assuredly walks into the mausoleum at the end of the play and sees his cousin dead on the ground with some girl he’s maybe seen twice in his life dead on top of him. what the fuck. what the actual fuck. poor benevolio just lost his two best friends and now he’s all alone. and you know they never even say if he’s in the play for the rest of the thing. you just assume he is. for all we know he could’ve skipped town, or killed himself as well, or died in a duel, or anything. i always headcanoned him as the youngest of the group. and like, that just makes it worse. poor benevolio, the guy that was left all alone at the end of the play with all his friends and acquaintances dead. “for never was a story of more woe / than that of juliet and her romeo”???? bullshit. for never was a story of more woe than that of our poor fucking benevolio.
okay but if you’re ever in london and you have the chance to see a shakespeare play performed at the globe theatre itself DO IT even if you don’t think you’d dig shakespeare
if you need convincing here are a few highlights from when my family and i went to see the official globe theatre production of a midsummer night’s dream:
they cast helena as a guy (helenus), first of all. they took a straight love square between two girls and two guys and made it a love square between a girl and three guys, only one of which was white. both sets of couples get happy endings and it’s fuckin adorable
it was reimagined with an indian setting
puck had a water pistol and kept shooting at the audience
historical accuracy?? who cares everyone’s gonna dress like a modern hipster teenager
bottom and his acting troupe sung bon jovi
oh yeah also the acting troupe were reimagined as globe theatre employees with delusions of acting skills
hermia and helenus sung single ladies by beyonce
innuendos. innuendoes everywhere
oberon walked onstage for the fight between oberon and titania drunk with a half-empty bottle of schweppes
lysander spent a significant length of time in the play wandering around in just boxers and a leather jacket
Plume de Lynx 