Let me start this off by saying everything that the new movie Anonymous alleges about the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays is bunkum. Anybody who has anything beyond “passing interest” in this whole conspiracy jigger knows that the whole thing is idiotic. We know William Shakespeare was a dude who lived and wrote these plays. He certainly collaborated on some of them (cough cough, Timon of Athens, cough cough MIDDLETON) and there were certainly other people writing some very good plays at the time (Bacon, Jonson, Mr. Kit Marlowe, to name a few) but the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets is cut and dry: he wrote them, they are very good, end of story.
I’m not going to go into this point by point, but if you’re interested in the authorship question, there are some great resources out there: http://shakespeareauthorship.com/ for one, and also, you know, the plays themselves.
Back to Anonymous! Now, I don’t know if you guys know this, but it’s this big movie that’s showing in ACTUAL THEATRES. Last night at a bar, somebody asked what I do and Shakespeare came up and the guy was like, “What do you think of this Shakespeare authorship stuff?” and then that same scenario repeated several times. The people would say they’d heard of this movie (or even seen this movie!) and they had never thought about the Shakespeare thing before and wanted to know what I think.
In response, I calmly debunk the whole idea, and then I ask them questions and then they ask me questions and then we have a conversation about Shakespeare. Websites review this movie! So do newspapers and magazines! There are trailers on the telly! People read and watch these things, and if Hollywood is on board even for just this one movie, people who might not originally care at all about Shakespeare suddenly have a possible, tangential exposure to it just through doing things they already do!
Shakespeare deniers make me angry. Especially if they are people I respect, smart people who should know better (we’re all looking at you, Derek Jacobi). It’s an ignorant and elitist attitude towards these texts, not to mention towards humanity in general – the idea that genius can only be born into a certain socioeconomic class. And this movie makes me angry, because it’s not a comedy and it really should be, and because I have to spend my money to go see it – in order to send the message that we want movies about this, even if they’re stupid, rather than Transformers. It’s a lot to hope that my $12 can do that, but it’s happened before…
Remember 1998? A simpler time, when I got to hang out in middle school and we were engaged in a moderately different foreign war? Well it was also the year Shakespeare in Love came out, much the chagrin and pearl-clutching of the Shakespearean cogniscenti. But you know what? I’m gonna say it: that was a great fucking movie. Sure, the entirely plot is silly, but it’s beautifully executed. The screenplay, written by the inimitable Tom Stoppard, was elegant and spot-on, creating a crazy realistic depiction of late-16th century London. It’s funny, it’s profound, it’s got Geoffrey Rush in it, and it won 7 freaking Oscars. Best picture, best actress, best supporting actress (for Judi Dench’s 8 minutes of screen time – completely worth it), best screenplay, best music, best costumes, and it grossed over $100 million in the USA. It also happened to be seen in the theaters by a 9-year-old girl who had never seen anything like it, who had no idea what any of the words meant but knew they were the only words she wanted to hear for the rest of her life. Corny as hell, but it was me, and I am not ashamed to say that Shakespeare in Love was my first memorable exposure to the Bard and I’m thankful for that.
Is Anonymous the next Shakespeare in Love? Well, no, because the former sucks while the latter was awesome. Anonymous won’t win awards (and if it does those people should be caned about the knees) but it will start conversations between people who never would have happened upon the subject otherwise. And that, my fine Shakespearean friends, counts as a victory.
