What on Earth is going on in the world today? It's gone mad

[Moxie]

I have to say, the Daily Mail is pretty far right and reactionary. Here is at least a fuller reading of what O'Hanlon said:

Royal Shakespeare Company to teach children about 'racism, sexism and ableism' in plays

The Royal Shakespeare Company will teach school children about “racism, sexism, and ableism” in the Bard's plays, theatre bosses have said

headtopics.com

She is the education director of the RSC, and she is trying to increase outreach to school children, and at a young age, when, as she says here, that it is waning:

Whose Culture | Blog | Royal Shakespeare Company

Speech given by Jacqui O'Hanlon, RSC Director of Education. Focusing on relationships with schools and cultural education

www.rsc.org.uk

I'm going to say this: ignore what looks like a scary PC headline, and look at what they are trying to do, which is bring RSC and the bard to schools, where it is running more fallow. There have been attempts to update the language, and I agree that is an abomination, but this is not that. However, Shakespeare's plays have been subjected to and adapted very well to modern interpretation. Precisely because they are so universal and adaptable. If it needs some context, after 500 years, for younger readers/theatre goers, is that shocking? They are still trying to ban "Huckleberry Finn" in the US for use of the N-word, but it doesn't need banning, it needs context.

I don't think this is an "abomination" so much as The Daily Mail being anti-PC, and not getting what someone was trying to do. She seems to me to be 100% in favor of teaching Shakespeare to as young an audience as possible.

 

[Kieran]

I have to say, the Daily Mail is pretty far right and reactionary. Here is at least a fuller reading of what O'Hanlon said:

Royal Shakespeare Company to teach children about 'racism, sexism and ableism' in plays

The Royal Shakespeare Company will teach school children about “racism, sexism, and ableism” in the Bard's plays, theatre bosses have said

headtopics.com

She is the education director of the RSC, and she is trying to increase outreach to school children, and at a young age, when, as she says here, that it is waning:

Whose Culture | Blog | Royal Shakespeare Company

Speech given by Jacqui O'Hanlon, RSC Director of Education. Focusing on relationships with schools and cultural education

www.rsc.org.uk

I'm going to say this: ignore what looks like a scary PC headline, and look at what they are trying to do, which is bring RSC and the bard to schools, where it is running more fallow. There have been attempts to update the language, and I agree that is an abomination, but this is not that. However, Shakespeare's plays have been subjected to and adapted very well to modern interpretation. Precisely because they are so universal and adaptable. If it needs some context, after 500 years, for younger readers/theatre goers, is that shocking? They are still trying to ban "Huckleberry Finn" in the US for use of the N-word, but it doesn't need banning, it needs context.

I don't think this is an "abomination" so much as The Daily Mail being anti-PC, and not getting what someone was trying to do. She seems to me to be 100% in favor of teaching Shakespeare to as young an audience as possible.

Firstly, I’m not too sure why the trigger warning for the Daily Mail? Far right? So what? We get fed daily a barrage of lies, misinformation and propaganda from the left to far-left MSM on topics such as race, gender, all the stratospheres of society and traditions are being upended by new fads etc, and we hope to survive it, but when there’s a publication that doesn’t play ball, they’re reactionary? But reactionary to what?

I’m just curious about this, I’m not criticising, because we also see this on TV panels too. Purity tests. The BBC Question Time might introduce its panel thus: “Tonight we have the garlanded film director Mick Smudger, whose new film Kitchen Sink Blues won a BAFTA. The journalist and opinion writer for The Guardian, Archie Aggro, Lady Plum of Islington, and the right wing journalist, Daniel Smidgerson-Golly Gosh, who writes columns for the Times.”

The guests are usually on the left, or far-left, but not introduced as being so. Then, for the legal purpose of providing balance, they have one they decide is the villain, who gets publicly named and shamed for being right wing, just so’s the audience knows who to boo.

Dominic Sandbrook is a respected historian. He’s also on a very good podcast with an even more excellent writer and historian, Tom Holland, one of my favourite authors. The podcast is on Apple, and it’s called The Rest is History. It’s funny and informative. This bloke is no bigoted ideologue.

The first link you quote there - and kudos for getting around the Telegraph paywall, I often wish, and now I know! - more or less recites the same tale, though not as an opinion piece. They also talk about ‘a staging of All’s Well That Ends Well - “for the social media generation” - which will address issue of “toxic masculinity and consent”.’ They address these “issues” without questioning whether they’re actually issues at all. And if they are issues, to what extent? And are there other issues related to these issues which make these issues less of an issue?

I agree with you that all classic texts can withstand being tackled in modern ways, we’ve seen great versions of Shakespeare plays in Dublin as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival, performances from Germany and Lithuania which add music and lighting and costumes and a modern setting and expressiveness to the plays, without losing the point of the play, or the shocking drama that we’re seeing. But when directors think in terms of modern preoccupations, that these have be addressed within the plays, that we need to signal where a character is displaying toxic masculinity (whatever that is) and that the nature of the plays have to change to suit a political agenda, or some activist cause, so that the play can now be considered “relevant” - this is why these people shouldn’t be allowed near the plays.

The plays are always relevant. As Sandbrook says, “Is King Lear merely a vehicle for discussing ageism? Is Richard III no more than a play about disability?”

In the Telegraph piece, O’Hanlon says, “A new Shakespeare curriculum is needed that enables young people and their teachers to explore, test and challenge the relevance of Shakespeare’s work to our lives and world today.” This sounds reasonable. But then:

“Our society needs students who can wrestle with complexity, problem solve, interpret, analyse; who can tell the difference between good arguments and bad; who can see and appreciate different points of view. We look forward to collaborating with young people, teachers and artists to create a Shakespeare curriculum for the 21st century.”

Where in this lies Shakespeare? When you’ve already decided that modern ideas of race, gender, patriarchy, toxic masculinity etc are all unquestionably true and need to be reinforced through culture, you destroy culture. And you destroy Shakespeare, for the next generation, who’ll receive him as a social media doofus with a funny accent.

The second article is really interesting because it brought back a few things regarding my own schooling, and compulsory texts. Shakespeare was compulsory learning. We studied Julius Caesar and Hamlet. The issue, as always, is in the quality of the teacher, not the content of the text. That Shakespeare is relevant to young kids from one of the poorest areas of Dublin wasn’t an issue, when we had good teachers, to both translate Ye Olde Englishe, and to keep us on our toes regarding the plot. We didn’t need to see our lives reflected back at us. Tales of mad kings, ghosts, treason and “death will come when it come” were grist to the mill. They took us away from our social anxieties while inspiring us to see that life was more than what we’re living. We hollered “cry havoc, and let loose the dogs of war.” It was exciting, vibrant, we didn’t need tut-tut references to the Falklands War, nor any mention of masculinity or patriarchy to understand Hamlet’s predicament.

But I get what she’s saying there - Shakespeare can’t just be complacently dropped on kids because, duh, classical heritage. But I also think things shouldn’t be made easy for kids either, as in, making Shakespeare less than he is by making the plays seem to be about the same things they hear about every day, or teaching the plays through the relentless, monotonous lens of modern political dogma. Shakespeare isn’t easy, but trying to make him “relevant” by thinking that these modern thoughts are what is relevant is to mislead kids in schools, and an audience at the RSC. Political doesn’t mean relevant, and even less so when “political” really means “tribal”. Peoples lives are relevant without the filter of any modern political context, and so is culture…

 

[tented]

However, Shakespeare's plays have been subjected to and adapted very well to modern interpretation. Precisely because they are so universal and adaptable. If it needs some context, after 500 years, for younger readers/theatre goers, is that shocking? They are still trying to ban "Huckleberry Finn" in the US for use of the N-word, but it doesn't need banning, it needs context.

Sure, Shakespeare does need to be learned, if only because the language, while technically modern English, is difficult for young readers. Sure, historical knowledge is required to understand the settings. Yet while my comment on the previous page about Hamlet needing a trigger warning was satirical, aimed at a theoretical event, I actually googled it just now and discovered multiple references to people already doing this.

I didn’t need “context” or trigger warnings when I studied Shakespeare in college a couple of decades ago. No one would have thought for a second he was guilty of “ableism” in Richard III, colonialism in the Tempest, racism in Othello, or ageism in King Lear. If anyone would have even suggested such, they wouldn’t have been taken seriously.

Nathan Heller wrote a great piece for the New Yorker a few years ago called “The Big Uneasy:What’s roiling the liberal-arts campus?” in which he describes the impact this ultra-PC culture is having on education. It may be behind a paywall. If so, I’m willing to chance it and post it here anyway — it’s that important an article.

 

[Horsa]

Sure, Shakespeare does need to be learned, if only because the language, while technically modern English, is difficult for young readers. Sure, historical knowledge is required to understand the settings. Yet while my comment on the previous page about Hamlet needing a trigger warning was satirical, aimed at a theoretical event, I actually googled it just now and discovered multiple references to people already doing this.

I didn’t need “context” or trigger warnings when I studied Shakespeare in college a couple of decades ago. No one would have thought for a second he was guilty of “ableism” in Richard III, colonialism in the Tempest, racism in Othello, or ageism in King Lear. If anyone would have even suggested such, they wouldn’t have been taken seriously.

I agree with everything you've said here except for your opinion that Shakespeare is difficult for young readers though the language is technically modern English. I found most of it very easy to understand when I was learning it. I read my 1st Shakespeare play before I studied it in High School as I bought Henry V mistaking it for a history book when I was learning about the Battle of Agincourt at school & found it very easy to understand. I loved it from start to finish but I loved the French bits 1st because I found French fun & easy to learn & French was my favourite subject at school. The Shakespeare plays I studied at school were Romeo & Juliet which I loved & McBeth which I hated. I prefer Shakespeare's sonnets to his plays though. (My favourite Shakespeare play is "12th Night".) Anyway back to the point, I agree with all you've said here except your opinion that Shakespeare is difficult to read. The reason why I disagree with that opinion is because I found most of it easy to understand from the very start so think most people would.

 

[Horsa]

I have to say, the Daily Mail is pretty far right and reactionary. Here is at least a fuller reading of what O'Hanlon said:

Royal Shakespeare Company to teach children about 'racism, sexism and ableism' in plays

The Royal Shakespeare Company will teach school children about “racism, sexism, and ableism” in the Bard's plays, theatre bosses have said

headtopics.com

She is the education director of the RSC, and she is trying to increase outreach to school children, and at a young age, when, as she says here, that it is waning:

Whose Culture | Blog | Royal Shakespeare Company

Speech given by Jacqui O'Hanlon, RSC Director of Education. Focusing on relationships with schools and cultural education

www.rsc.org.uk

I'm going to say this: ignore what looks like a scary PC headline, and look at what they are trying to do, which is bring RSC and the bard to schools, where it is running more fallow. There have been attempts to update the language, and I agree that is an abomination, but this is not that. However, Shakespeare's plays have been subjected to and adapted very well to modern interpretation. Precisely because they are so universal and adaptable. If it needs some context, after 500 years, for younger readers/theatre goers, is that shocking? They are still trying to ban "Huckleberry Finn" in the US for use of the N-word, but it doesn't need banning, it needs context.

I don't think this is an "abomination" so much as The Daily Mail being anti-PC, and not getting what someone was trying to do. She seems to me to be 100% in favor of teaching Shakespeare to as young an audience as possible.

Thank you very much for the extra information & your opinion on it. I'll look at it & tell you what I think about it later when I have time. (I saw this earlier but I've been on reception all day & I'm just getting caught up with everything & I'm a moderator on another site now so don't have as much time. Luckily for me, I can open the other site up when I go online & do other things as there's a notification system that makes a noise when something is said so I can keep an eye on things.

 

[Kieran]

Sure, Shakespeare does need to be learned, if only because the language, while technically modern English, is difficult for young readers. Sure, historical knowledge is required to understand the settings. Yet while my comment on the previous page about Hamlet needing a trigger warning was satirical, aimed at a theoretical event, I actually googled it just now and discovered multiple references to people already doing this.

I didn’t need “context” or trigger warnings when I studied Shakespeare in college a couple of decades ago. No one would have thought for a second he was guilty of “ableism” in Richard III, colonialism in the Tempest, racism in Othello, or ageism in King Lear. If anyone would have even suggested such, they wouldn’t have been taken seriously.

Nathan Heller wrote a great piece for the New Yorker a few years ago called “The Big Uneasy:What’s roiling the liberal-arts campus?” in which he describes the impact this ultra-PC culture is having on education. It may be behind a paywall. If so, I’m willing to chance it and post it here anyway — it’s that important an article.

I could open the article, thanks! Very detailed and informative, even funny stuff about interviewees mochas - and a false rubber nose!

But several parts really struck me. One is that these kids are thinking that politics is their solution - but actually it seems to be their problem. They being educated to believe that abstract traps will actually set them free. The "traps" being in the highly defined ways they look at things. Prejudicial terms abound. And unfortunately the poor kids are now sitting separate from each other, according to race, because all of this stuff has created racism, sexism, etc, and not cured it. Intersectionality, indeed!

This is both unintentionally funny, and very revealing:

More than thirteen hundred students signed a petition calling for the college to eliminate any grade lower than a C for the semester, but to no avail. “Students felt really unsupported in their endeavors to engage with the world outside Oberlin,” she told me.

This maybe the crux of it:

In “The Old Regime and the Revolution,” a study of political ferment in late-eighteenth-century France, Alexis de Tocqueville observed that, in the decades leading up to the Revolution, France had been notably prosperous and progressive. We hear a lot about the hunger and the song of angry men, and yet the truth is that, objectively, the French at the start of the seventeen-eighties had less cause for anger than they’d had in years.

I've often wondered why, in the west, when everything is so much better than it ever was, are activists saying it's the worst time ever to live? Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff are onto something with their book. The generation that feels most unsafe about generic things that we'd blow off when we were that age - and living in a tougher world - seem basically to have been sheltered too much in their rearing. These kids are in for a loud awakening - hopefully. I say "hopefully" because if things keep heading the way they are, they'll leave college with dim-bulb brains and scream and screech their way through life, until they get their way...

 

[Moxie]

Sure, Shakespeare does need to be learned, if only because the language, while technically modern English, is difficult for young readers. Sure, historical knowledge is required to understand the settings. Yet while my comment on the previous page about Hamlet needing a trigger warning was satirical, aimed at a theoretical event, I actually googled it just now and discovered multiple references to people already doing this.

I didn’t need “context” or trigger warnings when I studied Shakespeare in college a couple of decades ago. No one would have thought for a second he was guilty of “ableism” in Richard III, colonialism in the Tempest, racism in Othello, or ageism in King Lear. If anyone would have even suggested such, they wouldn’t have been taken seriously.

Nathan Heller wrote a great piece for the New Yorker a few years ago called “The Big Uneasy:What’s roiling the liberal-arts campus?” in which he describes the impact this ultra-PC culture is having on education. It may be behind a paywall. If so, I’m willing to chance it and post it here anyway — it’s that important an article.

We're kind of talking about 2 things here, one being Shakespeare, which is fun, but the main one, based on the thread, is a way overreaching PC culture, which is complicated and often confounding. My point in the post above is, in part, to be contrarian, because I like to be, but also to put out there that the Education Director of the RSC was not ONLY being that. I thought the article you posted did want a little more background. That said, I very much agree that what is going on on college campuses these days, in highly reported instances, is absurd, and, as your article from the NYer points out, seems to be a dumbing down and coddling of the students' minds. I liked the point about this creating a "defensiveness" in students, rather than an "openness," which is a dangerous thing. I was taught that the undergraduate education is as much about "learning how to learn," as anything, so that it can be a life-long endeavor. It seems to me that defensiveness is a closed posture, and the opposite of what young university students need.

On an optimistic note, I recently had an in-depth conversation about this with a friend who is a university professor, Italian Renaissance Lit (at both NYU and Cambridge,) and so in the era, basically of Shakespeare. We were discussing that a US professor was recently in danger of losing his post for having shown the Olivier film "Othello", without having "warned" students prior that Olivier would appear in "blackface." (Whole 'nother scandal for another day.) Basically, though, she said she finds none of this hyper-sensitivity amongst her students, and I will mention that she teaches a very popular course on the courtesan in 16th C. Italy, (at least one of whom was also a very great poet.) You can call her experience anecdotal, but she rubs elbows with professors all the time, and her inclination is to think that the worst stories get called out, but it is not the norm. I hope so.

On the fun part, I agree with both you and Horsa on Shakespeare. Like Horsa, I read my first Shakespeare play on my own. The Zefferelli film had come out, but I was too young to see it. So I decided to "read the book," to find out what all the fuss was about. I plowed through using my parents' collected works of Shakespeare, which had a glossary in the back. I loved it, and did a book report on it. (I was about 12.) The beauty of that was it took the fear off of it. But I also agree with you that it needs to be taught in order to delve deeply into the word-play. Another thing that needs to happen for young students, and as early as possible, is that they should be seen as performed plays. (Or at least see the films.) This is where I appreciate that the RCS has an education and outreach department, at all. I heard someone say the other day, in the context of something else entirely, "It's like when you go to a Shakespeare play, and for the first 20 minutes you get very little, and then it all becomes clear." These are plays, not books, as I jokingly said, above, and there is much to be said for letting the actors do the heavy-lifting of finding the meter and rhyme for you, and clarifying the text because THEY understand it so well. RCS should bring the plays to young theatre-goers. That also introduces them to the intent, which is that they are enormously entertaining, aside from being the great patrimony of our language. Personally, I always thought that Hamlet's crisis is more "existential" than about suicide, in the broader scope. If people start pulling out murder, suicide and violence as reasons to protect people from them, then we have to go to the Greeks, and etc., and we'll never enjoy great art anymore. Or low-brow art, either, for that matter. I wonder how many of these students watch mainstream films and play video games and think nothing of them.

 

[Jelenafan]

Can we all agree that Hamlet has way too many deaths in the last act?

 

[tented]

Can we all agree that Hamlet has way too many deaths in the last act?

That‘s so true! There’s barely anyone left to end it.

 

[Kieran]

Can we all agree that Hamlet has way too many deaths in the last act?

He was writing it for Hollywood.

That‘s so true! There’s barely anyone left to end it.

The dog. I think it ends with Hamlet’s dog. Or, dogge. With these words, “the dogge hath cocked his rear legge, and then exeunt left, his tail wagging, sniffing nothing but death, and ye other sniffing dogges…”

 

[Kieran]

We're kind of talking about 2 things here, one being Shakespeare, which is fun, but the main one, based on the thread, is a way overreaching PC culture, which is complicated and often confounding. My point in the post above is, in part, to be contrarian, because I like to be, but also to put out there that the Education Director of the RSC was not ONLY being that. I thought the article you posted did want a little more background. That said, I very much agree that what is going on on college campuses these days, in highly reported instances, is absurd, and, as your article from the NYer points out, seems to be a dumbing down and coddling of the students' minds. I liked the point about this creating a "defensiveness" in students, rather than an "openness," which is a dangerous thing. I was taught that the undergraduate education is as much about "learning how to learn," as anything, so that it can be a life-long endeavor. It seems to me that defensiveness is a closed posture, and the opposite of what young university students need.

On an optimistic note, I recently had an in-depth conversation about this with a friend who is a university professor, Italian Renaissance Lit (at both NYU and Cambridge,) and so in the era, basically of Shakespeare. We were discussing that a US professor was recently in danger of losing his post for having shown the Olivier film "Othello", without having "warned" students prior that Olivier would appear in "blackface." (Whole 'nother scandal for another day.) Basically, though, she said she finds none of this hyper-sensitivity amongst her students, and I will mention that she teaches a very popular course on the courtesan in 16th C. Italy, (at least one of whom was also a very great poet.) You can call her experience anecdotal, but she rubs elbows with professors all the time, and her inclination is to think that the worst stories get called out, but it is not the norm. I hope so.

On the fun part, I agree with both you and Horsa on Shakespeare. Like Horsa, I read my first Shakespeare play on my own. The Zefferelli film had come out, but I was too young to see it. So I decided to "read the book," to find out what all the fuss was about. I plowed through using my parents' collected works of Shakespeare, which had a glossary in the back. I loved it, and did a book report on it. (I was about 12.) The beauty of that was it took the fear off of it. But I also agree with you that it needs to be taught in order to delve deeply into the word-play. Another thing that needs to happen for young students, and as early as possible, is that they should be seen as performed plays. (Or at least see the films.) This is where I appreciate that the RCS has an education and outreach department, at all. I heard someone say the other day, in the context of something else entirely, "It's like when you go to a Shakespeare play, and for the first 20 minutes you get very little, and then it all becomes clear." These are plays, not books, as I jokingly said, above, and there is much to be said for letting the actors do the heavy-lifting of finding the meter and rhyme for you, and clarifying the text because THEY understand it so well. RCS should bring the plays to young theatre-goers. That also introduces them to the intent, which is that they are enormously entertaining, aside from being the great patrimony of our language. Personally, I always thought that Hamlet's crisis is more "existential" than about suicide, in the broader scope. If people start pulling out murder, suicide and violence as reasons to protect people from them, then we have to go to the Greeks, and etc., and we'll never enjoy great art anymore. Or low-brow art, either, for that matter. I wonder how many of these students watch mainstream films and play video games and think nothing of them.

Great stuff, sister! And just on a certain point here, of reading the plays alone, without a guide, going in blind, I was maybe 14 when we did Julius Caesar, and it was so exciting a play that during the summer months I thought, well, I’ll get the sequel from the library! Antony and Cleopatra. It’ll be perfect for the summer days, a nice read while I wait for Wimbledon to start.

I couldn’t make head nor tail of it! And with no Google to help me figure WTF was happening, I got a history book and read about them - then went back to Shakespeare, armed with knowledge. I was no better off!

I totally agree about it being better to experience them as plays, or films. I’ve seen a mixed bag of performances, but generally been served well by some travelling troupes who’ve come for the Dublin Theatre Festival, as well as local talent. A King Lear in the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin. That left us shook.

I wonder, has anyone seen the new Macbeth film, with Denzil and Frances MacDormand? I’ve seen trailers, and it certainly has a look about it…

 

[Moxie]

I wonder, has anyone seen the new Macbeth film, with Denzil and Frances MacDormand? I’ve seen trailers, and it certainly has a look about it…

I haven't yet, but let me offer you this impartial review by Ethan Coen, who didn't co-direct this one with his brother:

Joel Coen's "The Tragedy of Macbeth", Reviewed by Ethan Coen

More like Macbleeeech!

imightbewrong.substack.com

 

[tented]

We're kind of talking about 2 things here, one being Shakespeare, which is fun, but the main one, based on the thread, is a way overreaching PC culture, which is complicated and often confounding. My point in the post above is, in part, to be contrarian, because I like to be, but also to put out there that the Education Director of the RSC was not ONLY being that. I thought the article you posted did want a little more background. That said, I very much agree that what is going on on college campuses these days, in highly reported instances, is absurd, and, as your article from the NYer points out, seems to be a dumbing down and coddling of the students' minds. I liked the point about this creating a "defensiveness" in students, rather than an "openness," which is a dangerous thing. I was taught that the undergraduate education is as much about "learning how to learn," as anything, so that it can be a life-long endeavor. It seems to me that defensiveness is a closed posture, and the opposite of what young university students need.

Agreed. The section about the professor disbanding her class mid-semester because students self-segregated struck me as the low point of the whole series of events. The students were speaking out of both sides of their mouths: wanting inclusion and acceptance, yet deflecting attempts by The Other to open a dialog. Dangerous, indeed, to use your word.

On an optimistic note, I recently had an in-depth conversation about this with a friend who is a university professor, Italian Renaissance Lit (at both NYU and Cambridge,) and so in the era, basically of Shakespeare. We were discussing that a US professor was recently in danger of losing his post for having shown the Olivier film "Othello", without having "warned" students prior that Olivier would appear in "blackface." (Whole 'nother scandal for another day.) Basically, though, she said she finds none of this hyper-sensitivity amongst her students, and I will mention that she teaches a very popular course on the courtesan in 16th C. Italy, (at least one of whom was also a very great poet.) You can call her experience anecdotal, but she rubs elbows with professors all the time, and her inclination is to think that the worst stories get called out, but it is not the norm. I hope so.

It’s a bit of a contradiction for the professor to claim these incidences are not the norm, yet was in danger herself for having not provided a trigger warning for Olivier’s Othello, but I get the idea of the squeaky wheel.

I am concerned, though, about incidents being reported of literal (not figurative) book burnings, as well as banning certain books. Not only is there no need for this; there’s a menacing domino effect brewing in such efforts. As you mentioned in an earlier post, it’s understandable to provide historical context when teaching Huckleberry Finn, because of its language, but that doesn’t mean it should be burned or banned. As someone who does everything possible to avoid spoilers, the idea of putting a trigger warning on, say, the end of Anna Karenina is both absurd and destructive. (And I won’t even say why the trigger warning might be needed, lol.) To spoil the end with a trigger warning would neuter the entire novel.

On the fun part, I agree with both you and Horsa on Shakespeare. Like Horsa, I read my first Shakespeare play on my own. The Zefferelli film had come out, but I was too young to see it. So I decided to "read the book," to find out what all the fuss was about. I plowed through using my parents' collected works of Shakespeare, which had a glossary in the back. I loved it, and did a book report on it. (I was about 12.) The beauty of that was it took the fear off of it. But I also agree with you that it needs to be taught in order to delve deeply into the word-play. Another thing that needs to happen for young students, and as early as possible, is that they should be seen as performed plays. (Or at least see the films.) This is where I appreciate that the RCS has an education and outreach department, at all. I heard someone say the other day, in the context of something else entirely, "It's like when you go to a Shakespeare play, and for the first 20 minutes you get very little, and then it all becomes clear." These are plays, not books, as I jokingly said, above, and there is much to be said for letting the actors do the heavy-lifting of finding the meter and rhyme for you, and clarifying the text because THEY understand it so well. RCS should bring the plays to young theatre-goers. That also introduces them to the intent, which is that they are enormously entertaining, aside from being the great patrimony of our language.

I love the idea of the RSC going to schools in order to keep Shakespeare alive by disseminating his works, but I do worry if certain methods are being deployed, such as framing him as an ableist, an ageist, and so on. These concepts were alien to his time, so it serves no purpose trying to do some temporal jujitsu to make them backwards relevant. In your example above, all the students needed to hear was “in Olivier’s time, it was perfectly acceptable for him to wear blackface. No harm was intended.”

Personally, I always thought that Hamlet's crisis is more "existential" than about suicide, in the broader scope. If people start pulling out murder, suicide and violence as reasons to protect people from them, then we have to go to the Greeks, and etc., and we'll never enjoy great art anymore. Or low-brow art, either, for that matter. I wonder how many of these students watch mainstream films and play video games and think nothing of them.

Well, now we know that Hamlet’s suicidal thoughts weren’t acted on, therefore they’ve come to have an existential quality, but try to imagine being there to attend its debut. We would have had no idea whether or not he was really going to kill himself. The threat would have seemed real, given everything he was going through. Or at least seemed like a realistic possibility. But you’re completely right, of course, that eliminating murder, suicide, and violence would ruin so many great works of art. It’s meant to be shocking to discover that Oedipus killed his father and married his mother. It’s meant to be a gory gut punch to see Quint eaten alive by the shark in Jaws. Trigger warnings and avoidance just render them inert.

 

[Moxie]

It’s a bit of a contradiction for the professor to claim these incidences are not the norm, yet was in danger herself for having not provided a trigger warning for Olivier’s Othello, but I get the idea of the squeaky wheel.

I'm going to read your whole post later, more carefully, after work, but I wanted to clarify the above: my friend and I were talking about an incident in the news about some professor we don't know who was in trouble for not providing a trigger warning re: Othello. I elicited her opinions based on the discussion of that incident. She herself has never encountered any such oversensitivity in her students.

 

[Front242]

For my Irish friends, @Front242 and @Kieran

View attachment 6094

Haha nice. A few friends sent me that too Sounds about right

 

[Moxie]

I am concerned, though, about incidents being reported of literal (not figurative) book burnings, as well as banning certain books. Not only is there no need for this; there’s a menacing domino effect brewing in such efforts. As you mentioned in an earlier post, it’s understandable to provide historical context when teaching Huckleberry Finn, because of its language, but that doesn’t mean it should be burned or banned. As someone who does everything possible to avoid spoilers, the idea of putting a trigger warning on, say, the end of Anna Karenina is both absurd and destructive. (And I won’t even say why the trigger warning might be needed, lol.) To spoil the end with a trigger warning would neuter the entire novel.

I am completely with you on this new list of books that are being banned from public school curricula and from public libraries, in some cases. Or attempts are being made. There is a list on wikipedia of the most commonly challenged books in the US, and the reasons listed will leave you gobsmacked. Not just including the books. Many are past my public school time, but a lot I read in public school, with no issues raised. ("A Wrinkle in Time?!" FFS.) Anna Karenina isn't on this list, but I take your point. **SPOILER ALERT** It would be a funny comment if it weren't sad.

I love the idea of the RSC going to schools in order to keep Shakespeare alive by disseminating his works, but I do worry if certain methods are being deployed, such as framing him as an ableist, an ageist, and so on. These concepts were alien to his time, so it serves no purpose trying to do some temporal jujitsu to make them backwards relevant. In your example above, all the students needed to hear was “in Olivier’s time, it was perfectly acceptable for him to wear blackface. No harm was intended.”

I totally get your point that it seems limp to have to make apologies for Shakespeare's grand themes before you delve into them. Look at "Richard III." He's disabled/hunchbacked/whatever (as he was in history,) and he's a (complex) villain, but he is also by a large margin the most charismatic character in the play. I know Peter Dinklage played him here at The Public, and other disabled actors have played him. To me, Peter Dinklage can do anything, but, realistically, wouldn't you like to have a character in Shakespeare that actually speaks to you? Is that being against disabled people? I would say he's given some "disabled" actors the role of their lives.

As to the "Olivier in Blackface" kerfuffle, there has been a lot of discussion, which you can look up, but there are Black academicians who will tell you that Minstrel shows and blackface are not the same as Olivier playing Othello in stage makeup. But once again, I will say that Shakespeare created a great role for an actor from Africa or of the African diaspora. How long did it take for Western theatre to create the next great one? Wild guess: 400 years? And we haven't even gotten into the cross-dressing yet.

Well, now we know that Hamlet’s suicidal thoughts weren’t acted on, therefore they’ve come to have an existential quality, but try to imagine being there to attend its debut. We would have had no idea whether or not he was really going to kill himself. The threat would have seemed real, given everything he was going through. Or at least seemed like a realistic possibility. But you’re completely right, of course, that eliminating murder, suicide, and violence would ruin so many great works of art. It’s meant to be shocking to discover that Oedipus killed his father and married his mother. It’s meant to be a gory gut punch to see Quint eaten alive by the shark in Jaws. Trigger warnings and avoidance just render them inert.

Good point. I don't even know if they had "existentialism" in the 16th C. But yes, great theatre has always meant to shock, or at least discomfit. That's part of the fun of it and why people go. Since the Greeks. I think we are confident that someone has always been telling a spooky story by the campfire since the invention of fire. It does seem painful that, all of a sudden, "children" (and worse, college students,) are too delicate for a good shake-up.

 

[Jelenafan]

Banned by Tennessee School Board, 'Maus' Soars to the Top of Bestseller Charts

Art Spiegelman's graphic novel details his parents' experiences in Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust

www.smithsonianmag.com

This is disturbing imagery,” Spiegelman tells Jenny Gross of the New York Times. “But you know what? It’s disturbing history.”

 

[Moxie]

Banned by Tennessee School Board, 'Maus' Soars to the Top of Bestseller Charts

Art Spiegelman's graphic novel details his parents' experiences in Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust

www.smithsonianmag.com

"Maus" is one of the more shocking ones that they are trying to ban. The Diary of Anne Frank is also on the list I linked above. When I was in high school, they showed us films of the liberation of the camps. Barely documentaries...basically raw footage. Was it upsetting? How could it not be? But how can you even teach history if you're going to scrub it of all the nasty bits? There is the oft-quoted: "Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it." The first time I saw a grandfatherly Jewish man in NY with a number tattooed on his arm, it chilled me to my core, and it should have. You're suppose to learn in school to be deeply afraid of these kinds of terrible things so you are armed to fight them. Are people trying to protect their children from the horrors of history, or are they denying the Holocaust? I honestly don't understand.

 

[Horsa]

I have to say, the Daily Mail is pretty far right and reactionary. Here is at least a fuller reading of what O'Hanlon said:

Royal Shakespeare Company to teach children about 'racism, sexism and ableism' in plays

The Royal Shakespeare Company will teach school children about “racism, sexism, and ableism” in the Bard's plays, theatre bosses have said

headtopics.com

She is the education director of the RSC, and she is trying to increase outreach to school children, and at a young age, when, as she says here, that it is waning:

Whose Culture | Blog | Royal Shakespeare Company

Speech given by Jacqui O'Hanlon, RSC Director of Education. Focusing on relationships with schools and cultural education

www.rsc.org.uk

I'm going to say this: ignore what looks like a scary PC headline, and look at what they are trying to do, which is bring RSC and the bard to schools, where it is running more fallow. There have been attempts to update the language, and I agree that is an abomination, but this is not that. However, Shakespeare's plays have been subjected to and adapted very well to modern interpretation. Precisely because they are so universal and adaptable. If it needs some context, after 500 years, for younger readers/theatre goers, is that shocking? They are still trying to ban "Huckleberry Finn" in the US for use of the N-word, but it doesn't need banning, it needs context.

I don't think this is an "abomination" so much as The Daily Mail being anti-PC, and not getting what someone was trying to do. She seems to me to be 100% in favor of teaching Shakespeare to as young an audience as possible.

Thank you very much for the extra information.

I agree that it's a good idea to teach children that in the past these words were acceptable but they're not now & teach them like themes but think that they should start by teaching them about all the language used 1st by getting them to read the plays as if they were in drama & then getting them to watch the plays, history of Shakespeare's time & how the plays would have been played would go well next followed by the theme classes which should be done like a book-club in my opinion. (Although I read Henry V before I studied Shakespeare in High School, that's not a play I studied. I studied Romeo & Juliet which I loved & McBeth which I hated. I failed my English literature because my English teacher forced us to watch the film & wouldn't let us read the book & I cry at the sight of blood so when the exam came along I just couldn't do it. I also studied Shakespeare's sonnets which I loved. I prefer his sonnets to some of his plays. My favourite Shakespeare play is 12th Night. I love Stephen Fry's version of that.)

 

[Horsa]

"Maus" is one of the more shocking ones that they are trying to ban. The Diary of Anne Frank is also on the list I linked above. When I was in high school, they showed us films of the liberation of the camps. Barely documentaries...basically raw footage. Was it upsetting? How could it not be? But how can you even teach history if you're going to scrub it of all the nasty bits? There is the oft-quoted: "Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it." The first time I saw a grandfatherly Jewish man in NY with a number tattooed on his arm, it chilled me to my core, and it should have. You're suppose to learn in school to be deeply afraid of these kinds of terrible things so you are armed to fight them. Are people trying to protect their children from the horrors of history, or are they denying the Holocaust? I honestly don't understand.

I agree. I had to read & watch programmes about Anne Frank both in history & in English & in both Middle School & High School. I found it distressing & thought it was disgusting what the Germans did to the Jews & that Anne Frank was amazing.

I prefer reading the distressing parts of history to watching documentaries about them as I can turn my imagination off at will.

I don't think books should be banned unless they could cause people to do stupid stuff or cause trouble. The rest should be left for people to learn.