So...I posted a while ago about a review of the movie "Anonymous" (I would put a picture here if I cared enough about it, but I don't, so DEAL with a pictureless post), and I went to see it as soon as it came out here because, whatever, I love movies, OK!? And even more than movies, I love a good period piece. Y'all know me. Anyways, I just realized that it's been weeks and I've failed to say anything about it (and a million other movies), partly because I was just. So. Disgusted. by it.
So here's the thing. Hopefully you know a little bit about Shakespeare. And hopefully you know a little bit about alternate theories of authorship of his works. One of the most popular (and most perplexing and obnoxious) theories started sometime in the 1920s with someone who said to himself one day "well this Shakespeare fellow was lower class. And poorly educated. And so was his family. So there is NO possible way that he would have been smart enough to pen the most transcendent works of the English language. No effing way, man" (they talked like that in the twenties). So this man set out to figure out who else could have been behind it and came up with Edward de Vere, then Earl of Oxford. He was wealthy, he was smart, he was close to the royal family (well the royal person, Elizabeth didn't exactly have a family...), somebody said one time that he was a poet, blah blah blah, it must have been him!
Fast-forward about 90 years, and, despite the fact that 10 of Shakespeare's plays were not performed or published before Oxford's death (and they could not have been published posthumously because some refer to events that didn't happen until years after his death), the theory only continues to grow in popularity, supported and propogated by celebrities (and why not? they're famous, so that makes them smarter than us, righ?!), despite the best efforts of prominent Shakespearean scholars to debunk this piece of ridonculosity (Shakespeare made up words, so I can too. Werd yo.)
So all this was floating around in my mind before I went to see "Anonymous", but I thought I'd find a pretty good movie despite the absurdity of its premise. Unfortunately, I found myself unable to willfully suspend my disbelief and enjoy the movie for its own sake. Why, you ask? Because, as the film went on, that premise struck me as more and more offensive. What? I was offended by a movie?!?? Yes, apparently I'm not beyond feeling. Or something.
Anyways, what offended me so much is that this whole theory (and the movie that supports it- director Roland Emmerich has become a major proponent, and released with the movie, a documentary by his prodcution company and lesson plans to be sent to high schools so kids could learn about this hogwash) is based on the idea that poor/uneducated/obscure people cannot do extraordinary things. Can you imagine tteaching that to high schoolers? Oh hey kids, do great stuff with your lives, but probably just accept that since you're pretty average you'll never do anything better than average, and if you do, the credit will go to someone else, because who would seriously believe that a kid like you could do anything extraordinary? I don't know why this makes me so mad, but it just does.
Oh and on top of that, the people who made this movie and who support the Oxfordian theory of authorship probably mourned the recent loss of Steve Jobs, designer and entrepeneur extraordinaire, which strikes me as ironic because, like Shakespeare himself, Jobs' early life was rather unextraordinary.
And. AND...should I spoiler this? don't read any further if you don't want spoilers.
According to this movie, Queen Elizabeth was a raging wanton who bore many children who were farmed out to be raised in anonymity by her noble vassals. So she never knew who they were. So we find out as the movie progresses that Oxford had an affair with Elizabeth that resulted in a child. NOT KNOWING THAT HE HIMSELF HAD BEEN ONE OF HER CAST-OFF CHILDREN. WHAT:SODfao;sh;oqw??!~!orh;oh?!?!?!?!??!! Oh yeah and they had a kid together. So Elizabeth had a child with her son. HER SON.
I like to keep an open mind when it comes to history, but this type of historical revisionism, that drags major players down to the gutter without any supporting evidence is just disgusting.
UGH. What a frustrating movie. I actually almost walked out of it. For me to even consider walking out of a movie is...pretty extreme. It is classist, it is disrespectful, and on top of that, probably its worst crime is that it's just not entertaining.
Not. Recommended.
I heard that producers and the like sent info regarding the alleged verity of the story to history professors, trying to get them to encourage people to see it. Like they thought if their theory gained some credence from experts people would be more likely to see it. Which is stupid. If they had just represented it as a fun what-if story (fun that it's made up, not fun like it's a comedy) like Inglorious Basterds, maybe it would've done a bit better. Maybe. I haven't seen it, so I'm just blowing hot air. And I haven't seen Inglorious Basterds. So there's that.
ReplyDeleteOh yeah they totally did- did you miss the part where I mentioned the lesson plans and the documentary? LESSON PLANS. Like they actually expect schools to teach this junk. As someone who is part of a profession whose mission is to not only help people find information (good information), but to teach people how to find it themselves, and how to distinguish between good and bad information, I see this creating a huge problem with future crops of high schoolers. I imagine they'll start citing press releases from film companies to support research papers. Or some crap like that. ("uh duh...you mean Shakespeare DIDN'T write "Romero and Juliet" for Gwyneth Paltrow dressed as a man?")
ReplyDelete(oh wait, I'm mixing up my historically misleading Shakespeare movies)