Shakespeare Pop Culture: The Myth and Fiction of the Man Behind the Plays

One of the most significant impacts made by Shakespeare, is the formation of cultural stereotypes based on his famous characters. Characters like Romeo, Lady Macbeth, Juliet and Hamlet have provided character templates to endless popular culture film and show characters, across the globe.

Shakespeare Pop Culture

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Yet I always felt guilty because I was missing out on "high culture," acquiring a taste for art, music, even opera. There is a certain mystique, an aura, around the arts considered high culture. To understand these arts is to be learned, refined. The mystique hovering around these arts may even be due to their inability to be understood and fully appreciated by the mass audiences who frequent Hollywood blockbusters. After all, we can read about history and literature, but learning to appreciate the arts may require something more than just reading, perhaps a special insight. And because Harvard does give us the opportunity to gain that insight, I felt guilty not taking advantage of it.

And then I felt silly. Who's to say that the arts are more important than the other subjects in the Core? Who's to say that appreciating opera is more important than studying international conflicts in the modern world? But somehow I feel that I am losing more than just a class; I'm losing the chance to acquire "high culture." But is "high culture" really more refined and intellectual than the popular culture of today?

It's odd how we associate "high culture" with antiquity. Take wine, for instance, a symbol associated with the upper classes of old. Good wine is always old wine; new wine, mere fermented grape juice. Even vintage, another word for classic, is derived from the Latin word for wine. However, old items are not always palatable on first try. Hence, true appreciation often needs to be cultivated. Only then has one developed taste and an appreciation of the finer, more delicate and intellectual side of life.

Although Harvard has not been subjecting us to wine-tasting tests, the College is definitely attempting to develop some sort of taste, an appreciation of high culture in all its students. Take Literature And Arts B, for instance. Out of the 18 courses offered, only three focus on the twentieth century. Now, this phenomenon is hardly the fault of the Core. Instead, society has deemed that certain tastes need to be cultivated in the intelligentsia; Jeopardy-like trivia does not suffice. True taste relies on the appreciation of certain arts and literatures which are not in popular demand, for instance Shakespeare, opera and ballet.

Of the three, Shakespeare is the most popular. His popularity is partly because most people are exposed to his writings in high school, and so a larger number of people read his works. But Shakespeare has also leaped across the divide of "high culture" to popular culture. Kenneth Branagh recently had a hand in making Shakespeare a common Hollywood name with Henry V, Othello, Much Ado About Nothing and now Hamlet.

The appreciation of Shakespeare's writing requires a step through time and language. But in Shakespeare's own time, he was not considered "high culture." Rather, his plays' successes were each determined by the tastes of the mass audience in the open-air Globe theater, much as Hollywood wagers on that audience for its movies' successes. And just as politicians today decry the lack of family values in the movies of Hollywood, a Parliamentary edict of 1642 (under the Puritans) considered "stage plays" to be "spectacles of pleasure, too commonly expressing lascivious Mirth and Levities," and so banned performance of plays for close to 20 years. In his time, Shakespeare was popular culture.

However, Shakespeare's ascent into "high culture" occurred relatively early. As soon as Charles II assumed the throne and the Restoration period began, managers traded the large open-air theater for a smaller indoor theaters that catered exclusively to aristocrats who could afford high-priced tickets. And some time after that, the study of Shakespeare entered Literature and Arts A.

Ballet and opera, now further removed than Shakespeare from popular appreciation, actually took much longer to ascend to the ranks of "high culture." Opera actually took root in very few countries. Audiences had difficulty accepting dialogue in song, much the trouble some audiences have with Evita. But where opera and ballet were accepted, they were accepted by the masses as popular culture. Opera and ballet were not "high culture."

More than that, western Europe considered those in ballet and opera to be morally bankrupt. The upper classes did frequent this entertainment, but the entertainment was not considered refined or aristocratic by any means. In fact, the dancers and singers were mostly very poor young men and women of the lower classes enticed by money. But there was an ethical draw-back: the Church refused to marry or bury actors and dancers. Thus the frequency of early ballerinas that entered nunneries to repent in their later years. In America, ballet was considered immoral up to the 20th century. Only at that point did ballet ascend the ranks into "high culture."

It is not unusual for us to consider works of the past far superior to works of the present. In the 19th century, an American education was only rounded out by study in Europe, an older civilization than the colonies. In the 1600s, scholars in Europe, to become part of the educated elite, had to study the ancient classics in Greek and Latin. Even before that, when the Romans had conquered the Greeks, who had an older and more established culture, they hired Greek tutors to educate their young aristocrats. Harvard only continues this tradition with Shakespeare, Rome of Augustus, "Greek Heroes," and the courses on the Middle Ages (Chaucer and the like).

But before we separate the "high culture" from the popular culture and decry the lack of virtue in the arts of the present compared to the past, we should look at the origins of "high culture." After all, almost everything that is "high culture" now was popular culture once, else it wouldn't have survived to this day.

Shakespeare, "Art thou base, common and popular?" The answer to this question posed by the Bard is ironic. He is popular, no doubt, but the popularity of his work is not just a fad; he is part of us. References to his works and his name are permanently woven into our culture---in advertising, films, pop songs, television programs, cartoons, newspapers, book titles, music, and magazines. If one types his name into an Internet auction site, one will find a seemingly endless variety of Shakespeare paraphernalia such as bottle openers, ties, caps, mugs, stamps, statues, T-shirts, key-rings, chocolates, candies and bookmarks.William Shakespeare is everywhere. His image, his characters, and quotes from his works can be found in countless movies and television shows. New film adaptations are constantly being made, and the Hollywood version of his love life, Shakespeare in Love, was a critically acclaimed box office extravaganza.William Shakespeare's faculty to delve deep into the labyrinthine and tortuous intricacies of the human mind has stunned readers as well as theatergoers with amazement for more than four hundred years and will do so for many more centuries to come. His portraits of Hamlet, King Lear, Cleopatra, Portia, Othello, and Macbeth all attest to his genius for reaching into the depths of the soul and pulling out its quintessence for all to analyze.This essay attempts to explore a few examples of Shakespeare's wide appeal and influence in our contemporary time. One of America's popular TV series starred a nonhuman characterMr. Ed, but few realize that this character originated in a series of 28 short stories in which the character would recite Shakespeare and speak Latin. Walter Brooks created the stories of the hard-drinking, Shakespeare-quoting horse. The TV show, made possible by the support of George Burns, demonstrates how much the Bard is relevant in our time and how he encompasses our psyche.MacBird, a play by Barbara Garson, is a parody of Macbeth and is also a spoof on the political career of the American President Lyndon Johnson. MacBird is actually Macbeth representing the Johnson character in the play, while John Ken O'Duncs, a version of Duncan, is representing John Kennedy, and Lady Macbird (Lady Macbeth) characterizes Lady Bird Johnson.In Shakespeare's Ghost Writer, published in Superman Comics in 1947, Clark Kent, Lois Lane, and Jimmy Olsen wind up in Shakespeare's England. While there, Superman ghostwrites Macbeth for the real Shakespeare.The 1983 film Strange Brew, starring Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas, is a loose spin-off of Hamlet. It centers around activities in the Elsinore Brewery, and a song from the soundtrack is "Shakespeare Horked our script." We can only wish that he did.In an episode of Peabody's Improbable History from the Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (February 1962), Sherman and Mr. Peabody travel to Shakespeare's time when he is struggling with writer's block over a play tentatively titled Romeo and Zelda. During the episode, he is accused by the Earl of Oxford of stealing his work. In this episode, which has some resemblance to events in the widely popular film Shakespeare in Love, Mr. Peabody suggests Juliet as an alternative to Zelda.The actual title of a Simpsons episode is Much Apu About Nothing. When an anti-immigrant law is put into effect, Apu risks being deported as an illegal alien, and Homer attempts to help him get fake papers.In the ABC TV series Moonlighting, which starred Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis, an episode titled Atomic Shakespeare in 1986, spoofed Shakespeare's play The Taming of the Shrew. David continually quotes from other Shakespeare plays and is repeatedly admonished by the rest of the cast, and at one point, Maddie blurts out "Goest thou to Hell".Neil Gaiman is the creator of the Sandman comic book series that features the supernatural Lord Morpheus, who makes a Faustian bargain with William Shakespeare that is the focus of two of his tales: A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest. A Midsummer Night's Dream won a 1991 won World Fantasy Award for Gaiman.Gertrude and Claudius (2000), a novel by John Updike, and a prequel to Hamlet, tells the story of the title characters from the time of Gertrude's marriage to Hamlet's father up to the second scene of Shakespeare's play. The novel attempts to fill in the gaps of Shakespeare's play, and in doing so, gives interesting perspectives to many of the characters, most notably the usually maligned Gertrude and Claudius.In the Brush Up Your Shakespeare episode of Goober and the Ghost Chasers, the Partridge kids are forced to cancel a concert when the ghost of Macbeth haunts the entire hall. Goober was a skinny dog who turned invisible when he was frightened, and only his hat would show. He was accompanied by a group of youngsters, including members of the Partridge family singing group, who investigated paranormal activity. Luckily for children everywhere, it produced episode for only one season.The song, Brush Up Your Shakespeare, can be found in the musical titled Kiss Me, Kate. It is sung by two mobsters, which many consider to be the highlight of the show.Produced in the 1950s, Shakespeare Howls delineates a set of cocktail napkins featuring humorous cartoons and Shakespearean quotes.Shylock's Daughter, a novel by Erica Jong involves Jessica Pruitt, an American actress in Venice, who goes back in time to meet Shakespeare and his patron, the Earl of Southampton, who have come to the Italian city to escape the plague.In episode #79 of Cosby Show, titled Shakespeare, Theo Huxtable and Cockroach are studying Shakespeare for a school assignment while a professor friend (played by Christopher Plummer) visits the family and a number of lines are performed from Julius Caesar. Plummer is a noted Shakespearean actor, and at the end of the show, Theo and Cockroach perform Antony's funeral oration in rap.Steve Allen was the host for the 1979 PBS series Meeting of Minds, which brought together Hamlet, Othello, Romeo, Shakespeare, and the Dark Lady of the sonnets for a discussion on the nature of love.In episodes #65 and #66 of the original Batman TV series, starring Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin, the caped crusaders encounter a super-criminal played by the Shakespearean actor Maurice Evans, and the two shows are filled with quotes from the Bard. The name of the villain, played by Evans, was the Puzzler. Evans played a Riddler wanna-be and quoted plentifully from Hamlet and Macbeth.Brutus and all other conspirators wash their hands with the blood from the 33 wounds they have just inflicted on the body of Julius Caesar. Cassius prophesies how their glorious act will be replicated again and again, century after century ,"Stoop, then, and wash. How many ages henceShall this our lofty scene be acted over,In states unborn, and accents yet unknown?"The prophecy by Cassius comes true when it has been commonly said that a new book about Shakespeare is published somewhere in the world every day, millions of people go to theaters around the world to see his plays performed, innumerable television shows are made and enjoyed by viewers everyday, movies are shown across the continents and scholars as well as people of all classes quoting him so often. 2ff7e9595c