Conservatives and Liberal Alike Freak Out Because They Have No Idea What Julius Caesar is About

So last week Delta and Bank of America withdrew financial support from the Public Theater because their production of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare drew inspiration from politics of the day.  As the article I linked to states, this interpretation isn’t new.

In fact, the Guthrie did an Obama themed version of the play five years ago.  Outrage generated: zero.

What pisses me off here is the fact all these pissed off people apparently haven’t actually read the play.  Or if they read it, they didn’t understand it.

And I get that.  Shakepearean language can be challenging.

“Villain: I have done thy mother.” Titus Andronicus Act IV, Scene II

So here’s the thing: Julius Caesar is not a play about how awesome it is to assassinate political leaders.  The assassins in the play all end up dead!

The motivations of one of them, Brutus, are noble.  The motivations of the rest are less clear and certainly more selfish.  Caesar himself is complicated – neither wholly good or wholly bad.

To pitch a fit because the subject of the assassination is kind of like Donald Trump is missing the point.

But further, what the hell has happened to our country that our President is off limits completely? We can make jokes about him but heaven forfend we depict him as the subject of an assassination attempt.  We can only do that with fictional Presidents?

If the concern is that we’ll give people ideas, I’m sorry to say that they already have those ideas.

The events of this week already prove that.

Basically, this should be a non issue.  The left shouldn’t care because fuck Trump and his party if they can’t take a joke (which this isn’t even) and the right shouldn’t care because they should fucking read the play.

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