Lord, what fools these Shakespeare censors be
Women dress as men and men as women. A pair of teenagers secretly elope. There is open talk of private body parts. And boy, is there sexual innuendo. Lots of it. Small wonder that certain individuals in the state of Florida — ever vigilant to the possibility that their children will learn about the world around them — are considering the extraordinary step of banning the full works of William Shakespeare from being taught in public schools.
Henceforth, some educators in the Sunshine State recently declared, students shall be exposed to Shakespeare only in small bits and not in longer, potentially indecent lengths of prose. No more five acts of “Romeo and Juliet,” but perhaps just the balcony scene.
This unusual action was judged necessary in order to comply with the Parental Rights in Education Act, the legislation proudly paraded around in public by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. The Republican governor’s crackdown (aka the “Don’t
Say Gay” law) has quickly had a chilling effect on curriculum, nearly knocking out Advanced Placement Psychology from being taught in many districts. The flailing presidential candidate and his supporters don’t want kids to hear about sexual orientation and gender from anyone other than their parents — and classmates and the internet and television shows, music lyrics, social media posts, readily available online pornography and, you know, everywhere else.
To this, I say boldness be my friend. DeSantis has the right idea but the wrong reason. The real problem with the Bard isn’t that Romeo and Juliet get intimate before they’re old enough to get a driver’s license, it’s the absolute bloodbath of violence that can be found in so many of his 37 plays. Stabbings, beheadings, poisonings — you name it and Shakespeare has got it. Ever hear of young men killed, chopped up and baked into a pie fed to their mother? You haven’t read “Titus Andronicus.” The body count in “Richard III” is even higher with victims beheaded, stabbed (there’s a lot of that in the folio) and, my personal favorite, drowned in a barrel of wine. Seriously, Richard III makes Julius Caesar’s assassination seem like civil political discourse. Do we really want the bored high school English students to learn that historic figures did some really terrible things? Aren’t the Donald Trump arraignments enough?
Here’s my theory: I think there’s a direct connection between reading Shakespeare and contemplating murder. Look at the evidence. Across the United States, homicide rates are falling this year. You know what else has fallen? Live theater attendance. Shakespeare has had fewer opportunities to infect people’s minds with thoughts of being or not being.
Here’s another shocking detail: Those major “Democrat-run” cities with gun violence? They all have Shakespeare festivals. You can look it up. In New York, they perform Shakespeare plays in Central Park. That’s right out in a public space. Where people can see it! For free! San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, they all have theaters devoted to Shakespeare. It’s just a matter of time before the police report a series of pillow-smothering deaths of spouses in the manner of “Othello.” Or perhaps deaths caused by pursuing bears like in “The Winter’s Tale.”
Oh, I know what you’re thinking: Well, that’s just stupid. Of course, it is, but I bet Shakespeare got that reaction all the time when he wrote things like “all the world’s a stage” or “what is past is prologue” or
“be not afraid of greatness.” That’s standard newspaper column fare. When he raised the sexual insinuations — and dead bodies — to the maximum, he laughed all the way to the Globe Theatre, knowing it would be packed with patrons. He may have even realized his words would be forced on unsuspecting generations of students who would not only be exposed to a cross-dressing lawyer (“Merchant of Venice”) but a blowhard named Sir John Falstaff who shows up in not one, not two, but three plays (“Henry IV Part 1,” “Henry IV Part 2” and “The Merry Wives of Windsor”).
It’s time we rubbed out these damn spots of genius and removed all the lurid, juicy, entertaining stuff from the classroom. The last thing we need is for English students to be entertained or learn valuable life lessons. How fitting we start the Bard ban in Florida where, as presciently observed in “Troilus and Cressida,” “The common curse of mankind, folly and ignorance, be thine in great revenue!”