5 Times Shakespeare's Writing Was Just Stupid

Let me clear the air here before we begin. I am a writer, I am not trained in any way. I write because it makes me happy, the same way reading does. I admire other authors of works both classical and new. With that out of the way, I hate Shakespeare. I think he's a horrible playwright and most of his content was ridiculous even when he was alive and pumping it out. A lot of his stories hinge on true love removing common sense from the vocabulary of the main characters.

Othello - Get Out

I don't really know why Othello thought it was a good idea to just go with the flow instead of asking questions. A handkerchief does not mean someone is cheating. If you were so madly in love with her why didn't you just ask. You already knew people there were not fond of your black ass and you refused to believe you weren't being setup. Then you get caught strangling a white woman and your response is to say "I can't believe this shit," but you had all day to believe it. Maybe Othello just needed a Rod to keep telling him "Slaves man, slaves," and Othello goes to jail at the end because Shakespeare wanted to send his crowd home happy. It's like the alternate ending for Get Out.

Hamlet - Mental Health is Important

So Hamlet's father dies and he's crushed by this. His uncle takes control of the kingdom and essentially goes on a victory tour because he had Hamlet's father killed. Hamlet starts seeing the ghost of his father telling him to seek revenge on not just his uncle but his two timing mother as well. Hamlet knows he shouldn't be seeing ghost and when he tries to tell people they're like "nah fam you good," and next thing you know he's running around the castle butt naked acting like a lunatic and everyone is like "Nah, he's just in love with his cousin." Then shit just goes crazy and there's bodies being hidden and everyone dies. Just everyone, in the royal family ends up dead because they let mental illness go unchecked. I know treatment back then wasn't at the levels it is now but if someone sees a ghost and runs around naked you shouldn't just tell them "that's love."

Romeo and Juliet - Statutory Rape The Play

Let me just cut to the chase with this one. Juliet is 13 and Romeo is at least 18. Why the hell would anyone approve of this relationship? Forget the family feud, this man is the equivalent of a high school senior trying to get with an 8th grade girl. What is you doing. Tybalt is the only real hero here for putting his foot down. He wasn't okay with any of this. Then at the end after both are dead nobody says "damn, Tybalt was right about this one," they don't even mourn his death. They link hands and celebrate the lives of true lovers Romeo and Juliet. But you know what, this probably makes sense to Shakespeare because as soon as he turned 18 he married a 26 year old woman he had already gotten pregnant, but that's not my business.

Macbeth - That's a No For Me

I don't care how much you love someone, if they ask you to murder a few people don't do it. Macbeth didn't even want to be king but his wife rolled up like "I need you to catch a body to prove you really love me." Then he did it no questions asked. As more people started figuring out what happened he started dropping more and more bodies. Eventually his wife is dead and he's talking to her ghost like "Yeah bae, just a few more bodies and it's all good." They should have learned to live by their budget instead of killing to get a bigger one because that always works out doesn't it? Just kill a few people and you make more money. This isn't GTA V.

Merchant of Venice - A Bird In The Hand

So Shylock is Jewish and throughout the play he's tormented, called named spit on and in some performances even beaten for it. Because he's Jewish and not Christian unlike the rest of the town he can charge interest on loans because his religion says it's okay. The Old Testament in the Bible says don't charge interest to people from your own country, widows, poor people or neighbors, that's part of Mosaic Law which would be in the Torah but Christians don't follow Mosaic Law, so technically Shylock would be the one who couldn't charge interest on his loans, if Jewish people still followed Mosaic Law, but they don't and haven't for a long time because that's even mentioned as ending in the Bible. But hey, that's a just a theory, a play theory. Great job Shakespeare. Anyway fast forward and he lends money to a guy that spit on him earlier in the plays. When it's time to collect he doesn't have Shylock's money. A friend offers to pay Shylock twice what he's owed and eventually three times what he's owed. Shylock keeps throwing a fit about how he wants a pound of flesh because he was not paid and that was in the contract. So they tell him if he can take just a pound of flesh, no blood, no hair he wins but if not he loses. Shylock instead wants the money now. They tell him too bad, take all his money and possessions and force him to convert to Christianity. That's Shakespeare's happy ending about the greedy Jew. All this could have prevented several ways; bigotry is bad, don't lend money to people you hate, flesh is not payment, make sure that contract is worded correctly, a bird in the hand is worth more than two in the bush and do't be a fucking bigot. But it's Shakespeare so the bigot actually won.

You can hear Darrell on the CP Time and Powerbomb Jutsu podcasts. He also plays classic arcade games on The Cabinet. You can also check out his playthrough of Sleeping Dogs or Skyrim

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