The Bard Blender

The BBC experimented with writing modern screenplays of Shakespearean plays, turning Macbeth into a chef, Beatrice into an anchorwoman and so forth. For the most part this works. I watched the Macbeth and Much Ado About Nothing this morning on youtube and since it's only twenty bucks a DVD of all four that they did, I think I'll add it to my collection. But one thing about the adaptations bothered me: Gender inequality.

Here I am specifically talking about Much Ado. Normally I do not have bouts of righteous feminist anger.  This is partially because I take into consideration the historical mood of the time and recognize that most of what we see was progressive for it's time.  But when you completely modernize a work you have to be mindful of modern conventions.  

The Part that particularly got me was the eavesdropping scenes.  For 'Ben' the dialog they over hear is all about how much 'Bee' loves him, to the point that they lead him to believe she may harm herself for love of him.  This seems fine.  They also comment, in passing, that he would make a joke out of any sign of affection for her.  This too works with the story and is very similar to what Shakespeare's text states.  But when it becomes 'Bee's' turn to over hear about 'Ben's' love, something goes wrong.  It starts out with discussion of his attraction to her and the way they have noticed his reactions to her.  All of which is fine until Margaret butts in about the persona which 'Bee' puts on in order to repel guys.  The conversation then veers dangerously off course at this point and the message that 'Bee' gets to bring away is not that a man is head over heels for her but that if she doesn't drop the frigid bitch act she will soon be too old to get any man. 

I must say this appalled me.  These are recent productions (all done in 2005). I would have though that we would have moved past the independent woman as 'bitch' but apparently not.  Also when I look back at the descriptions of how each one shows his or her love, I begin to see that the description of her love is something that is driving her crazy while his is only something that makes others pity him.  I point this out not so much to criticize the adaptations. The adaptations on the whole were pretty good so far as adaptation goes.  I point this out more to show that we are not so far past sexism as we like to think.  It's strange that it takes Shakespeare to point this out to us.