The Outsiders. Sort of. Only not.
There are several options for dealing with the concept of the excluded in the Merchant of Venice, but I can't say that the degree of "offensive (ness) to modern sensibilities" is how I would make my decisions. Everyone knows the play was written in the past, if I'm being true to the time period I'm not going to take out references to Jews or African Americans because they're now obsolete and wrong. However, if I'm going with a modern spin on things, I'm not going to keep those references because they aren't going to mean anything to anyone. I doubt anyone coming to the play has ever spit on a Jewish person. That's just unlikely. If we go with the theme of "high school drama" (which is easy for me cause I'm in the middle of it) I would change things to be relevant to the kid's lives.
For instance, we talked about Shylock as being the nerdy kid that everyone avoids. The Moor going for Portia's hand could be a guy who doesn't stand a chance with her class of classyness. We discussed Antonio being a Ferris Bueler kind of person. He's got a lot of friends, people don't avoid him, but he definitely doesn't fit in! Portia's her own kind of outsider-- some of the class expressed doubt that a cheerleader could be as witty as Portia is. For an audience of young people, this would actually mean something. It would have a message or a moral if you will, about the different sides to people. I guess that's how I'd approach it. The concept is that everyone gets stereotyped, and everyone has more to them.
If I wasn't doing it in a high school setting, I'd have Shylock being that annoying outcast that people still have to deal with. Like Dwight on The Office. He's that unfortunate soul who never quite figured things out. The Moroccan Prince would be... maybe a mexican immigrant? I don't mean to imply that I look down on these people groups, they just seem to fit the parts in regards to the way we view people. It would be fairly easy to portray Antonio as a homosexual man as he may already be in the original play.
totally different subject
My club, Associated Women Students, is putting on the Vagina Monologues in about a week. We have lost a couple of performers in the last few days and are desperate to find people to replace them. I instantly thought of you with your courageous "balls to the wall" attitude for performance! Please contact me whether you are interested or not. My cell number is
951-1513. my emails are awspres@spokanefalls.edu and joyfulgirl42@gmail.com. If you email, please send one to both as I can only get the school email while at school. Thank you so much and I hope to hear from you! Melissa Soland
SE Hinton
I totally thought that this journal was going to refer to the book, The Outsiders, by S.E. Hinton which is my brothers favorite book. I really liked your line, "The concept is that everyone gets stereotyped, and everyone has more to them." This seems like the basis of the characters. It's almost as if everyone in the play just needs a stereotype tossed on them, and the plays job is to tear that stereotype apart. Unfortunately for us, the play is already written, so we have to base the stereotypes off of ideas from the script. How do you think someone like Bassanio views Shylock? If you looked at all the different relationships this way, it might be easier to cast stereotypes upon people according to today's archetypes.
Ryan K Bishop
Hinton
Stay gold, Ponyboy. Or something like that.
I was thinking of the Outsiders as I read the prompt, but since I didn't refer to it, I put in the "Only Not" bit. I also love that book.
I think it's a good point that the way all the actors view each other can help us define what their role would be today,
In regards to who suffers most (This responding to professor Bleck) I think that Shylock clearly has been so wounded by the way he is viewed that he allows it to define and change who he is, almost making him start to live into the stereotype. But another person in Shylock's exact position may not be hurt nearly as much. He may simply take joy in his family and his identity as defined by himself. Wouldn't make a great story, but it's possible.
I 'd also like to note that it's not just the characters that are being stereotyped that are being hurt in this situation. The characters put others like Shylock or Portia into boxes hurt themselves, too. Antonio could have been the one person who reached out and treated Shylock with respect. Because he didn't, because he led the mocking, he burned those bridges and placed himself in the dangerous position that the court scene finds him in.
Erin Kay Schulz
stereotyping shylock
It seems that Shylock is the one who suffers most from stereotyping, with the denigration he faces each time he meets one of his adversaries. How might we balance the varying degrees of offensiveness? Yes, it's sexist to think that a cheerleader can't be bright/smart but is that sexism as bad as the antisemitism Shylock faces? Should we be more concerned with one rather than the other? Is there a way to make it clear that sexism and antisemitism are just different sides of the same (but not identified by me as of yet) coin? Bradley
Bradley