TYBALT: What, drawn, and talk of peace! I hate the word,
As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee... Romeo and Juliet Act 1 Scene 1.
My students are watching the 1996 version of Romeo & Juliet in classes this week. I've loved this for a long, long time, but this week, something in that long term hate between Montague and Capulet has made some sense to me in a way that hasn't entirely resonated before. Like-- why does the red team fight the blue team and why do they hold onto that hate for so long that people don't even remember why they were mad in the first place? I've always thought John Leguizamo's performance in this movie was great, and I still do, but I've also always been more drawn to Mercutio, later. Cause I always considered myself a more unaligned, neutral party. Chaotic agent, maybe. And who wouldn't love this beauty?
But lately, I kind of understand Tybalt more. Mercutio is just-- messing with everybody. Tybalt has real reasons for things, reasons that make sense to him.
It's really hard to let go of that anger from things that you have no control over. Part of my lecture notes are about the Renaissance Great Chain of Being, about the way people couldn't figure out how to get out of their positions on that chain, in fact, couldn't even imagine it was possible. Until-- everything changed. Apocalyptic change, like the Black Plague, and the Reformation, and the Printing Press, and a Queen of England where there had always been Kings, and a fleet of Military might sunk because of a freak storm (and a little weird luck and unusual fighting style).
Is it really all that different in the world today? We might not have the great chain of being, but we have these-- hierarchies. And rules. And ways things are supposed to work. Or at least we did. n
A lot of people who aren't in the US right now are saying "Why aren't you doing something about it?" Heck, even in this country, people are saying "why isn't the Democratic party doing something" or "Why isn't Kamala doing something" (like what would she do?) or "where is our HERO?" I think we've watched too many Superhero movies and expect Ironman to come bashing in and changing everything. But even in the moment, where there are obvious supervillains, (and I will argue that we are in an obvious supervillain phase) there are a lot of moments in the drama where regular folks, middle of the chain of being folks, who get smashed around, their cars tossed by the Hulk, their apartments destroyed, or whatever. Half the population snapped away. Sure, they come back in the sequel. But they don't ever really talk about that time period (five years) where that half of the people were gone. It's sort of handwaved in the sequels-- the people snapped away just come back in the middle of the next big battle, no time having passed, but the people left behind experienced all that time. The probably learned to not like the other side of the argument much. It would be hard to just get over it.
What happens when, years and years later, you grew up with all that Capulets did this, Montagues did that? I hate peace, hell, all Montagues, and thee.
We're gonna need to work on that. After we get out of this five year snap, cause the alternative is not good at all, and not a place I want us to stay. I just realllllllllllly hope it doesn't actually take five years. Or lose us 50% of the living population.
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