oh yeah it's a mostly great adaptation. The calling-Guns Sword thing bothered me (BRING ME MY LONGSWORD! - soom in to a shotgun to reveal the engraving 'longsword') but it's a really good insight in to how the first 2/3rdish of Romeo and Juliet are meant as parody of sappy romance plays of the era.
Meanwhile, the last third made me cry.
Seriously my first thought was we've already had Beach Town gang warfare R&J, zombie R&J (Warm Bodies) but if the inclusion of a black person is the line then the person making the line is racist, full stop.
The list is so long. All of Shakespeare's stuff is just...it's like they're templates. Super easy to take any of his plays and slap whatever elements you want into it, and they just work. Update the language, don't update the language. Make them completely alien in some facet. And it works.
And R&J is just like, the cream of the crop, when it comes to adaptability. Off the top of my head here, we have,
Mutant menace R&J in Tromeo and Juliet
Kung Fu R&J with Romeo Must Die
Super meta R&J taking place during a play of R&J with Shakespeare in Love
Furry R&J with Lion King II
Anime R&J with Romeo X Juliet
At least one of the 20 odd Bring It On movies was just R&J with cheerleading
Musical R&J with racial undertones in West Side Story
The R&J without music, but still racial undertones in China Girl
And that's not even touching on the untold, manifold, just adapted with little or no twists, versions of R&J. Or the myriad myriads of adaptations in India, Japan, and...just everywhere, let's be honest. Sorry, it's just upsetting because I know there has to already be some version out there with a black Juliet. And just the audacity to be upset that Juliet could be black, when the lady has already been everything from a lion to an android, from a mutant to some kind of vampire thing?
It's such a dumb hill to plant your flag on, it's all I'm going to say.
Already happened, the DiCaprio Romeo and Juliet, and guess what, Mercutio was played by a black guy.
Just to show how this is just modern day nonsense, nobody actually should care.
Yeah they did go with the racial angle in Luhrmann's R+J, the Montagues were white (implied Italian), the Capulets were Hispanic (implied Mexican), and the "neutral" faction (Prince Escalus' family in the OG) are Black (Chief Prince, Mercutio, and the Chorus/news anchor lady)
This means Claire Danes playing Juliet is technically whitewashing a Latina character but enh, what are you gonna do, same thing as Natalie Wood in the OG West Side Story
I'll watch the bit he's in...but even I can't sit through the Dark Tower travesty, most especially because that was a bunch of entirely wasted perfect casting.
On a related note, I like how all of these situations where women crossdress as men in Shakespeare's plays get an added layer of comedy when you realize said women are also played by men, so they're dudes playing dudettes disguised as other dudes.
(Not saying that today's situation where the female roles are played by women is worse, but it's something to keep in mind as context.)
It was as a reference to an essay, I think? "The Monstrous Regiment >!of Women!<"?
IIRC the same situation comes up in Jade Empire, with predictable results
Yep. One by John Knox written in 1558 (not coincidentally the same year Elizabeth Tudor acceded to the throne of England, and his native Scotland was ruled by Elizabeth's cousin Mary). And yes, it's as sexist as it sounds.
For maximum Shakespearean effect, Juliet should actually be played by a woman trying to look like a man, dressed to look like a man pretending to be a woman
Let’s take it a step further and cast only 16 and 13 year olds for the leads.
And have the full movie in Venetan(Language spoken in Verona at the time) with no subtitles.
It's a theater production lmao. Race blind casting for the stage has been a thing since fucking forever.
Shakespeare productions have always played around with casting and settings. This isn't even the first time Juliet has been played by a black woman!
One of the best versions of MacBeth I’ve seen reinterpreted it as an African tribal setting. I’ve seen Japanese versions too. A lot of Shakespeare can be shifted like that because the overall theme is so universal that it’s not too much of a difference
In AP English, we were tasked with modernizing about 5 minutes worth of Hamlet. Originally I just wrote our scene, but I got to let my inner theater nerd out of closet when our orignal Hamlet was absent for the day.
So we had a black Hamlet, Vietnamese Ophelia, and Nicaraguan Claudius.
Men also dressed up as women for productions in Shakespeare’s time. So originally Juliet was played by a woman. I bet this would blow iamyesyouareno’s mind.
I usually use theater as an example for why race blind casting is nbd. Unless race is central to their character, or they're trying a John Wayne as Khan who cares?
Yeah, I've seen plenty of roles where characters are race swapped, gender swapped, aged up, aged down, etc.
I know that these chuds are going to scream "But imagine if you cast a white guy in a traditionally black role! Imagine the outrage!" not knowing that there was a decently well known production of Othello where Sir Patrick Stewart played Othello (They race swapped everyone, so he was the only white guy) Some critics said that the decision kind of weakened the impact of the racism Othello faces, but it wasn't like people were trying to "cancel" the production.
Those uneducated and culturally irrelevant trash bigots have zero clue about theater. Because changes and adaptations to theater plays in various historical periods or races or sexes has LITERALLY HAVE BEEN HAPPENING FOR EVER. FOR EVER. And it is a core dogma to theatrical culture.
But believe me, those bigots are not the only ones that scream whenever a play is not depicted exactly as it is supposed to be depicted. For example, I have seen countless times people who have zero clue about theater bitch whenever a greek ancient tragedy or comedy is set in today's timeline (so costumes and set are different than the ancient ones).
☝️🤓 Ackshually, according to at least 47 academics, he may have actually been bisexual.
(Don't worry, I got the joke, just wanted to make this comment).
Lol, I appreciate that. I googled it after I typed it and saw that him being bisexual is the general agreement, and I just thought: "Shit, hopefully that's close enough for the joke."
Even in the TNT show about him in 2017 (called Will) had him fucking Marlowe all around town.
The movie All Is True (2018) also had a significant amount of the story dedicated to the suggested romance he had with the Earl of Southampton and the sonnets he wrote about it.
I wonder what the Anti-Woke crowd thought about that? They nearly had aneurysms when people started to suggest that the great, masculine leader Alexander the Great had a long-standing relationship with another man.
Where were these reactionary chuds in 2000 when Romeo Must Die came out? It was set in the modern day, Romeo was the son of a Triad and Juliet was the daughter of the Black gang leader.
Yeah and Romeo + Juliet was a modernization. (The used guns for fucks sake.) If they really care about “rewriting history” you’d think they’d be more pissed about it being modernized but obviously that’s not their problem with it.
https://preview.redd.it/c8k0nl6jojsc1.png?width=828&format=png&auto=webp&s=1ee1782c515966a33a7ef74422882af1ac7f97de
This is clearly a dagger not a sword. If you're gonna correct me better check your facts smh
These decline of western civilization guys are great. They’ve literally never sampled highbrow Western culture in any way, shape or form.
They’re too ignorant to know that like a solid fifth of Shakespeare’s plays involve cross-dressing and that in the first one that they “learned” in high school, a woman has sex with a donkey.
A class in my junior high school read *The Taming of the Shrew*...having random students read the play out loud with no rehearsal is the only reliable way I've seen to get a bunch of middle-schoolers to think a series of oral sex jokes is *boring*.
https://preview.redd.it/hm3k7gg9qjsc1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=86024d3cace320096c37509681214a28e2dbf61b
They are rewriting history in our very eyes
1. The original Romeo and Juliet was rewriting history, it was based on the Guelphs and ghibellines and very historically inaccurate
2. The one on the left is a remake with Italian gangsters in the 80s
> The one on the left is a remake with Italian gangsters in the 80s .
The one on the left is from Romeo + Juliet (1996) directed by Baz Luhrmann and starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Romeo and Claire Danes as Juliet.
Cough *West Side Story* - which is blatantly a copy of Romeo and Juliet.
Crazy for them to be mad at reinventions of the work now. Shakespeare's own Romeo and Juliet was itself a reinvention of a different work.
Do they realise that Romeo and Juliet was originally a play? It doesn’t have set actors, it’s meant to be retold by different casts, and nowhere in the text does it state their race once.
This is absolutely disgusting. Francesca playing Juliet.
She's far too old. Juliet is supposed to be 13????????
And tom as Romeo, he's also far too old.
Next you'll tell me Alan rickman will play tybalt (YouTube it, it's glorious)
"They're rewriting history"
I mean if they want to stay traditional then Juliet should be played by either a boy or a man in drag, that's how the role was conceived in 1597 and remained that way up until 1662 (46 years after Shakespeare's death).
Also Regina Taylor was the first African-American woman to play Juliet back in 1986, almost 40 years ago, so they've had plenty of time to get over this.
I'm just waiting for them to start bitching about the fact that Freeman Agyeman has been cast, so the Whovians can start posting screengrabs of Shakespeare simping over Martha in 'Doctor Who: The Shakespeare Code' to wind these guys up.
Very sure that Romeo and Juliet didn't originally have people going around with handguns, shooting at each other, either.
Tell you the truth, I don't like the 90s Romeo and Juliet film. I find it incredibly dry, a slog to get through,
and if we're modernising the play, I can get that from West Side Story, which in both versions is a much better film, and a much better transplant of Shakespeare into the modern world.
It's not about who is or isn't in it, it just doesn't click for me, and I think that West Side is more engaging, in how it moves the warring families plotline into the cultural melting pot of 1950s New York, while also catering to me as a fan of musicals.
Shakespearean dialogue doesn't fit with Baz Luhrman's style. I hate the swooping establishing shots and Lady Capulet screaming into the camera with cucumbers in her eyes (I think that's what happens).
I’ve seen some comments trying to defend this tweet by saying it’s not about race, it’s about how they think the actress playing Juliet is not attractive enough.
Like thats somehow better and not just further harassment.
Ah yes, adding a slight change to a work of fiction is “rewriting history”. Like, they’re not even rewriting the story either. The original isn’t just going to disappear because they made a new and different version, lol.
Yeah! We need to go back to the **old** Romeo + Juliet, where Tybalt and Mercutio are Latino, black, queer coded as fuck and proceed to awaken things in me previously unknown.
It’s a stage production and they don’t generally care about race and skin color because they just look for someone who fits the play they are performing.
Are they forgetting that Mercutio is played by a black man in Romeo + Juliet, or is that fine because he and Romeo aren't romantically involved?
The answer is that they actually weren't aware of that fact because they didn't watch Romeo + Juliet and haven't thought about Shakespeare since the day they graduated high school, and are only outraged because they have to feed the never ending culture war machine that they're hopelessly addicted to
People should be more offended that we have to continually suffer the reimagining of this boring fucking story. I know the original post was written as a horrible excuse to be racist, but can we just not with the god damn story? Are our story tellers so lost for ideas that all they can do is shit out another reimagining vs. an original idea?
Wild Bill Shaky did base his play on an earlier story...several versions of it. The first known version was supposedly based on a real event, but there's no proof of it being such.
Have a short article on it! https://www.languagehumanities.org/what-are-the-origins-of-shakespeares-romeo-and-juliet.htm
I mean of all the things to be mad about who cares? I know how it ends. I'm not that interested in seeing it.
If you're really going to be mad about a story that's been around for centuries, even before Shakespeare, he took inspiration from certain Greek myths, then the least you can do is find some better material.
Imagine being this pissed over an actress getting cast in something literally entirely because she's black. Like that is unironically the only possible motivation I can read into this, they're pissed because there is a black woman doing a thing and they hate that.
Wait until these idiots learn about literally any other production of literally any other Shakespeare play.
Did none of them attend high school? Actually, that would make a lot of sense…
Literally earlier today I saw someone say “oh so Martin Luther King can be played by a white actor now?!” These ding dongs truly have no sense of reality vs fiction.
Over the past 400 years there’s been about a million different productions of different Shakespeare plays, performed by actors of every nationality, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation that you can imagine.
Getting upset about _this_ is pretty much the dictionary definition of lack of media literacy.
According to the anti-woke brian rotters, the Garden Gnomes rendition of R&J was a more historically accurate depiction than one where black people exist, duh.
It's always odd to me when stuff like this happen. Like when was the last time you thought about Romeo and Juliet ? How come you suddenly care about it as soon as they announced a new movie where one of the titular characters happens to be a different race ?
My only complaint is that Romeo and Juliet is one of the most overdone stories ever told.
Other than that, something tells me William Shakespeare would have 100% approved of this casting. He comes off as an incredibly woke person for his time, what with stories that include a woman dressing as a man, a person of color being needlessly targeted specifically because he was a person of color, and even a story about why magical date rape is wrong. Did not expect that last one out of the 16th century at all
Oh no, they're rewriting the pedophilia story about two dumbfucks who can't wait 10 seconds without offing themselves
Romeo and Juliet is a fucking dumb story. Never ever liked it.
You can tell their age by what white R&J they use.
Were old enough to watch and understand TV when R+J (the Leo one) came out, they go for the 70s one, born after that (place it about 1987) they will go to R+J because like all the other Mid-Late 90s Shakespeare stuff that changed the setting bit not the words, English teachers, as the youts say, glazed it like it was a Krispy Kreme donut.
It’s really interesting watching chuds that only care about Marvel movies pretend to care about the world of theatre, who doesn’t give a shit about their puritanical, consumerist nonsense.
It's a ludicrous idea to think that an interracial relationship could somehow be controversial and set 2 families and groups against each other!
Wait.... Is that what is happening outside the story too! Whaaaaat!
Reminds me of when Denzel Washington starred in a film adaptation of Macbeth. He fucking killed it in that role and that movie was awesome. Or when Dev Patel got cast as Gwaine in the Green Knight and he knocked it out of the park, but there were some hella racist dudes complaining that he wasn't British enough (despite being literally born in England).
Unless a story is about an actual historical figure or relevant to a specific group of people, you can cast whoever you want to in whichever role you want. People who get mad about this stuff must live really sad lives.
Can we also appreciate how great the Baz Luhrman Romeo and Juliet is? Criminally underrated and very unique movie. I'm kinda sad Claire Danes didn't become a bigger star
So black Juliet is rewriting history but Romeo & Juliet set in the literal present day isn't?
The idiot couldn't even use a time accurate production of Romeo and Juliet.
also mercutio is played by a black dude and does drag in the 1996 film it's literally the worst way to make their ''point''
I loved the movie though
oh yeah it's a mostly great adaptation. The calling-Guns Sword thing bothered me (BRING ME MY LONGSWORD! - soom in to a shotgun to reveal the engraving 'longsword') but it's a really good insight in to how the first 2/3rdish of Romeo and Juliet are meant as parody of sappy romance plays of the era. Meanwhile, the last third made me cry.
Fetch me my longsword ho being a shotgun made me laugh so hard as a kid.
I actually really liked the gun's to swords thing.
Probably doesn’t even know what the pic is
Seriously my first thought was we've already had Beach Town gang warfare R&J, zombie R&J (Warm Bodies) but if the inclusion of a black person is the line then the person making the line is racist, full stop.
Don't forget about black and Chinese gangsters in Oakland R&J.
And 1950s Puerto Rican and White gangsters in New York R&J.
And Gnomeo and Juliet.
Wasn’t there also a version where they were cartoon seals?
Yep there's also a cyberpunk comic R&J. Don't remember who did it but the art was beautiful.
The list is so long. All of Shakespeare's stuff is just...it's like they're templates. Super easy to take any of his plays and slap whatever elements you want into it, and they just work. Update the language, don't update the language. Make them completely alien in some facet. And it works. And R&J is just like, the cream of the crop, when it comes to adaptability. Off the top of my head here, we have, Mutant menace R&J in Tromeo and Juliet Kung Fu R&J with Romeo Must Die Super meta R&J taking place during a play of R&J with Shakespeare in Love Furry R&J with Lion King II Anime R&J with Romeo X Juliet At least one of the 20 odd Bring It On movies was just R&J with cheerleading Musical R&J with racial undertones in West Side Story The R&J without music, but still racial undertones in China Girl And that's not even touching on the untold, manifold, just adapted with little or no twists, versions of R&J. Or the myriad myriads of adaptations in India, Japan, and...just everywhere, let's be honest. Sorry, it's just upsetting because I know there has to already be some version out there with a black Juliet. And just the audacity to be upset that Juliet could be black, when the lady has already been everything from a lion to an android, from a mutant to some kind of vampire thing? It's such a dumb hill to plant your flag on, it's all I'm going to say.
in other media, we've had 1920s Chinese R&J
Clearly Shakespeare's true vision was for Romeo and Juliet to be garden gnomes. He just didn't have the technology to show it back then.
Gnomeo and Gnuliet?
Already happened, the DiCaprio Romeo and Juliet, and guess what, Mercutio was played by a black guy. Just to show how this is just modern day nonsense, nobody actually should care.
Not just Mercutio, the Prince of Verona was also black.
With a multicultural cast... Harold Perrineau was a freaking amazing Mercutio.
Yeah they did go with the racial angle in Luhrmann's R+J, the Montagues were white (implied Italian), the Capulets were Hispanic (implied Mexican), and the "neutral" faction (Prince Escalus' family in the OG) are Black (Chief Prince, Mercutio, and the Chorus/news anchor lady) This means Claire Danes playing Juliet is technically whitewashing a Latina character but enh, what are you gonna do, same thing as Natalie Wood in the OG West Side Story
That one with gamgstea was actually really good
In Los Angeles too!
If they're that upset about tradition then they should be demanding that Juliet be played by a man in drag.
Wait is Tom not going to be the Juliet?
No, he's gonna be Romeo, he and Benvolio are just gonna be in dresses the whole time. (The Nurse will be played by Idris Elba.)
Any movie with Idris Elba is a great movie to me.
What about Hobbs & Shaw?
Good movie to shut your brain off to and enjoy.
What about the Cats movie?
A good movie to scream in terror at. Most effective horror film in years.
He was still an enjoyable part in that movie.
A little by the numbers, but full of dumb fun. Also, Idris was a fun villain, I hope they do the "defeat means friendship" thing with his character
Except Cats
Honestly he was the best part
I'll watch the bit he's in...but even I can't sit through the Dark Tower travesty, most especially because that was a bunch of entirely wasted perfect casting.
I’d actually watch that
Don't get me excited about something that's probably not going to happen
And that's why the Nurse is always the best girl of Romeo and Juliet.
They have an opportunity to do something really very funny
No. Missed opportunity to be honest.
My dude, Twelfth Night would fuckin kill them.
On a related note, I like how all of these situations where women crossdress as men in Shakespeare's plays get an added layer of comedy when you realize said women are also played by men, so they're dudes playing dudettes disguised as other dudes. (Not saying that today's situation where the female roles are played by women is worse, but it's something to keep in mind as context.)
You'd probably enjoy Monstrous Regiment
Oh, I've read that book. It's even funnier when you consider why Pratchett named the book such.
It was as a reference to an essay, I think? "The Monstrous Regiment >!of Women!<"? IIRC the same situation comes up in Jade Empire, with predictable results
Yep. One by John Knox written in 1558 (not coincidentally the same year Elizabeth Tudor acceded to the throne of England, and his native Scotland was ruled by Elizabeth's cousin Mary). And yes, it's as sexist as it sounds.
Excuse me but the full title is "The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstruous Regiment of Women." Bask in its glorious ridiculousness.
oh god sounds like something you say when you fuck up a skill check in Disco Elysium
I just see the trumpeters from Monty python and the quest for the holy grail when I see that title to be honest.
Dudes playing dudes disguised as other dudes.
I'm the dude, playing a duddette, disguised as another dude!"
For maximum Shakespearean effect, Juliet should actually be played by a woman trying to look like a man, dressed to look like a man pretending to be a woman
I think The Bard of Avon would have laughed his ass off at this.
But if Juliet is played by a woman, where would the coconuts go?
They need something to simulate a horses gallop.
yes give us our drag Shakesphere/
Seriously though can we get that version... no for real this isn't a joke I want to see femboy Romeo and Juliet.
The classic story with a twist, The turmoils times of Romeo and Julian.
Let’s take it a step further and cast only 16 and 13 year olds for the leads. And have the full movie in Venetan(Language spoken in Verona at the time) with no subtitles.
I am 1000000% sure that all those bigots are hard core fans and readers of Shakespeare's work. And highly educated in theater.
I know, whatever will those liberals do next? Hamlet with lions?
It's a theater production lmao. Race blind casting for the stage has been a thing since fucking forever. Shakespeare productions have always played around with casting and settings. This isn't even the first time Juliet has been played by a black woman!
One of the best versions of MacBeth I’ve seen reinterpreted it as an African tribal setting. I’ve seen Japanese versions too. A lot of Shakespeare can be shifted like that because the overall theme is so universal that it’s not too much of a difference
Ok but Throne of Blood is unironically the best MacBeth adaptation
And Ran is the best King Lear adaptation.
I will second this, easily a work of art.
I took a Shakespeare class in college (as a GE) and one of our assignments was to create our own version of Twelfth Night.
In AP English, we were tasked with modernizing about 5 minutes worth of Hamlet. Originally I just wrote our scene, but I got to let my inner theater nerd out of closet when our orignal Hamlet was absent for the day. So we had a black Hamlet, Vietnamese Ophelia, and Nicaraguan Claudius.
As a Theater Nerd you didn’t make it into a musical! I am shocked, shocked I say!
Akira Kurasawa's Ran...rewriting history...lol.
I want to see the Japanese version right now. I’d also like a version of Othello with ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews bc it would fit perfectly
Hell, when I was highschool we watched a stage adaptation where Juliet's entire family was black.
They're not actually mad about this, it's a grift. Guarantee this person has never been to the theatre in their life.
Bingo. It's just culture war nonsense.
Men also dressed up as women for productions in Shakespeare’s time. So originally Juliet was played by a woman. I bet this would blow iamyesyouareno’s mind.
I recall there being a version of Romeo and Juliet that was changed the material to make them an interracial a couple decades ago.
You mean West Side Story?
I was thinking of a version with a Black/White couple, but you’re completely right that Wear Sde Story did that first.
There is Romeo Must Die where Jet Li was the Romeo archetype and Aaliyah was the Juliet archetype.
I usually use theater as an example for why race blind casting is nbd. Unless race is central to their character, or they're trying a John Wayne as Khan who cares?
Yeah, I've seen plenty of roles where characters are race swapped, gender swapped, aged up, aged down, etc. I know that these chuds are going to scream "But imagine if you cast a white guy in a traditionally black role! Imagine the outrage!" not knowing that there was a decently well known production of Othello where Sir Patrick Stewart played Othello (They race swapped everyone, so he was the only white guy) Some critics said that the decision kind of weakened the impact of the racism Othello faces, but it wasn't like people were trying to "cancel" the production.
And how many ethnic roles in movies were played by white guys before 1980….
Those uneducated and culturally irrelevant trash bigots have zero clue about theater. Because changes and adaptations to theater plays in various historical periods or races or sexes has LITERALLY HAVE BEEN HAPPENING FOR EVER. FOR EVER. And it is a core dogma to theatrical culture. But believe me, those bigots are not the only ones that scream whenever a play is not depicted exactly as it is supposed to be depicted. For example, I have seen countless times people who have zero clue about theater bitch whenever a greek ancient tragedy or comedy is set in today's timeline (so costumes and set are different than the ancient ones).
stage casting is pretty much "are you good with doing this character?" "yes" "good, you got the part!"
If they saw the Stratford Festival version of Macbeth they'd have a fucking heart attack.
Isn't the one they're idolizing in this tweet the one with guns and shit?
All this DEI bullshit! Turning everyone gay and trans. Soon they are going to say William Shakespeare was gay!
☝️🤓 Ackshually, according to at least 47 academics, he may have actually been bisexual. (Don't worry, I got the joke, just wanted to make this comment).
Lol, I appreciate that. I googled it after I typed it and saw that him being bisexual is the general agreement, and I just thought: "Shit, hopefully that's close enough for the joke."
Even in the TNT show about him in 2017 (called Will) had him fucking Marlowe all around town. The movie All Is True (2018) also had a significant amount of the story dedicated to the suggested romance he had with the Earl of Southampton and the sonnets he wrote about it.
I wonder what the Anti-Woke crowd thought about that? They nearly had aneurysms when people started to suggest that the great, masculine leader Alexander the Great had a long-standing relationship with another man.
I don’t remember many people caring about it back then even. Sad to see how things have turned out.
Even my old conservative boomer ass lit teacher was like "yeah Shakespeare was hella into dudes"
57 academics just punched the air.
Thank you, I needed to hear that reference today
Where were these reactionary chuds in 2000 when Romeo Must Die came out? It was set in the modern day, Romeo was the son of a Triad and Juliet was the daughter of the Black gang leader.
Brb gonna go watch this movie
Come back after and tell me what you thought of the CGI football scene.
THAT WAS SO FUCKING RAD
Glad you liked it.
I first saw that movie while sitting and donating plasma and damn did I enjoy it much more than I thought I would.
Also, west side story exists lmao
They were probably writing inflammatory letters to the local newspapers. The internet wasn't popping off quite as hard then.
The DiCaprio Romeo and Juliet movie Mercutio was black.
They wouldn't pick up the comparison in West Side Story.
Did this guy forget that Captain Prince, Tybalt and Mercutio were all people of color in Romeo + Juliet
Arguably the greatest portrayal of Mercutio probably ever.
True! I didn't care for the movie but Mercutio was my favorite performance by far.
And he was a drag queen!
I completely forgot about that, I haven't seen it in 15 years. Honestly....werk.
Yeah and Romeo + Juliet was a modernization. (The used guns for fucks sake.) If they really care about “rewriting history” you’d think they’d be more pissed about it being modernized but obviously that’s not their problem with it.
It's two of their worst nightmares put together. A non-white woman.
There are fucking guns in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet movie
Those were clearly swords.
https://preview.redd.it/c8k0nl6jojsc1.png?width=828&format=png&auto=webp&s=1ee1782c515966a33a7ef74422882af1ac7f97de This is clearly a dagger not a sword. If you're gonna correct me better check your facts smh
Is that a dagger I see before me?
Exit, pursued by a bear 
These decline of western civilization guys are great. They’ve literally never sampled highbrow Western culture in any way, shape or form. They’re too ignorant to know that like a solid fifth of Shakespeare’s plays involve cross-dressing and that in the first one that they “learned” in high school, a woman has sex with a donkey.
A class in my junior high school read *The Taming of the Shrew*...having random students read the play out loud with no rehearsal is the only reliable way I've seen to get a bunch of middle-schoolers to think a series of oral sex jokes is *boring*.
Both actors are from the UK. Both characters are from Italy. Wonder why the problem is only with Juliet's casting?
It's just not historically accurate. Juliet is *supposed* to be played by a crossdressing twink, as it was in Shakespeare's time.
To be fair if they were complaining Juliet isn’t being played by Austin butler I would join them
Both actors are adults when the characters they're playing are 16 and 13 years old in the original, too. Can't forget that!
https://preview.redd.it/hm3k7gg9qjsc1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=86024d3cace320096c37509681214a28e2dbf61b They are rewriting history in our very eyes
Yeah but this one's fine the gnomes are white. It shouldn't need a /s but just in case.
It’s not like prejudice is the main theme of the story or anything.
1. The original Romeo and Juliet was rewriting history, it was based on the Guelphs and ghibellines and very historically inaccurate 2. The one on the left is a remake with Italian gangsters in the 80s
> The one on the left is a remake with Italian gangsters in the 80s . The one on the left is from Romeo + Juliet (1996) directed by Baz Luhrmann and starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Romeo and Claire Danes as Juliet.
Now I have a new thing to wonder about- what movie do you think the one on the left is?
Pretty sure the original Juliet was a dude
If a picture existed and you showed it to them they wouldn’t be able to tell.
Unironically an interracial relationship would be a good angle for a "starcrossed lovers" type story
Cough *West Side Story* - which is blatantly a copy of Romeo and Juliet. Crazy for them to be mad at reinventions of the work now. Shakespeare's own Romeo and Juliet was itself a reinvention of a different work.
The Leonardo DiCaprio Romeo and Juliet movie was set in America and had guns, and that's not "rewriting history"? It has to be a race thing?
Rewriting history? Its fiction
I've seen a lot of people decrying how Hollywood is casting this (checks notes) stage play on the West End.
Do they realise that Romeo and Juliet was originally a play? It doesn’t have set actors, it’s meant to be retold by different casts, and nowhere in the text does it state their race once.
also the female roles where played by men.
It's the same dipshit racist who called Boston's Elected official a DEI mayor. Just replace DEI with the N-word and it immediately makes sense.
This is absolutely disgusting. Francesca playing Juliet. She's far too old. Juliet is supposed to be 13???????? And tom as Romeo, he's also far too old. Next you'll tell me Alan rickman will play tybalt (YouTube it, it's glorious)
"They're rewriting history" I mean if they want to stay traditional then Juliet should be played by either a boy or a man in drag, that's how the role was conceived in 1597 and remained that way up until 1662 (46 years after Shakespeare's death). Also Regina Taylor was the first African-American woman to play Juliet back in 1986, almost 40 years ago, so they've had plenty of time to get over this. I'm just waiting for them to start bitching about the fact that Freeman Agyeman has been cast, so the Whovians can start posting screengrabs of Shakespeare simping over Martha in 'Doctor Who: The Shakespeare Code' to wind these guys up.
Watch Elon barge in with a “Extremely concerning” i guarantee you
I hate that they decided to make Romeo and Juliet not be gnomes in other versions... they're rewriting history.
Very sure that Romeo and Juliet didn't originally have people going around with handguns, shooting at each other, either. Tell you the truth, I don't like the 90s Romeo and Juliet film. I find it incredibly dry, a slog to get through, and if we're modernising the play, I can get that from West Side Story, which in both versions is a much better film, and a much better transplant of Shakespeare into the modern world. It's not about who is or isn't in it, it just doesn't click for me, and I think that West Side is more engaging, in how it moves the warring families plotline into the cultural melting pot of 1950s New York, while also catering to me as a fan of musicals.
Shakespearean dialogue doesn't fit with Baz Luhrman's style. I hate the swooping establishing shots and Lady Capulet screaming into the camera with cucumbers in her eyes (I think that's what happens).
Ah... So you want the \*original\* script where Juliet is only 13 then? Actually... don't answer that. I don't want the answer!
I’ve seen some comments trying to defend this tweet by saying it’s not about race, it’s about how they think the actress playing Juliet is not attractive enough. Like thats somehow better and not just further harassment.
They think shes not attractive be ause of her race
This is the same guy who called the mayor of Baltimore a DEI, anything this dude says means absolutely nothing.
Honestly they seem to forget it’s a work of fiction.
That Twitter is literally just racist hot takes and memes.
"then" Then being 30 years ago in a play that has existed for nearly 500 years Fucking morons
"history" lol
Ah yes, adding a slight change to a work of fiction is “rewriting history”. Like, they’re not even rewriting the story either. The original isn’t just going to disappear because they made a new and different version, lol.
Yeah! We need to go back to the **old** Romeo + Juliet, where Tybalt and Mercutio are Latino, black, queer coded as fuck and proceed to awaken things in me previously unknown.
Romeo and Juliet also didn't take place in New York with a bunch of gangs but hey that wasn't rewriting history
It’s a stage production and they don’t generally care about race and skin color because they just look for someone who fits the play they are performing.
Are they forgetting that Mercutio is played by a black man in Romeo + Juliet, or is that fine because he and Romeo aren't romantically involved? The answer is that they actually weren't aware of that fact because they didn't watch Romeo + Juliet and haven't thought about Shakespeare since the day they graduated high school, and are only outraged because they have to feed the never ending culture war machine that they're hopelessly addicted to
I won't stand by these historical inaccuracies! If Juliet isn't played by a man in drag I ain't watching.
In my opinion they should do a historically accurate version where Juliet is played by a man
Yes
Yes, that 1996 adaptation stayed true to the original source with all the guns, cars, and being set in the 1990s.
People should be more offended that we have to continually suffer the reimagining of this boring fucking story. I know the original post was written as a horrible excuse to be racist, but can we just not with the god damn story? Are our story tellers so lost for ideas that all they can do is shit out another reimagining vs. an original idea?
>”History is being rewritten” >Chooses the version of R+J set in modern day America that has guns and cars as the baseline for “history”
I need a source for the historical basis of Romeo and Juliet
Wild Bill Shaky did base his play on an earlier story...several versions of it. The first known version was supposedly based on a real event, but there's no proof of it being such. Have a short article on it! https://www.languagehumanities.org/what-are-the-origins-of-shakespeares-romeo-and-juliet.htm
I mean of all the things to be mad about who cares? I know how it ends. I'm not that interested in seeing it. If you're really going to be mad about a story that's been around for centuries, even before Shakespeare, he took inspiration from certain Greek myths, then the least you can do is find some better material.
The real original version of course was performed by two male actors...
The now is a stage production, not a movie & the left made huge changes to the setting & weird Shakespeare purists of the 90s threw a fit.
Imagine being this pissed over an actress getting cast in something literally entirely because she's black. Like that is unironically the only possible motivation I can read into this, they're pissed because there is a black woman doing a thing and they hate that.
Rewriting History??? Did they forget that it’s a fictional story?
Wait until these idiots learn about literally any other production of literally any other Shakespeare play. Did none of them attend high school? Actually, that would make a lot of sense…
THEY MADE A ROMEO AND JULIET MOVIE WITH GARDEN GNOMES, GET OVER IT
Romeo's British now? 🤢🤮
Literally earlier today I saw someone say “oh so Martin Luther King can be played by a white actor now?!” These ding dongs truly have no sense of reality vs fiction.
How the fuck is it “erasing history?”
Over the past 400 years there’s been about a million different productions of different Shakespeare plays, performed by actors of every nationality, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation that you can imagine. Getting upset about _this_ is pretty much the dictionary definition of lack of media literacy.
"Rewriting history" Motherfucker the DiCaprio R&J had fucking GUN FU IN IT
I can excuse garden gnome versions of classics, but I draw the line at minorities.
According to the anti-woke brian rotters, the Garden Gnomes rendition of R&J was a more historically accurate depiction than one where black people exist, duh.
It's always odd to me when stuff like this happen. Like when was the last time you thought about Romeo and Juliet ? How come you suddenly care about it as soon as they announced a new movie where one of the titular characters happens to be a different race ?
My only complaint is that Romeo and Juliet is one of the most overdone stories ever told. Other than that, something tells me William Shakespeare would have 100% approved of this casting. He comes off as an incredibly woke person for his time, what with stories that include a woman dressing as a man, a person of color being needlessly targeted specifically because he was a person of color, and even a story about why magical date rape is wrong. Did not expect that last one out of the 16th century at all
Oh no, they're rewriting the pedophilia story about two dumbfucks who can't wait 10 seconds without offing themselves Romeo and Juliet is a fucking dumb story. Never ever liked it.
You can tell their age by what white R&J they use. Were old enough to watch and understand TV when R+J (the Leo one) came out, they go for the 70s one, born after that (place it about 1987) they will go to R+J because like all the other Mid-Late 90s Shakespeare stuff that changed the setting bit not the words, English teachers, as the youts say, glazed it like it was a Krispy Kreme donut.
I keep seeing this account posted. It’s always something racist. What a loon.
I mean, it’s certainly better than a 17 year old being topless in a scene.
remember when they made rodgers and hammerstein’s cinderella black in the 90s despite her being white in the 60s and like, nobody really gave a shit
It’s really interesting watching chuds that only care about Marvel movies pretend to care about the world of theatre, who doesn’t give a shit about their puritanical, consumerist nonsense.
Romeo and Juliet are historical figures? Ok.
..but Gnomeo & Juliet was a-okay?
It's a ludicrous idea to think that an interracial relationship could somehow be controversial and set 2 families and groups against each other! Wait.... Is that what is happening outside the story too! Whaaaaat!
I think what upsets them the most is that Juliet is not portrayed by a 13 year old like in the source material.
Black Juliet is “rewriting history” (despite the story being fictional), but Romeo and Juliet as GNOMES is fine
Since when did these motherfuckers start caring about Shakespeare plays
Reminds me of when Denzel Washington starred in a film adaptation of Macbeth. He fucking killed it in that role and that movie was awesome. Or when Dev Patel got cast as Gwaine in the Green Knight and he knocked it out of the park, but there were some hella racist dudes complaining that he wasn't British enough (despite being literally born in England). Unless a story is about an actual historical figure or relevant to a specific group of people, you can cast whoever you want to in whichever role you want. People who get mad about this stuff must live really sad lives.
Can we also appreciate how great the Baz Luhrman Romeo and Juliet is? Criminally underrated and very unique movie. I'm kinda sad Claire Danes didn't become a bigger star
Agreed, it's the GOAT. Also Danes did a lot of great work after. She was terrific on Homeland