Shakespeare's Couples: Teens Teens Teens in Love's Labour Lost

In the world of "Yeah, Shakespeare really did try his hand at anything" stands Love's Labour Lost. A story about four friends swearing off women (sex) and then falling in love anyway seems on par with some of the stupider comedies of the 1980s. 

I watched the 2017 version of Shakespeare's play, which is set in a boarding school in a conservative Christian community. It made me laugh right away with the Bad Girls Get Diseases/Good Girls Don't poster. In fact, there are several scenes that match Monty-Python sex-ed-talk levels. 

The movie's producers "got" that in the earliest of Shakespeare's comedies, he is throwing dopey behavior and discomfort regarding dating and flirtation (and eating paper, which in the world of farce, strikes me as supremely hilarious--don't ask me why) into the blender and having fun. And he was likely quite young when he did it. 

There are naturally four male students and four female students who flirt and court. In truth, the relationships are rather touching, in part because they are so young. The same behavior in older characters would be kind of wearing and tacky and exasperating, which may explain why Branagh's version of this play was not successful (but his Much Ado, which is more witty and challenging, was). 

It is rather sweet to watch bumbling and gawky and frankly horny teenage boys gain a measure of maturity--to watch them grow from wanting to date any girl to being enamored of a single young woman with whom they want to spend time. 

So one lady can encourage Berowne to stop making snide remarks about people and use his wit to help them instead; the final scene of the movie shows him visiting cancer kids and using his clever (self) mockery to cheer them up. Likewise, after the princess's father dies, her beau attends the funeral to give her comfort. Everybody grows up a little.

It is less sweet to watch older folks going through the same ups and downs--which is why Midsummer Night's Dream is funny but has a seriously dark side. 

Everybody in Romance Should Have a Job: Lawyer

As I mention on Votaries, Jessica Fletcher's role as writer allows her to move around the country, where she can come in contact with crimes. In sum, murder mysteries are greatly helped if an amateur detective has chances to get involved in other people's lives. (Rather than having the murders appear on their doorsteps.)

Romance characters also need jobs. Sometimes, the jobs supply conflict and even an underlying arc (such as the job to program an advertising app in On or Off). Sometimes the work supplies conversation. And sometimes humor!

In What Did You Eat Yesterday? Shiro is a lawyer. Although he has training for trials--unlike other attorneys in his office--he rarely goes to trial, which is true for lawyers across the board, including in the United States. In fact, Shiro's cases--no matter how complex--are rarely as drama-oriented as the gossip Kenji picks up at the hair salon.

There are exceptions. In one of Shiro's rare court appearances, he defends an employer who fired a lazy employee. The case leads to the worry that the defendant's husband cursed Shiro--or his family! 

Kenji does get sick. But nobody dies. This is not a horror manga!

Shiro and Kenji: Bourgeois is Good

I complain on Votaries about the archetype of the evil middle class suburban types who are WAY more corrupt and awful than sophisticated city dwellers. 

It's an obnoxious stereotype. It also runs the risk of undermining itself. As I mention in my thesis, Tania Modleski warned feminist scholars against attacking a dominant ideology since many women in so many artistic contexts are connected with the dominant ideology: to attack the dominant ideology in art is to attack those women. 

Lots of people like the middle class suburban lifestyle, and some of those people are those that sophisticated elites supposedly fight to protect.

Take Shiro and Kenji from one of my favorite manga series: What Did You Eat Yesterday? 

Shiro is a lawyer. Kenji is a hairdresser. They live together in an apartment and have for years, for so long that most people in the neighborhood know that they are a gay couple. Granted, they are (sort of) city dwellers, but they live outside of Tokyo (Shiro commutes to work), so they are sort of suburban. In fact, like most people who live even in cities, their local community forms a small neighborhood for that group of people. They talk about where to go to shop and which shrines are open which times. Kenji even does home visits with regular customers. 

The most marvelous thing about the series is that without shying from the occasion discussion and worry over identity and lifestyle, the bulk of the series is not only mostly about eating, it's about everyday life!

A grocery store closes. Costs of certain foods go up and down. Friends come to eat. Shiro gets a new appliance. Kenji's boss opens another branch. Phone plans change. Both men's parents age and need occasional help. Co-workers come and go. 

Everyday, non-dramatic, slice-of-life life matters. It's what most of us are doing most of the time. (One of the most exciting events in Volume 22 is the typhoon--but it rightfully doesn't carry more weight than the cherry-blossoms picnic!)

To ridicule issues, such as "which train should I catch?" and "I think the neighbor is cooking again" is to ridicule the human experience. 

Mrs. Columbo: What Would She Be Like Really?

Repost from 2009: 

Since I posted about Columbo recently, here is a post about Mrs. Columbo. 

* * * 

In 1979, Kate Mulgrew (Captain Janeway for you Star Trek: Voyager fans) created the role of Mrs. Columbo on a show of the same name. The show lasted for two seasons.

Now, I admired Kate Mulgrew, and I think she makes a fine Captain Janeway, but as Mrs. Columbo . . . she just wasn't right.

Granted, Mrs. Columbo is something of a enigma. Columbo constantly makes references to his wife, but it is hard to know how many of his references are based on actual fact and how many are used to put his suspects at ease. Nevertheless, there are a few "real" encounters that give us an idea of Mrs. Columbo.

First, whenever Columbo calls, she is never home. Usually another member of the family answers the phone. Where is Mrs. Columbo? Out looking for flea market bargains or at a movie with one of her numerous family members. Apparently, Mrs. Columbo is a bit of a go-getter, an energetic ball of fire.

This impression is furthered when Mrs. Columbo and Columbo go on a cruise. She's always off to see a show or to see sites on the mainland. The cruise episode also gives us some insight into the marriage. When Columbo gets lost on the ship (lending support to the idea that Columbo is sometimes as scattered as he appears), he calls the room. "I don't know where the hell I am," he says bemusedly. His tone is neither that of the hen-pecked husband nor that of a blustering husband. It is the tone of one companion to another--Hey, you know what my weird life is like; help me out.

This easy-going tone gives credence to Columbo's claim that he discusses his cases with his wife, and she gives him insights and guidance. So Mrs. Columbo is not only a go-getter but a pretty sharp cookie.

Kate Mulgrew's Mrs. Columbo is a go-getter, but she's a Captain Janeway type of go-getter: very WASPy and goal-oriented. Columbo, on the other hand, creates a picture of his wife as less goal-oriented and more a thousand-irons-in-the-fire kind of woman. Less corporate, more bohemian. Less concentrated ambition, more holy-rolling "are we having fun yet" extrovert. She cooks, and she shops, and she makes pottery, and she likes movie stars and traveling and...

I personally picture her as a small (shorter than Columbo) Italian woman--kind of like Rhea Perlman.

I think Mrs. Columbo (1979) was a worthwhile concept, but it needed, well, Rhea Perlman to really pay it off. If it were to be done now, I would also tweak the concept a bit. Kate Mulgrew had Mrs. Columbo be a part-time working mother: a reporter with one daughter (the existence of other children is implied). Frankly, there have been enough shows about reporter-detectives and forensic-detectives and cop-detectives. It's time for the revival of Miss Marple--Italian mama style!

I would portray Mrs. Columbo as a tightly wound, very funny, little Italian housewife (which doesn't mean she's home all that much). She's always hauling her kids off places or running out to shop with her numerous siblings and every time she does, she encounters a crime! Mrs. King, only less spies and more murder.

It's time for the return of the domestic female detective!

Shakespeare Couples: Lear and the Fool

I was recently surprised to discover that King Lear is a common subplot in a number of spoofs and remakes, modernized films/series. I suspect that like MacBeth, with King Lear, Shakespeare captured a series of classic tropes in a way that worked better than anything before or since.

There aren't romantic couples in King Lear, not really. The bad sisters fight over Edmund, who is the ultimate charismatic bad boy. Cordelia's husband seems to like her, but we don't see them on stage together much--until Cordelia's death.

The most sustained relationship is between Lear and the Fool.

The comic-actress Melora Hardin as Madelyn in If I Were You is trying to figure out if her cheating husband truly loves her and if she truly loves him. Madelyn befriends the young woman who is having an affair with her husband; that young woman ends up playing the Fool in a local repertory version of Lear while Madelyn ends up as a female Lear. Her hunt for affirmation provides a different perspective on the titular character's anguish. Lear is looking for love in all parts of his life, and that hunt, like rage, is entirely overwhelming (and even destructive). 

The themes of heartbreak, aging, and abandonment (being orphaned) also occur in the frame story: the death of Madelyn's mother. There, Madelyn meets the temporary romantic lead, Derek, played by Aidan Quinn (who gets to yell at one point, "I'm sleeping with King Lear!"). 

Hardin and Quinn have great chemistry. However, in terms of great loves, the frame story brings the audience back not to the marriage or the boyfriend but to Lear and the Fool. The ultimate point? 

The theater--the relationships within the theater--outlast everything. 

I think Shakespeare would have approved.

A-Z Romances: Milan and the Working Class

A great, great, great many Regency romances take place amongst the gentry--or higher. I think one of the reasons is the success of and liking for Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer. Many writers come to romance by way of Austen and Heyer and know how good the material can be. 

I think, too, that there is interest in upper class lives. Many archaeologists and historians have attempted to make working class lives interesting, but the records on that side are sparse, and even HBO's Rome, which produced decent working-class heroes, entwined those working-class heroes with the dramas of their "betters," in the personages of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony and Cleopatra. 

However, the endless focus on the upper classes does get a trifle monotonous after awhile. Or, at least, it gets harder for the new novel to stand out from the rest, especially when the milieu seems entirely coincidental. Not there for plot reasons. Just there so people can discuss wardrobes. 

Consequently, I tend to prefer romances that take at least one step down the ladder. Loretta Chase's marvelous Dressmakers Series is a great solution to a reader's varied interests since she combines lords and dukes with extremely witty dialog and, most importantly, the sisters' desire to be the best dressmakers in London. They don't simply want to make money. They want to exercise their artistic abilities and managerial skills. The result is delightful books with strong denouements. (In fact, I wish the fourth book--Lady Clara's book, which focuses on legal cases rather than dressmaking--had concentrated more on the couple getting by in the equivalent of the middle class: not quite at Darcy's level, yet not as poor and struggling as Miss Bates.) 

Courtney Milan's Turner Series is somewhat darker than Chase's. However, it also manages to escape the "then they went to ANOTHER dance" scenes. Unraveled, for instance, deals with Smite Turner as a justice and the woman who becomes first his mistress and then his wife. Part of the book is focused on getting a shipwright apprenticeship for a young man--not getting him into Eton. When Smite moves his mistress into a house, it is a townhouse: luxury for her but not, thank goodness, a mansion.

Moreover, though the Turner brothers have a family home and it is a nice place, scenes from the past indicate that at one point the cellar flooded. Even Darcy's cellar probably floods on occasion! (My Darcy-like father spent most of my childhood trying to figure out how to get rainwater not to drain into our basement: my childhood home was a ranch house on a hill.) 

Without turning into a Marxist tract--because people in every age have survived and fallen in love, whatever their economic status (the micro life choices are considered more important than the macro theoretical meaning)--the book, set in Bristol, manages to capture a gritty reality in which people do exactly that.

 

What Makes This Manga Stand Out: Workplace Romance in On and Off

There are many many BL series now in which work peers fall in love. Sometimes, the couple joined the company around the same time. Sometimes, they are rivals from high school or college. Sometimes, they work in the same department. Sometimes, one becomes a superior. And so on. 

I am not opposed to the same plot concept being used and reused. I admit I don't have much tolerance for endless vampire stories. But even there, I think there are exceptions, tales that are unique. 

By "unique," I don't mean avant-garde or "rule-breaking." 

I want story, not some stream-of-consciousness experiment. 

"Unique," for me, refers to a story that is memorable and engaging. It is different for HOW it handles material, not for trying (impossibly) to invent new material.

In the work romance genre, On or Off stands out. No Love Zone, despite also being a full-color manhwa, strikes me as a bit samey and forgettable (No Love Zone is only recently gaining something like a plot: in Volume 3!). 

What makes On or Off unique is not only that the characters have an actual task/account/app to complete (getting that work completed underpins the volumes so far)--the characters also retain core characterizations. 

As I mention in the post on Semantic Error, a good romance keeps the characters' individual oddities even as they fall in love. The characters don't abruptly turn either coy or flawlessly understanding and affectionate. They continue to be idiosyncratic.

In On or Off, Kang keeps his poignant awareness that romance requires negotiation. He misreads Ahn more than once; unusually for an alpha character, he not only takes responsibility for his miscalculations, he studies his lover, whom he finds endlessly surprising. His older age (by about 15 years) aligns with his ability to assess how he and Ahn can find middle ground. 

Meanwhile, dedicated, hardworking, charismatic yet guileless Ahn goes at everything in his impulsive yet tactful way (as when he covers for Mina's bluntness). With Kang, he is straightforward yet abashed. Being in love enhances those qualities!

Ahn and Kang don't transform into blokes who react in the "proper" romantic ways. Rather, they react to their relationship as distinct individuals.