Communicator (communicator) wrote,
Communicator
communicator

Rant about Anonymous

This new film Anonymous (by the guy that brought you 2012, Independence Day and The Day after Tomorrow) is a dramatisation of the nonsensical theory that Shakespeare's plays were written by someone posh: specifically the earl of Oxford. Utter balderdash and claptrap. These folks don't actually do anything useful, but they can pay PR people to rewrite history so it looks like they did things.

Sony pictures have compounded the insult by issuing 'educational packs' for schools. It's the second item down at that link, just above 'Step up to a healthier you' from the Pork Board.

The only Shakespeare revisionism that I think has any credibility at all is the suggestion that many of his plays were collaborative with his fellow actors. If you get to like a modern TV show you do find out the degree to which actors and others contribute to the development of the finished text. The King James Bible, and The Simpsons, and loads of stuff in between, are the result of collaborative effort. And all creative effort owes a lot to everything which has gone before.

There's a tension between celebrating the heroic individual creator - who is real - and the real 'anonymous', the mass of unacknowledged co-creators. This is really why libertarianism and extreme neo-liberalism are nuts. We do owe each other. But this shite attributing his work to some upper class twerp. No.
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  • 17 comments

  • Phew what a scorcher

    I see Gove has backed down on climate change and it's back in the curriculum again.

  • GCSE Computer Science

    My book is now for sale

  • LJ Settings

    At the moment I have set up this journal so that only friends can comment. I hate doing this, but I was just getting too much Russian spam.