Much Ado About Nothing...No Really: Nothing.

(Those two in the middle are the ones I hate the most.)

Well, I've revisited my childhood, and I was not impressed. I was a little grossed out, actually.

This past weekend, at the Bloggers Conference to End All Bloggers Conferences, I spent about nine hundred hours talking with my friend Natalie. We are good at the business of talking. Very good. Mostly, we talked about how we were hungry (again) and where on earth should we eat (again), but when that thread of conversation wore thin, we talked about childhood. I said, "You know what movie I loved, loved, loved when I was younger? Much Ado About Nothing."

When I love a movie or television show, it is like that film becomes the wallpaper of my very heart (or, if we're working with DVDs, it becomes the very shiny, mirrored wallpaper of my heart). I fall deeply in love. So for several years of my tweendom I imagined I was a seriously sun-tanned Beatrice, exchanging witty barbs with Benedick--who I loved in spite of myself--and fighting valiantly to redeem my slandered cousin, Hero. In my real life I wandered around singing the theme from the film, which had me using words like "blithe," "bonny," and "hey nonny nonny." It made me pretty cool to the other seventh graders, let me tell you.

Today, in a fit of nostalgia, I watched Much Ado About Nothing again.

And I hated it. My brain started making all these complaints. For instance, Hero is accused of having sex before marriage, and so her betrothed, Claudio, is entitled to fly into a rage and assault her, while saying terrible, unforgivable things. Then, her father joins in on the verbal attack. Nobody cares to believe Hero's protestations of innocence (except Beatrice, I still love Beatrice). Then, nary a day later her name is cleared (oh! it was another woman with dark hair they saw in the window--tricky!), and Claudio feels like a douche, and she smiles beatifically and all is forgiven! That easily! Then they're married and it's all blithe and bonny, and it put me in a foul, foul mood. I caught myself saying, "Don't marry him, Hero. Put his balls in a vice."

Obviously, the movie is the same, and I have changed. This is probably good news, because I was kind of a wreck at twelve (although, I'm currently eating hot cocoa powder directly from the packet, so my act is not entirely together now--powder everywhere!). And I worry that maybe it's because I'm a hard-hearted shrew of a woman, but an explanation that better protects my ego is that now I like more interesting stories.

For instance, Keanu Reeves plays Don John, the bastard brother to Denzel Washington's Don Pedro. He's a total sourpuss, hell-bent on ruining everyone's lives just because he can. I'd completely forgotten he was even in the movie. When I watched this time, I thought to myself, "Now, he's interesting. How did he come to be this way? What does he think he'll accomplish? What was his childhood like? Has he ever loved anyone?" Because Don John is the character with real complexity, you know? (And the irony that he's being played, woodenly, by Keanu Reeves is not lost on me.) I like complexity. Now that I'm full-grown, I find myself rolling my eyes at the happy ending, and siding with the play's great villain.

So, the first hypothesis was correct after all: I'm a hard-hearted shrew. But you know who has it worse? The tweens who, in fifteen years time, will have to go back and watch Twilight. They're in for it.

Shrewdly,

Kendall