Much Ado About Nothing...Redux

(Here are some friends and I, and our interpretation of a Shakespearean comedy of errors.)

You can't see it, friends, but I'm pouring out a little of my ice cold diet cola in honor of two very important people. My parents. Mom and Dad. Oops, careful, trying to keep it off the keyboard.

Why am I pouring some out for my homies (and did we all listen to enough bad rap to get why I would pour diet coke on my desk? I hope so)? Because they're wise. And when I was younger, and people told me that I'd someday realize they were wise, I was like, "What-ever." But today is someday and my parents are a couple of brainiacs. Why? Because (obviously predicting the limits of my adult attention span) they offered me parental advice in bite-size pieces I remember. They offered the Fun Size candy bar equivalent of parental insight. Some examples:

1. You're going to be fine.

2. If you can't sleep, just rest with your eyes closed.

3. Kill them with kindness.

4. They'll get their come-uppance. (This one went with number 3, filled me with an ominous/passive sense of vengeance and was usually in reference to whomever had most recently been mean to me.)

5. Hate is a strong word.

Even though my parents said, "Don't say shut up," or "Don't say butt," (bottom is more gentile), they never said "Don't say hate." Instead, they would say warningly, "Hate's a strong word," and the weird warning tone of it made me so nervous that I would rescind. "I don't hate my brother," I'd say. "I strongly dislike him." And we all seemed to be okay with that.

Then, yesterday, I dropped at least two (TWO) H-bombs in a single post! What came over me? Astute commenters were concerned. And rightfully so. Natalie said, "You HATED it? How is that POSSIBLE?" And Lynn said, "After all, it's Shakespeare." Right! I don't hate Shakespeare. I love Shakespeare.

Here's what I figured out today, in between getting quotes for shipping my mattress to California, canceling my audible.com account, and taking pictures of the furniture I'm trying to hawk (anyone interested??): I dropped the h-bomb, I used the strong word, not because I hated the movie, but because I strongly disliked how it had fallen in my estimation. My vehement reaction was not to the actual film, but rather to how my feelings about it had changed. (Although I still maintain that the Claudio-Hero story really bugs.)

I make my big move to LA in two weeks, and it is terrifying. I have no idea what I'll be doing in three weeks, or one month, or six months. And renting the movie was an attempt to cling to old, familiar memories. Then I was denied the pleasure of the cling! It had me all worked up. Still, I don't need to take my anxiety out on Shakespeare, or Claudio. (Grrrrr, Claudio.) I'd do better to remember Fun-Sized Parental Wisdom #1: You're going to be fine.

So, in conclusion, to end with a bad bit of word-play, my post yesterday was really much ado about nothing. But it was also much ado about something, just a different something than I thought yesterday when I wrote it. You dig?

Clingily,

Kendall

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