Lady Macbeth is a strong character, no doubt. In fact, she's even stronger than Macbeth in some ways in the first two acts. But is she mostly just mouthing off?
In recent weeks, a video clip from the Dr. Phil show has become immensely popular online. It features a 13-year-old by the name of Danielle whose mother wants to hand her over to the authorities for being absolutely out of control. Danielle hits her mother and steals cars, and is unashamed and loudmouthed when it comes to how "bad" she is. This sort of delinquent behaviour is unfortunately a staple of talk shows nowadays, but the distinguishing feature of this particular Dr. Phil episode is when Danielle turns to the audience at large and screams to them what sounds like, "cash me ousside, howbow dah?!?!?" which roughly translates to the English threat, "catch me outside, how about that". She invites a fight with any one of the grown audience and show crew members, and even 'squares up' to her mother at one point. Right then though, her mother says to Dr. Phil, "but this is all mouth, do you see? She's all mouth." When Danielle gets up to argue, she is silenced by Dr. Phil and told to sit down. When asked what her thoughts are on the very likely situation that she will be caught stealing a car and will be tried before a court, she responds that she is too shrewd, too "street-wise" to ever be caught. She'll find her way out of such a situation in no time.
Now, it may seem like a long shot to try and compare Lady Macbeth to Danielle. However, there are some similarities between them if you REALLY think about it. One of their basic characteristics is how gosh darn pushy they are. Lady Macbeth pushes her husband to the point of murder with words of toughness, manlihood, and obligation. In the Dr. Phil clip, Danielle has fiery threats and challenges, no, dares, anyone to come cross her. However, in a follow-up video (not on Dr. Phil, but one that some person recorded then posted on social media), Danielle is leaving the Dr. Phil show after her episode and another girl comes up to her, drags Danielle from the car, and proceeds to fight her. Danielle is "snatched" and gets "dragged", aka she loses very badly. It seems, then, that all her car-stealing history and street wisdom don't count for much when faced with an actual opponent of sorts. Similarly, for all of Lady Macbeth's nipple-plucking, baby-head-smashing fantasies, all she does on the morning of the discovery of Duncan's body is swoon. While Danielle and Lady Macbeth certainly have a wild history and lots o' mouth, neither of them display these traits in real time. So much for cashing ousside, huh.
Strictly Research:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEj8v1hb3Ws
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQGF4DUc86s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNpsink2xDw
Monday, January 30, 2017
Banquo's prophesy
After I finished reading, I realized that all of the witches prophesies came true in Macbeth except for the one the said Banquo would never be king (which is true) but his descendants would. I wondered if I missed something in the book, but when I looked it up I realized something pretty interesting. As we know, Malcolm becomes king after Macbeth, and he is actually roughly based on Malcolm III of Scotland who happened to have a younger brother Donald III, but neither are descendants of Banquo, nor will the next 19 generations however eventually we get to a dude named James VI who also happened to be James I of England and legend says he was a descendant of Fleance, even though it is basically accepted that Banquo and Fleance probably weren't real.
As interesting as this is (to me at least), I found it on reddit so I'm not sure how accurate it is.
As interesting as this is (to me at least), I found it on reddit so I'm not sure how accurate it is.
Thinner and Macbeth
A couple of months ago I watched Thinner on Netflix, which is a movie based on the book by horror author Stephen King. In a really condensed summary, a fat, upper class lawyer named Billy Halleck hits a gypsy one night with his car. Since he is friends with the court judge and police officer, he avoids any charges filed against him. As a result of the accident and the manipulated trial, the father of the dead gypsy curses Billy, the judge, and the police officer each with a unique plague. Billy is cursed with becoming thinner and thinner until he is nothing more than skin and bones, so emaciated he will die. At first Billy and his wife are happily surprised by the many pounds he is shedding, oblivious to the fact that a curse was placed on him. However this relief soon turns to fear as Billy can’t stop losing weight no matter how much food he eats and how many doctors he sees. Billy’s rapidly decreasing weight completely turns his life around and he ends up going to great lengths to remove the curse.
It wasn’t that great of a movie and it definitely creeped me out, but now I see that it has some pretty cool connections to Macbeth. Thinner is kind of like the opposite of Macbeth. Billy’s failure to pay attention while driving and then successful attempt to play the court system shows his corrupt nature, which leads to him receiving the curse and being controlled by supernatural forces. Conversely, in Macbeth the three witches’ prophesy is what leads to Macbeth being consumed by uncontrolled determination and avarice for power. Similarly, both leading characters, once they learn of the supernatural forces at play in their lives, stop at no ends to either fulfill or undo their "prophecies." For Billy, this means destroying his relationship with his family, wreaking havoc among the gypsy village, and ultimately intentionally killing his wife and then daughter accidentally in order to lift the curse from himself. Likewise, Macbeth becomes a tyrant in order to satisfy the prophecies that the witches told him, becoming a murderer and losing his kingdom, his wife, and eventually his own life.
Tuesday, January 17, 2017
Monday, January 16, 2017
Sherlock and Macbeth
I recently watched Episode 2 of the new season of Sherlock, and I was struck by how similar one scene was to Macbeth's dagger soliloquy, as well as other themes this episode shares with Macbeth.
Some background: John Watson's wife, Mary, was shot in the first episode, and since then, and all throughout this episode, he's been seeing hallucinations of her. When he sees her, her purpose is either to act as his conscious, or to ease the pain of her death. During the end of the episode, John confesses to "Mary" that he cheated on her while she was alive, and we get this shot, which snaps us back to reality
.
This shot is quite similar to Patrick Stewart's dagger soliloquy where he also talks to something that isn't there.
These 2 scenes use the same concept to convey 2 different thoughts. Both characters see something they desire, whether it be their wife or a dagger. However Watson uses his hallucination as a way of coping with his wife's death(also, Macbeth hallucinates voices following his murder of Duncan. This is interesting because while Macbeth is directly responsible for Duncan's death, Watson also blames himself for his wife's death, despite not being the killer). Shakespeare uses the hallucination as a way of showing Macbeth's hunger for power.
Watson is not the only one who hallucinates in this episode, though. A major twist in the episode is when it's revealed that Sherlock hallucinated a meeting with a woman who gave him a murder case while on drugs(everything she told him turned out to be true in real life though, which doesn't make sense). This is related to Macbeth because they both carry out real actions based off of fake things. In one variation of Macbeth, he literally follows the floating dagger to where he will murder Duncan. In Sherlock, this fake meeting is what starts him on a real case(And again, all the things the hallucinated woman told him were actually true, which doesn't make sense, but anyway). Another interesting comparison is that Sherlock's hallucination is caused by his desire to solve crimes, while Macbeth's is caused by his desire to commit crimes.
This theme of hallucination as a way of showing feelings and desires is prominent in this episode of Sherlock and the dagger soliloquy
Some background: John Watson's wife, Mary, was shot in the first episode, and since then, and all throughout this episode, he's been seeing hallucinations of her. When he sees her, her purpose is either to act as his conscious, or to ease the pain of her death. During the end of the episode, John confesses to "Mary" that he cheated on her while she was alive, and we get this shot, which snaps us back to reality
.
This shot is quite similar to Patrick Stewart's dagger soliloquy where he also talks to something that isn't there.
These 2 scenes use the same concept to convey 2 different thoughts. Both characters see something they desire, whether it be their wife or a dagger. However Watson uses his hallucination as a way of coping with his wife's death(also, Macbeth hallucinates voices following his murder of Duncan. This is interesting because while Macbeth is directly responsible for Duncan's death, Watson also blames himself for his wife's death, despite not being the killer). Shakespeare uses the hallucination as a way of showing Macbeth's hunger for power.
Watson is not the only one who hallucinates in this episode, though. A major twist in the episode is when it's revealed that Sherlock hallucinated a meeting with a woman who gave him a murder case while on drugs(everything she told him turned out to be true in real life though, which doesn't make sense). This is related to Macbeth because they both carry out real actions based off of fake things. In one variation of Macbeth, he literally follows the floating dagger to where he will murder Duncan. In Sherlock, this fake meeting is what starts him on a real case(And again, all the things the hallucinated woman told him were actually true, which doesn't make sense, but anyway). Another interesting comparison is that Sherlock's hallucination is caused by his desire to solve crimes, while Macbeth's is caused by his desire to commit crimes.
This theme of hallucination as a way of showing feelings and desires is prominent in this episode of Sherlock and the dagger soliloquy
Monday, January 2, 2017
Breaking Macbeth
Macbeth in 2013?
And...if you're already a fan of Breaking Bad, here's a great (but long) montage that shows the full evolution of Walter White over the course of the six seasons.
And...if you're already a fan of Breaking Bad, here's a great (but long) montage that shows the full evolution of Walter White over the course of the six seasons.
What is your moral alignment?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)