Anonymous postscript

So, it’s been a little while. Last post was my review of a fairly bad movie, Anonymous. I expected some kind of reaction – but not what I got. I did not expect the childish name-calling and wrong-headed abusiveness that resulted from the two anti-Stratfordians who showed up. To be perfectly honest, the nasty childishness of it put me off till now; it’s the first time I’ve encountered such ugliness as a result of this blog. Ah well.

Ehren Ziegler said in a recent episode of Chop Bard “Neither historic facts or the fundamental physics of the universe are that important when compared to the story.” And that’s true. Facts were flexible in the plays; the only truth that counted was the truth of the narrative. Shakespeare had no overriding agenda other than to tell a great tale. If he needed a historical to be alive when according to record she was actually dead, then he revivified at will (so to speak).

The producers (by which I mean not just the filmmaking term but everyone responsible for the movie, from writers through directors through publicists) did very much have an agenda; any claims otherwise, given the slander perpetrated in the film and the way the thing was marketed, are specious. It puzzles me how they think it furthers this agenda to fill their movie with inaccuracies and outright lies. If their aim is truly to try to convince people that Devere wrote Shakespeare it seems strange; if so much of it was false, a logical assumption can be that it all was. Not the best way to change minds or win hearts.

Neither is name-calling.

Who’d have thought? Topics to be avoided in polite conversation include sex, politics, religion, and the authorship question. It’s a sad world.