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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   33258 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023

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I really don't see much difference between Shakespeare and WWE- it's just that we consider one high art and the other something else, probably because Shakespeare was 400 years ago and nobody fully understands its memes any more.

I’m going to try and indulge this argument, because I used to believe a version of it. I was a pretty diehard cultural relativist at one point, coinciding with my Marxist days, so I understand the appeal of this argument. It also happens to be the case that I have read each and every one of Shakespeare’s plays in their entirety, and have personally performed his work. During the years in which, while studying for my theatre arts degree, Shakespeare was being shoved down my throat, I actually reacted really strongly against the veneration of his plays as the zenith of the English literary tradition. Part of that is my strong natural contrarianism, but I think I was also correct to identify weaknesses in his work and the ways in which a lot of people do just worship Shakespeare because he’s Shakespeare, independently of the value of his specific works.

But like… even his worst and most lowbrow play is not comparable to a WWE event. I’m sorry, but that requires a level of “there is no difference between good things and bad things, everything is socially constructed and mediated by status signaling, beauty is in the eye of the beholder” that just doesn’t hold up to any honest analysis of the works in question.

My good buddy is a huge WWE fan, and I used to watch Wrestlemania and the occasional pay-per-view event with him, and I agree that it’s a fun time, with moments of genuine excitement, but it’s not Shakespeare.

Now that sounds like a fun remix. "Heels get stunnered many times before their pin; faces taste the folding chair but once." "Uneasy lies the waist that bears the Championship belt."

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