‘The Food Fight Over Richard III’ (My Newswithviews Column, Feb. 8)

Richard III, Act 5, Scene IV: A horse! A horse! My kingdom ...

“A wheelchair! A wheelchair! My kingdom for a wheelchair!”

History is supposed to teach us the difference between wisdom and folly, progress and disaster, etc., etc. But it can’t do that unless it’s true history; and that’s getting harder and harder to come by.

How, for instance, is any truth to struggle out of … this?

The Food Fight Over Richard III

And if it weren’t enough to mangle history and jam it full of lies, the Wokies are also committed to erasing it. That’s why they tear down statues. They don’t mind arguments over, say, Christopher Columbus; but they’d like it even better if us plebs didn’t know Columbus had ever existed. Better still: “America was discovered by a disabled Woman of Color and a crew of LGBTQ poets and philosophers…”

But let me permanently disqualify myself from being Woke; these few little words will do it:

Truth is better than lies.

Where Acting Ends and Bull**** Begins

King richard iii hi-res stock photography and images - Alamy

(He wasn’t seriously disabled–but that’s Shakespeare for you.)

The Globe Theater in London, famous (thought I was gonna say “iconic,” didn’tcha?) for its traditional association with William Shakespeare and his plays, is going to stage Richard III with a woman in the title role–and “activists” are fit to be tied (https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/02/02/no-you-dont-need-to-be-disabled-to-play-richard-iii/).

They’re not mad that it’s a woman. We can smell gender politics at work. But what gets their goat is that this woman is NOT DISABLED!! No, precious, she does not have the “lived experience” of being disabled! The part of Richard III should only go to a disabled actor! Hiss, hiss!

Dude, if you’re looking for strict historical accuracy, Shakespeare is not your guy. But you don’t care about that, do you? If it were left up to you, Richard III would be a disabled black woman confined to a wheelchair, in England illegally, with a transgender “partner” and a deep commitment to Philippine cuisine.

Years ago, James Earl Jones played King Lear on Broadway. Yeah, all right, Lear was not a black man. So what? I’d have loved to see that show: James Earl Jones was one of America’s greatest actors. And any time Denzel Washington wants to play me in a movie, go for it.

I suppose it’s possible for a woman to do an excellent job playing Richard III, although I would cross the street to avoid it: again, I’d suspect Far Left gender shenanigans. But good grief! Where is the “acting” if you can only play a part because you’ve “lived” it? What if you want to play Peter Pan? Who’s lived that experience?

You can’t even enjoy a Shakespeare play, these days, without getting nagged by some blah-blah grievance group.

Mangling Shakespeare… and Erasing Women

The Globe Theater — Theater Review | Condé Nast Traveler

The Globe Theater… where they re-write Shakespeare

Wow! Feminists are just beginning to figure out something that several observers, including me, told them months ago–

This whole Transgender business is a drive to erase women.

It’s finally sinking in. One of the catalysts was provided by the woke morons now working at the Globe Theater (!)–Shakespeare’s theater–rewriting Shakespeare’s plays to make them appealing to drooling woke idiots (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11105319/Backlash-grows-against-Shakespeares-Globe-Theatre-new-play-depicting-Joan-Arc-non-binary.html?ito=native_share_article-masthead).

The trigger: they’re “re-imagining” St. Joan of Arc as “non-binary”–that is, not a woman–and larding her speech with special woke pronouns (using “them” and “they” to indicate single individuals instead of groups, because this way it’s cooler).

Feminists are irate. Joan of Arc, they say, is a “female cultural icon.” They must’ve missed the new Supreme Court justice saying she–oops! “They!”–doesn’t know what a woman is. Maybe someone should organize a scientific expedition in search of women. Real women, that is… not “men with vaginas.”

Toldja so!

What kind of dindle wants to sit in the ancient Globe Theater to hear Shakespeare plays reduced to modern drivel?

Can we say “someone who deserves it”?