Thoughts On Casting Don John As A Woman

Thoughts on Casting Don John as a Woman

Let’s face: as far as villains go, Don John is not particularly villainous. His motivations are shaky at best; he hates his brother and wants to bring him down by... breaking up the relationship of his brother’s best friend? Not to mention that he doesn’t even come up with the plan to disrupt Claudio’s faith in Hero - he just pays the guy who does all the dirty work!

For how much I love the play, this is one of the biggest weaknesses no matter the production. But as a role that is not explicitly tied to gender, Don John is one character that can be shifted more easily than most. However, that’s not to say that there wouldn’t be implications if Don John was cast as a woman.

If Don John is a woman (Let’s call her Don Joan, shall we?), the character will certainly hold a different type of motivation that her male counterpart cannot. For instance, she can certainly hold the same jealousy of Don Pedro for his higher rank. But this anger can come from a broader perspective by having her also be constrained by her expected role in society (a la Lady Macbeth, perhaps?). However, by casting her like this, it’s certainly problematic - at the end of the day, the character will be inevitably in the wrong, even if her anger is understandable.

Casting a Don Joan also affects her relationships with other characters. Personally, I think it would be interesting to make her exes with Claudio. That would certainly give her more motivation to be cruel to him as well as having a determination to keep Hero away from him. Although this could lose some of the play’s message if not handled right, I think it’d be interesting that, instead of displaying how a man may believe another man who he dislikes over a woman he loves, she would be aware in manipulating the misogyny by knowing the men will believe doubt a woman instead of actually trusting her.

Naturally, a similar effect of creating a “Don Joan” pining for Claudio could also be done by having Don John just be a gay man in love with Claudio. But having Don Joan as a woman could highlight not only misogyny the men have but also the effects of internalized misogyny as Don Joan and Hero could as clear foils to one another (the “ideal” girl vs the “outsider” girl). Of course, this could be disputed as problematic by making the non-conforming girl the villains, but a production could overcome this by highlighting how unconventional Beatrice is but also how she’ll stick by her cousin’s side no matter what.

Honestly, these are just random musings, but the implications of “Don Joan” on the plot and underlying messages are just so interesting to me.

Now you’ve got me curious! I don’t know if I matched the characters to the accents correctly, so please forgive me. I googled some accent videos just for the ones in your tags (might not all be accurate because there can be multiple accents in one state/province), and I deduced that the Haus soundscape is CHAOTIC

Jack (Montreal) - if he is a native French speaker over English (sorry I could only find a woman)

Jack (Montreal) - if he is a native English speaker over French (though this voice is WAAAAY deeper than I imagine for him)

Bitty (Georgia) - Jefferson is apparently pretty close to Madison, so I assume it’s similar?

Not sure which character actually? (Boston)

Dex (Maine) - complete with lobsters!

Holster/Nursey (New York)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwny52Ncatk

Some of these still could be wrong, and to be fair, a lot of regional accents are dying out/faded especially when it comes to younger generations. But, in conclusion, the accents that may be bouncing off each other in the Haus are C H A O T I C

Check Please Should Be An Animated Series

Honestly, with the fact that there are so many animated series now that a) have an older audience following and b) have an LGBT audience following, this is kind of the perfect series to adapt!

Just imagine:

Ransom and Holster have an actual theme song for “Hockey Shit with Random and Holster”! I can picture exactly how it sounds in my head, and Jack’s still the only one who can hear it

Not enough material for a full season? ANIMATE BITTY’S TWEETS/THE EXTRAS!!! 

Wait, ANIMATE ASK A WELLIE! Make it another segment like “Hockey Shit”!

Also we could totally include the ghosts haunting Ransom, poor guy

John Johnson the existential goalie 110% has all of his dialogue appear in a speech bubble as he talks (though we don’t see him), but the words are Star Wars intro style

Also I just want Ollie and Wicks randomly appearing throughout the series and commenting on things

IMAGINE HEARING JACK’S VOICE WITH A FRENCH CANADIAN ACCENT

JACK SPEAKING FRENCH

JACK AS AN UGLY BABY

JACK JACK JACK JACK JACK

Bitty and his accent!!!

I’ll probably think of more later (and please add more!), but just - Check Please: the Animated Series!!!

Chaotic love interests who are just as likely to kiss as they are to verbally rip the other to shreds is my kind of thing

Also if you want to read headcanons for a Much Ado AU with the HMC crew: https://muchadorks.tumblr.com/post/622847792341303296/i-need-a-howls-moving-castle-much-ado-about

Book Howl and Sophie have strong Beatrice and Benedick energy.

Reasons Why Howl Moved to Ingary:

1)      The magic! The fashion! The wizardly aesthetic!

2)      Tax avoidance

Does anyone know where I could find the 2015 version of “The Importance of Being Earnest” with David Suchet? It used to be on youtube, but I can’t find it anymore. Since I think it was professionally filmed, if it’s available for purchase, I’d love to know that too!

The Artino Sisters

I just finished Supernova, and now I desperately need a short story about Magpie and Nova finding out they are sisters

Because let’s face it, although they’d both be secretly relieved of guilt (Nova) and cautiously happy (Magpie), they 110% would not admit it 

Magpie: WHAT DO YOU MEAN I’M RELATED TO INSOMNIA??? I’D RATHER BE AN ORPHAN!

Nova: And here I thought Ace Anarchy was the worst possible relative

*cue them both screaming insults and denial while Adrian and Captain Chromium have to physically hold them back*

But also after Adrian and his dads have tried to hash out a plan for getting them on the same page, they accidentally spy on a quiet moment between them where Nova’s hesitantly explaining what their family used to be like

And while Magpie’s not saying anything, she’s also not hurling insults or running away

And that’s when the Everharts are hopeful for the two Artino sisters - even if they go back to screaming at each other the moment they notice someone watching them