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.

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!!!

Hexwood Chapter 5 (a summary)

Mordion: *creates Hume and immediately releases him into the wild*

Mordion: He'll be fine

Ann *in the tree*: PAY YOUR FUCKING CHILD SUPPORT

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

Reasons Why Howl Moved to Ingary:

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

2)      Tax avoidance

I just love the book so much, man

forgot to say that, without Howl chasing girls and Sophie resenting him for it, the film completely erases part of the point of Sophie being old.  Wynne Jones is using an idea that Beauvoir talked about - that being an old woman is both tragic (as we lose male attention/attractiveness) and freeing (as we are freed from the male gaze).  the idea is that with being old comes liberation, and the true meaning of what it is to be a woman, as society no longer forces gender norms on us.

Sophie is free from Howl’s attentions and therefore safe from harm (a big part of the book is the fact that Sophie believes he eats women’s hearts, and him chasing girls proves this to her).  she takes solace in the fact that she’s old, and finds it freeing.  when she learns more about Howl (notably: that he doesn’t eat hearts and that he’s not evil), she starts to curse her age and resent him chasing girls.  BUT she remains old OF HER OWN VOLITION - Howl notes that she’s perpetuating the spell by wishing to remain “in disguise”.  there are SO many layers to this, and lots to do with gender politics - if she’s still old Sophie can’t get hurt, she likes the freedom, etc.  but of course on a personal level being old is her denying her feelings for Howl, and also a representation of her low self esteem - being old is a defence mechanism and protection, both on a gender level and a personal one.

and the film kinda… loses this?  the only thing that remains is being old = low self esteem.  which really sucks.  because there’s SO MUCH MORE to Sophie being old in the book (perspective I already mentioned), and a HUGE amount of this is gender politics.  that the film just erases.