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What really happened at Hero and Claudio's wedding

Hero: Claudio, what are you talking about?

Claudio: *about to play "I Write Sins Not Tragedies" by Panic! At the Disco* Oh, you haven't heard?

The more you think about it, the main plot of Much Ado About Nothing from Claudio’s POV is just the plot of I Write Sins Not Tragedies

Much Ado About Nothing but with Shakespeare’s Play-Within-a-Play Trope

So, instead of shaming her at the altar, Claudio ropes Don Pedro in putting on a play and it goes exactly like this (with Claudio playing Hero in this exact manner)

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.

English teacher: why do you do this to me.. its just a copy, please stop

Me: *furiously writting all my answers with hidden meaning at every word when i'm mad*

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