The Merchants of Menace
by Ulysses
It infuriates the Jewish community that the greatest writer in all of history wrote a brilliant play that depicts Jews as, well . . . Jews.
Recently here in Canada, a local university staged a production of The Merchant of Venice. The University, being under an extreme leftist administration that not only stresses but forces “tolerance” and multiculturalism on its students with an iron fist, went far beyond meddling in the school Drama Group’s production. They attempted to remove the word “Jew” from the play. Entirely. By my calculation there are 79 instances of the word “Jew” in The Merchant of Venice. That would require 79 edits to one of the great works of English Literature, deemed necessary by a group of self-appointed language police acting “in the best interests of society”. One example that those who would deface Shakespeare’s masterpiece are fond of citing is “Certainly the Jew is the very devil incarnation” (Act 2, Scene 2). This glib quip, despite being an observation made by many of the great thinkers in the canon of Western thought, was clearly unacceptable to the university’s indoctrinated administration. Their knee-jerk reaction was nothing more than a reflex lacking any analysis; the offensive words would be removed and all would be well in the world. Yet the obvious question remained “Is this a racist play or a play about racism?” Sadly, it never occurred to them to ask this. They simply assumed that Shakespeare wrote this play with the intention of being Politically Incorrect in the 21st Century.
Therefore they settled on the idea that “Jew” was a racist word used only by “non-Jews” and they decided to replace every occurrence of it in Shakespeare’s play with simply “Shylock”. Then they decided that since it is well-known that Shylock was the Jewish character’s actual name, “Shylock” wasn’t working out either and that the character should have no name at all; much like children are forced to hum the words of Christmas carols so that the non-Christian 1% of an audience is not offended. The fact that Shakespeare’s play is a work of fiction was never considered.
It gets worse. Upon deciding that “Shylock” and “Jew” were not appropriate, and doubtlessly pleased by their own form of reasoning, it then befell the administration to question if the moneylender formerly known as Shylock should even be portrayed as the bad guy. For was it not Antonio, the White businessman in need of a loan, who was in fact the real Evil Bad Guy in this play? Wasn’t that Shakespeare’s intended message? Of course! And Shylock? He’s simply a misunderstood minority and doubtlessly the victim of a Hate Crime. Thus, our liberal geniuses determined, the now nameless Shylock should not ask for a pound of flesh as forfeit for a debt unpaid, he should instead ask for a pound of coins! This, naturally, required yet more rewriting of Shakespeare’s classic text and complete destruction of the play as a whole.
You can see where this is going.
Worse still, a photograph of a rehearsal made it to the front page of a local newspaper. The photograph was from the scene of the play’s climax, where the character formerly known as Shylock threatens Antonio with a knife while demanding his “pound of coins”. This too was deemed far too Politically Incorrect. To remedy this, the newspaper digitally manipulated the photograph so that Antonio was seen to be threatening Shylock with a knife, thus solidifying the perspective that Shylock was indeed the play’s tragic victim and the man who borrowed money was surely a nefarious villain. And who needs a theatre audience when a newspaper can reach far more people with this message?
You simply can’t make this up.
Eventually, the play was staged in front of audiences consisting mostly of high school students. Although not quite as butchered as the Politically Correct Police would have had it, it was still brutally far from a full and honest treatment of Shakespeare’s master work. Thus, given that high school students are highly unlikely to read Shakespeare on their own, the youthful audience walked away from The Merchant of Venice with little or no idea what Shakespeare actually intended. In fact, they walked away with the opposite of what Shakespeare intended; the revised message being that Whites are evil and minorities are inevitably the Persecuted.
Shakespeare is doubtlessly the greatest playwright in English history. His tales are every bit as meaningful today as ever. The history plays depicting power struggles among would-be rulers, the eternal lessons of the tragedies, the stunning portraits of universal human characteristics seen in the romances and comedies are all infinitely more profound than anything being produced by Hollywood or television networks.
Yet Shakespeare, in fact, is currently in a period of complete demise. Since his own age, in no other period of time has his work enjoyed less presence, popularity or acclaim. Never before have his plays been so twisted to suit the goals of people who wish to misrepresent his intentions to suit their own agendas.
Never before has Shylock been winning.
– Ulysses
09 January 2006
