Well, hello Emma Watson

For someone who's tired, you do go on. Once more tonight.

I don’t know why you keep claiming to have total objective and unassailable knowledge of the motivations of fictional characters. That isn’t how fiction works.

Yeah, I know. That's why I didn't.

Characters like Rosalind and Viola aren’t real people, they’re made out of words. So there isn’t any final truth about why they ‘really’ dressed as boys. There are interpretations, and I don’t think it would be difficult to build a trans one if you wanted to.

Rosalind: "Were it not better, / Because that I am more than common tall, / That I did suit me all points like a man? / A gallant curtal-ax upon my thigh, / A boar-spear in my hand—and in my heart / Lie there what hidden woman’s fear there will— / We’ll have a swashing and a martial outside, / As many other mannish cowards have / That do outface it with their semblances."

Viola:
"For such disguise as haply shall become
The form of my intent. I'll serve this duke:
Thou shalt present me as an eunuch to him:
It may be worth thy pains; for I can sing
And speak to him in many sorts of music
That will allow me very worth his service.
What else may hap to time I will commit;
Only shape thou thy silence to my wit."

Of course Emperor Hadrian wouldn’t have said he was proud to be gay, as the word gay didn’t have that meaning then, but that doesn’t mean the concept of pride (as opposed to shame) in same-sex attraction in the face of social condemnation didn’t exist before 1970 and the first pride parade. I’m not an expert on Ancient Rome so I can’t tell you about that period specifically, but there are certainly examples of expressions of what we would now call gay pride in pre-20th century materials.

It was massively shaming to be the receptive partner in the ancient world. Young men were allowed a period of being 'initiated' by older men, but much scorned if they continued. See the rumours around Caesar and Augustus.

Similarly, yes of course someone in the Renaissance wouldn’t have said ‘I identify as a woman’ because that wasn’t the phrasing then, but that’s not the same as saying that no-one in a male body ever saw themselves as a woman prior to about 2015, or whenever you want to set the arbitrary invented boundary.

Perhaps, perhaps not. But they weren't, however they saw themselves. And the culture at the time certainly wouldn't have encouraged them in the delusion.

I don’t know why you keep claiming to have total objective and unassailable knowledge of the motivations of fictional characters. That isn’t how fiction works.

Characters like Rosalind and Viola aren’t real people, they’re made out of words. So there isn’t any final truth about why they ‘really’ dressed as boys. There are interpretations, and I don’t think it would be difficult to build a trans one if you wanted to.

Of course Emperor Hadrian wouldn’t have said he was proud to be gay, as the word gay didn’t have that meaning then, but that doesn’t mean the concept of pride (as opposed to shame) in same-sex attraction in the face of social condemnation didn’t exist before 1970 and the first pride parade. I’m not an expert on Ancient Rome so I can’t tell you about that period specifically, but there are certainly examples of expressions of what we would now call gay pride in pre-20th century materials.

Similarly, yes of course someone in the Renaissance wouldn’t have said ‘I identify as a woman’ because that wasn’t the phrasing then, but that’s not the same as saying that no-one in a male body ever saw themselves as a woman prior to about 2015, or whenever you want to set the arbitrary invented boundary.

Miles more interesting than yet more TRA-adjacent cultural appropriation, though.

And I'm sure you're right. I'm re-listening to the History of Rome at the moment, and recently got to the bit where Gibbon (I think) described Claudius as the only Roman emperor of the first tranche who had 'correct' (no boys) tastes in love.

A TV culture where 14 out of 15 romances are 'boy meets girl and then another boy, usually simultaneously' would be... Different.

(Btw I have been admiring your username 😁)

There’s this whole thing about the intro to the original edition suggesting he cursed the publishers - it was in one of the long boring articles. And the fact that there is no record of his complaining means nothing. A negative can’t prove anything.

you're particularly not going to cast them in any role where the female character disguises herself as a man, because then what you have got is a male actor wearing men's clothes and the whole plot device doesn't work. It only works if you can see with your own eyes that this is a woman pretending to be a man and suspend your own disbelief that the other characters in the play couldn't see it too.

Bad luck for every Shakespeare production till 1660 then, since Rosalind and Viola would have been played by male actors wearing men’s clothes. I hope poor Shakespeare wasn’t too devastated that his plot device didn’t work until 44 years after his death!

I didn't say it was unthinkable to have a trans character in a Shakespeare play. I said you can't really do it without queering the whole thing, which is what you are doing when you decide to reimagine a character as trans.

You're not going to cast a trans woman as Juliet or Lady Macbeth in an ordinary production of Shakespeare. And you're particularly not going to cast them in any role where the female character disguises herself as a man, because then what you have got is a male actor wearing men's clothes and the whole plot device doesn't work. It only works if you can see with your own eyes that this is a woman pretending to be a man and suspend your own disbelief that the other characters in the play couldn't see it too.

It’s on record that they were first published in 1609 and ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day’ was in the grouping of poems addressed to a fair youth. It’s on record that Shakespeare died in 1616, so he had seven years to complain about that publisher’s ordering if he wasn’t happy with it.

No, Hadrian & Alexander weren't people you could boss about anyhow 🤣 Wonderful books.

I was thinking that both Mary Renault and Marguerite Yourcenar were in LTRs with women when they wrote those books. I wonder if this was maybe partly an aspect of why they wrote them : to explore same-sex dynamics without getting too personal/drawing suspicion . Obvs their motives were much more than that, bit I wonder if that was part of it.

Whereas modern slash/yaoi writers just seem to want to portray 2 hot guys without much depth or realism.

Sorry, a bit off topic!

I'm saying that where female characters in Shakespeare are dressed as boys it's a plot device and not an expression of deep internal identity. Where they're not dressed as boys, it's not a plot device because it's not needed. I don't know why you keep conflating the two.

For clarity, I'm not saying no individuals in history have wished to be the opposite sex. That would be silly.

I'm making the same point as the many historians who will acknowledge that same-sex attraction has existed as long as humans have - but our cultural concept of homosexuality has not. So Emperor Hadrian, for example, seems to have been exclusively same-sex attracted but was married to a woman and would not have known what you meant if you asked him whether he was proud to be gay.

Girls wanting the choices that boys have or men wanting to be women for whatever reasons will have existed historically - but they won't have 'identified as' because they didn't have the vocabulary or the cultural concepts and it's pointless to try to lift and shift ours onto them.

Oh yes, Mary Renault's Alexander trilogy! I adored those.

Love affairs with two male characters (one a eunuch and not through choice or WPATH before JNic jumps on the bandwagon) but got through a couple of wives at least and no-one blinked an eye about any of it. A few mutterings about shagging barbarians, but no shits to give about whether they had a winkie or a fanjo.

Oh yes, Mary Renault's Alexander trilogy! I adored those.

Love affairs with two male characters (one a eunuch and not through choice or WPATH before JNic jumps on the bandwagon) but got through a couple of wives at least and no-one blinked an eye about any of it. A few mutterings about shagging barbarians, but no shits to give about whether they had a winkie or a fanjo.

I always like to joke that the Memoirs of Hadrian is highbrow literary slash fiction (also Mary Renault). But yes,,the whole point is that, as those books show, men who only liked men were conceptualised differently then.

A few years ago I happened on a podcast (can't remember which it was now) where gay actors were talking about the roles on offer. It was really interesting because it cycled through the different ways that historically oppressed groups are represented - so you start with the tragic victim portrayal (the Holocaust or slavery or the AIDS crisis); you move onto comedy (the flowering of black comedy with Richard Pryor or Eddie Murphy, or the ubiquitous gay best friend in 1990s romcoms); and eventually you get to the point where a minority can just play any character.

This would have been in the aftermath of BLM, because they were pointing out that it was the best time ever to be a black actor if you just wanted to get hired, but it wasn't that good if you wanted to play an interesting character instead of a tragic victim or soulful saint.

The point the gay actors came back to was - actors love to play assholes. Jack Nicholson and Bill Murray have built stellar careers on playing characters with no redeeming features. So the gay actors were saying, we're tired of playing Gordon Goodbrother, we're tired of being the female lead's non-sexual gay best friend, when do we get to play assholes?

(Kevin Spacey of course has been doing this for many years, but he's exceptional.)

So the movies I know with trans characters usually have them as a villain or a comic punchline, and I can see why trans audiences would hate that, especially if it's a numbers game and that's their only portrayal. But, assuming we want to move past heroic/tragic trans characters towards rounded characters who happen to be trans (I suspect lots of critics want to stop at heroic/tragic) then you'd need to have, let's say, 10% of actors being trans, and as a pure numbers game, that looks really artificial.

When you artificially inflate the numbers, even for the best of motives, it's really obvious. We're currently at a point where normie American TV viewers who watch detective shows are asking "how come three quarters of the detectives are gay all of a sudden?" And that's a much bigger minority.

I'm saying that where female characters in Shakespeare are dressed as boys it's a plot device and not an expression of deep internal identity. Where they're not dressed as boys, it's not a plot device because it's not needed. I don't know why you keep conflating the two.

For clarity, I'm not saying no individuals in history have wished to be the opposite sex. That would be silly.

I'm making the same point as the many historians who will acknowledge that same-sex attraction has existed as long as humans have - but our cultural concept of homosexuality has not. So Emperor Hadrian, for example, seems to have been exclusively same-sex attracted but was married to a woman and would not have known what you meant if you asked him whether he was proud to be gay.

Girls wanting the choices that boys have or men wanting to be women for whatever reasons will have existed historically - but they won't have 'identified as' because they didn't have the vocabulary or the cultural concepts and it's pointless to try to lift and shift ours onto them.

I'm saying that where female characters in Shakespeare are dressed as boys it's a plot device and not an expression of deep internal identity. Where they're not dressed as boys, it's not a plot device because it's not needed. I don't know why you keep conflating the two.

For clarity, I'm not saying no individuals in history have wished to be the opposite sex. That would be silly.

I'm making the same point as the many historians who will acknowledge that same-sex attraction has existed as long as humans have - but our cultural concept of homosexuality has not. So Emperor Hadrian, for example, seems to have been exclusively same-sex attracted but was married to a woman and would not have known what you meant if you asked him whether he was proud to be gay.

Girls wanting the choices that boys have or men wanting to be women for whatever reasons will have existed historically - but they won't have 'identified as' because they didn't have the vocabulary or the cultural concepts and it's pointless to try to lift and shift ours onto them.

But there's one huge difference between gay actors and trans actors, which is that gay actors aren't limited to playing gay characters. Straight actors can play gay characters (such as Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal in Brokeback Mountain) and gay actors can play straight characters (such as Jonathan Bailey in Bridgerton).

But trans actors can only really play trans characters. Which is a huge limitation.

A few years ago I happened on a podcast (can't remember which it was now) where gay actors were talking about the roles on offer. It was really interesting because it cycled through the different ways that historically oppressed groups are represented - so you start with the tragic victim portrayal (the Holocaust or slavery or the AIDS crisis); you move onto comedy (the flowering of black comedy with Richard Pryor or Eddie Murphy, or the ubiquitous gay best friend in 1990s romcoms); and eventually you get to the point where a minority can just play any character.

This would have been in the aftermath of BLM, because they were pointing out that it was the best time ever to be a black actor if you just wanted to get hired, but it wasn't that good if you wanted to play an interesting character instead of a tragic victim or soulful saint.

The point the gay actors came back to was - actors love to play assholes. Jack Nicholson and Bill Murray have built stellar careers on playing characters with no redeeming features. So the gay actors were saying, we're tired of playing Gordon Goodbrother, we're tired of being the female lead's non-sexual gay best friend, when do we get to play assholes?

(Kevin Spacey of course has been doing this for many years, but he's exceptional.)

So the movies I know with trans characters usually have them as a villain or a comic punchline, and I can see why trans audiences would hate that, especially if it's a numbers game and that's their only portrayal. But, assuming we want to move past heroic/tragic trans characters towards rounded characters who happen to be trans (I suspect lots of critics want to stop at heroic/tragic) then you'd need to have, let's say, 10% of actors being trans, and as a pure numbers game, that looks really artificial.

When you artificially inflate the numbers, even for the best of motives, it's really obvious. We're currently at a point where normie American TV viewers who watch detective shows are asking "how come three quarters of the detectives are gay all of a sudden?" And that's a much bigger minority.

Yes so you acknowledge that ‘she needed to dress as a boy to keep the story moving’ is not in fact a totally comprehensive or satisfactory explanation for why those characters decide to dress as boys. Again, I’m not saying you have to interpret them as trans. I’m just saying you can. Contrary to the poster who claimed it would be unthinkable and impossible to have a trans character in a Shakespeare play.

I’ve had a long day and I’m not really sure I’ve got the energy to argue with someone who wants to claim that transness, however you phrase it, is a twenty-first century invention. Obviously the term itself is not a Renaissance term. There are published histories that address this question, look them up if you want, not if you don’t. Until recently I think a lot of people liked to argue that there were no gay people pre about 1960 either.

Nothing about the sonnets is on record. You can read some unbelievably long and tedious academic arguments about which sonnets are about what but there is not a neatly written up proof. Shakespeare left no introduction explaining how they came to be written and enabled him to explore … well, nobody agrees what.

Yes so you acknowledge that ‘she needed to dress as a boy to keep the story moving’ is not in fact a totally comprehensive or satisfactory explanation for why those characters decide to dress as boys. Again, I’m not saying you have to interpret them as trans. I’m just saying you can. Contrary to the poster who claimed it would be unthinkable and impossible to have a trans character in a Shakespeare play.

I’ve had a long day and I’m not really sure I’ve got the energy to argue with someone who wants to claim that transness, however you phrase it, is a twenty-first century invention. Obviously the term itself is not a Renaissance term. There are published histories that address this question, look them up if you want, not if you don’t. Until recently I think a lot of people liked to argue that there were no gay people pre about 1960 either.

I mean they're great in the sense that you get to wear the fabulous costumes. Which is the thing I'd be most excited about if I were an actor.

There aren't many parts for black women where they get to wear dresses like that.

A few years ago I happened on a podcast (can't remember which it was now) where gay actors were talking about the roles on offer. It was really interesting because it cycled through the different ways that historically oppressed groups are represented - so you start with the tragic victim portrayal (the Holocaust or slavery or the AIDS crisis); you move onto comedy (the flowering of black comedy with Richard Pryor or Eddie Murphy, or the ubiquitous gay best friend in 1990s romcoms); and eventually you get to the point where a minority can just play any character.

This would have been in the aftermath of BLM, because they were pointing out that it was the best time ever to be a black actor if you just wanted to get hired, but it wasn't that good if you wanted to play an interesting character instead of a tragic victim or soulful saint.

The point the gay actors came back to was - actors love to play assholes. Jack Nicholson and Bill Murray have built stellar careers on playing characters with no redeeming features. So the gay actors were saying, we're tired of playing Gordon Goodbrother, we're tired of being the female lead's non-sexual gay best friend, when do we get to play assholes?

(Kevin Spacey of course has been doing this for many years, but he's exceptional.)

So the movies I know with trans characters usually have them as a villain or a comic punchline, and I can see why trans audiences would hate that, especially if it's a numbers game and that's their only portrayal. But, assuming we want to move past heroic/tragic trans characters towards rounded characters who happen to be trans (I suspect lots of critics want to stop at heroic/tragic) then you'd need to have, let's say, 10% of actors being trans, and as a pure numbers game, that looks really artificial.

When you artificially inflate the numbers, even for the best of motives, it's really obvious. We're currently at a point where normie American TV viewers who watch detective shows are asking "how come three quarters of the detectives are gay all of a sudden?" And that's a much bigger minority.

I think it would be much more difficult to do this with trans characters because it's a sheer numbers game.

Black people, for example, make up a significant minority of people in the UK and the US. In localised parts of the UK and the US they may even be a majority. I'd be surprised if you could find an Oxford college or a police department or a law firm or a school in any urban area without any black people in it. In rural areas it may be a different matter, and yes, perhaps in a remote village in Scotland with a population of 60 a black visitor would be noticeable in a "you're not from round here" sort of way. So seeing a black detective in a crime drama or a black family in a soap opera set in the UK isn't likely to strike people as inauthentic, because almost everyone living in the UK knows black people in real life. (Same for other ethnicities.)

There just aren't that many trans people and many people don't know any trans people at all and have never knowingly met one. So it's much harder to just randomly stick them into TV programmes in the name of diversity, because people will quite rightly say, "In real life we're not running into trans people every five minutes so why is it like that on TV?"

And also, as previously alluded to, there are no particular plot constraints involved in casting a black person in a role. I suppose the only impact would be that if other characters are supposed to be their blood relatives you would need to cast people of the same ethnicity. But that's the same for all characters really.

It probably is easier to say that. But you cannot possibly look back 500 years and say that's what Shakespeare was doing. There simply weren't the same cultural references and it's pointless to try to put 21st century sensibilities onto people so distant from us.

Lady Macbeth doesn't need to dress up as a boy because her entire schtick is being a wife and mother who actually has to plead with the gods to take away her lovely delicate female sensibilities in order to allow her to do the murdery things she needs to do to put her husband (not her) on the throne. So (a) a completely different type of story and (b) one that's very very clear on who's male and who's female.