Recently I re-watched the Kenneth Branagh film adaption of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. This was the first time I had seen the story as an adult, and it hit me differently. Enough so that I felt the need to write something about it. Just about everyone is force fed Shakespeare as a child, and many people never think about him again. Maybe that’s because children tend to find Shakespeare tedious so avoid repeating the experience, and maybe that is a mistake.
This time around I understood the dialogue much better than as a kid, and that’s probably true for most viewers. A good story should have surface level entertainment for the casual viewer, and deeper meaning and detail for someone who wants to think harder, and that’s the case here. Maybe the world needs more high production value film adaptions of Shakespeare to encourage people to revisit the stories if nothing else. One detail I’ll point out is that as a teenager I did not pay any attention whatsoever to the pronoun usage. The first-person singular (thou vs. you) was still in use back in Shakespeare’s time. When given a choice between plural and singular, plural is more formal and polite. This distinction matters when addressing friends or first time acquaintances, or someone of a different sex or class (especially a higher class). Such pronoun usage might seem surreal in modern America, when some people are identifying as kitchen furniture, and other people have vowed to never use pronouns ever again.
Don Pedro of Aragon is played by Denzel Washington, a black guy. In contemporary politics one might frame this as a “DEI hire” but I disagree. While I’m not overly familiar with Spanish history, a nobleman from Aragon might conceivably be a Moor. And if he’s only part Moor, then it’s not crazy for his half-brother to be white like Keanu Reeves. This time around I appreciated Washington’s portrayal of Don Pedro a lot more than I could as a child. He’s extremely arrogant and loves to be the center of attention, which causes trouble. While being proud might not be a flaw in of itself, Pedro comes across as kind of stupid and unwilling to take on a leadership role when it’s important. If you pay attention while watching the movie, Pedro has a tendency to shy away from confrontations and sulks at the back of the group, pouting like a little boy who didn’t get his way. For me, Washington’s acting skills added a lot to the character. Pedro loves to play leader when that’s easy to do and gets him a lot of positive attention, but in times of crisis when the community desperately needs someone to take charge, he fails to deliver.
And what to say of his brother, Don John? Well, he’s a bastard. In my first reading of the play and watching of the movie, the significance of being a bastard went over my head, but I understand now. And to be clear, John is literally a bastard, the son of a nobleman, but did not inherit. He might at best receive a small allowance, or maybe nothing at all. Despite being sophisticated and well-educated, John has to work while the other characters do not. Meanwhile, he has to watch his feeble-minded brother enjoy all the luxury and privileges that come with being a high-ranking nobleman with vast lands.
John the bastard is the male version of the bitter spinster shunned by society through no fault of her own. Despite his declaration of simply being a villain, John does actually have legitimate reasons to be angry and desire revenge. So there is irony in his self-condemnation. Society villainizes him for no good reason, and he acts the part.
A spinster resents the people around her and may seek revenge by using her in-depth knowledge of the fault-lines of society, which she weaponizes in scandalous poison pen letters. John’s schemes are really no different in principle. Consider his first scheme. Claudio asks Pedro to propose to Hero on his behalf. Of course, Pedro should have said no and told Claudio to propose to Hero himself. But Pedro loves being the center of attention and getting into other people’s business so he accepts Claudio’s request. John easily manipulates this situation by suggesting that Pedro was going to steal Hero for himself. Note that this lie would only be convincing if Pedro could plausibly do something like that.
The second and bigger scheme involves convincing Claudio and Pedro that Hero is sleeping around. If Claudio and Pedro were a bit smarter (and dare I say more masculine) they would have insisted on storming the house to find out the truth, and John’s scheme would have immediately failed. Benedict probably would have done this, which is why John waited until he left the group to approach them.
One might actually sympathize with John as a character except for one crucial thing. He uses Hero as cannon fodder, though she hadn’t done anything to him, and is too young to have done anything to anyone. Casually harming an innocent victim is what makes John the villain of the story.
Though unfortunately, almost all of the characters are villains. Claudio and Pedro immediately accept John’s story and accuse Hero of being a whore at her own wedding. Imagine this scene from Hero’s point of view. The groom out of the blue makes scandalous accusations, then her own father believes it all without evidence and beats her.
At the very least Hero has her one cousin Beatrice who cares about her, because apparently no one else does. It’s not directly stated, but I doubt Claudio would have been so courageous if Hero had any able-bodied male relatives to challenge him to a duel, which would have been the inevitable outcome if such a relative existed. This suspicion is confirmed when Benedict follows Beatrice’s demand to duel Claudio and kill him. Claudio is suddenly not so tough anymore.
I have to wonder that Shakespeare didn’t have a very high opinion of the church. Like in Romeo and Juliet, there’s the friar character who is trusted as a wise counsel, but is actually an idiot who gives terrible advice. It was his idea to have Hero pretend to be dead. A more stupid plan might exist, but I can’t think of one. And also like in Romeo and Juliet, the scheme to have her pretend to be dead almost causes a bloodbath.
The true hero of the story is the local judge, who only appears in one scene. See, the constable had captured John’s henchmen even before the wedding, but Hero’s father Leonato ignored his rambling attempt to report and the catastrophe happened anyway. So the constable took his prisoners to the judge who, unlike Leonato, has the patience to cross-examine everyone involved and document the testimony coherently enough to be acted upon.
So thanks to the judge, and only the judge, there’s a happy ending. Still, it’s unfortunate for Hero. She marries Claudio for her happily-ever-after, but no one had told her there she didn’t have to marry the guy who publicly humiliated her in the worst way, and there were other options for her. But the sad truth is that perhaps there wasn’t another option. There might be other suitable men for Hero, but they don’t appear in the play and it is possible there just aren’t any in that small aristocracy besides Claudio.
Ian Kummer
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Yes it is “DEI hire”. Just like Arsène Lupin being played by a black, plus so many other re writings of Western History and Culture. They can’t be taken in isolation, it’s a whole and it is by design.
Thanks for the article.