True Love

Dirty secret:

Shakespeare's 'Much Ado About Nothing' is simultaneously my favourite and most hated romantic comedy ever.

On the one hand, you have vapid shallow Hero and her Claudio, who decides he loves her after setting eyes on her once (par for the course in Shakespeare) and then accuses her publicly and humiliatingly of adultery based on nothing but hearsay which was in turn based on something someone who didn't know her very well glimpsed through an open window. (That turned out to be a trick in the end anyway.) Not only is Claudio a complete prick about it, Hero takes him back! Willingly! He only apologized when he thought she was dead for god's sake. He sounds like a complete asshole and emotionally volatile. I wouldn't marry him. I wouldn't even hold hands with him.

On the other hand, you have Beatrice and Bennedick. They are possibly the funniest, most adorable couple in the entire Shakespeare canon. Within the context of their exchange in the play (which also happens to be their first on-stage argument and the first time she verbally trashes him--the first of many), you learn that they have a history together that might or might not have been at one time youthfully romantic. These are two people who are very similar to the point where it makes them often not get along. But immediately apparent is that behind all their arguing is an affectionate animosity. While Kate and Petruchio from 'Taming of the Shrew' don't actually like each other one shred, Beatrice and Bennedick clearly do actually care for one another. And I love it. So much of staged romance throughout the ages is unrealistic. Here you have a couple who have no problem saying it like it is. "Look, you drive me up the walls and sometimes I hate the sight of you, but I adore you."

And then there's the plot device that gets them together in the first place. It's been copied a thousand times and never quite imitated successfully. Even Shakespeare himself couldn't recreate the relationship he created with Beatrice and Bennedick. Two people who clearly adore one another but don't admit their feelings are brought together by scheming friends who manage to convince them individually that the other has privately confessed love. It's a completely contrived plot device that has, again, been used a derpjillion times. And it's never very good except when Shakespeare did it.

Beatrice and Bennedick are hands-down my favourite Shakespearean couple. My favourite characters in all of Shakespeare full stop. They're so easy to relate to, at least for me. I've always expressed my affection in various levels of violent verbal insult. If I take the time to concoct a really good verbal barb, it means I care about you. If I didn't I would have just called you a fucktard and taken a longer lunch.

You can keep Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet and Ophelia, Kate and Petruchio, Rosalind and Orlando. Two of those relationships involved suicide and murder, one was completely fucking abusive, and the other was based on lies. Beatrice and Bennedick are the only couple who probably won't end up in marriage counselling. They don't need to. They'll get it out of their systems by calling each other imaginative horrible names, and then go to bed and have uninhibited hate-sex until they make up and have makeup sex.

That's the only reason I like 'Much Ado' to begin with. Sometimes I even just fast forward through the parts with Hero and Claudio. I don't blame Don Jon for sabotaging them. I would too. I just want to see Beatrice and Bennedick argue themselves into true love.

Because, at least in my world, love wouldn't be love without that animosity. I'm not sure what that says about me, but for once I don't actually care.