Well, I don't know I, Claudius, but as for Antony...
The thing about Antony as a woman is that she cannot exist in a story arc beyond that of Julius Caesar. Actually: Shakespeare's Antony, as written for Julius Caesar, does not exist in a story arc beyond Caesar. By that I mean that the Antony of Caesar is MUCH different from the Antony of Antony and Cleopatra, and the one in A&C is loads closer to your perception of Antony than it is to my portrayal of Antony. Antony in Caesar is manipulative, and has much of the political in him/her; you can tell, not only by Friends, Romans, Countrymen, but also from the message she sends to Brutus and the way she tries to manipulate Octavius... a little bit of the rash soldier comes out every now and again, but it can be interpreted as a headstrong woman being bold and awesome like that.
But the Antony in A&C is kind of lame. So is the Cleopatra, actually. The whole representation of them is that they wallow in their own lechery and refuse to own up to their responsibilities (which lies outside the spectrum of badassery, by my definition). Antony stops being the badass one (not to mention, is pretty clearly unfeminine, and would be exceptionally difficult to make feminine... and I don't think it would be believable); Cleopatra is turned into just a harlot, even though she was historically badass; and Octavius (or Octavian) becomes the interesting one.
.... Such ends my rant on the degradation of Antony's badassery.
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Date: 2010-04-01 11:24 pm (UTC)The thing about Antony as a woman is that she cannot exist in a story arc beyond that of Julius Caesar. Actually: Shakespeare's Antony, as written for Julius Caesar, does not exist in a story arc beyond Caesar. By that I mean that the Antony of Caesar is MUCH different from the Antony of Antony and Cleopatra, and the one in A&C is loads closer to your perception of Antony than it is to my portrayal of Antony. Antony in Caesar is manipulative, and has much of the political in him/her; you can tell, not only by Friends, Romans, Countrymen, but also from the message she sends to Brutus and the way she tries to manipulate Octavius... a little bit of the rash soldier comes out every now and again, but it can be interpreted as a headstrong woman being bold and awesome like that.
But the Antony in A&C is kind of lame. So is the Cleopatra, actually. The whole representation of them is that they wallow in their own lechery and refuse to own up to their responsibilities (which lies outside the spectrum of badassery, by my definition). Antony stops being the badass one (not to mention, is pretty clearly unfeminine, and would be exceptionally difficult to make feminine... and I don't think it would be believable); Cleopatra is turned into just a harlot, even though she was historically badass; and Octavius (or Octavian) becomes the interesting one.
.... Such ends my rant on the degradation of Antony's badassery.