Labeling for hate

I recently learned that an author whose name I will not mention here as decided to redo Shakespeare's Hamlet. Now, from the start that has me wary. For one thing, I am a complete Shakespeare-o-phile (a vile phrase, to quote Polonius. Please forgive me.). I don't want to sound snooty about it, but I have a degree in English, and some of my former classmates joked that I have a minor in Shakespeare, because four of my classes were Shakespearian. I love Shakespeare, and I love to see it done well. Furthermore, Hamlet is my favorite Shakespeare play (followed closely by Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest.). I am not so much of a purist that I was one of those people highly offended by the Mel Gibson portrayal of Hamlet. That was a shortened version of the play, meant, according to the director, to make it more accessible to younger people. I'm fine with that. He got in the major bits. Honestly, Gibson did a fair job of Hamlet. He plays distraught and insane well (and remember, this was before it was well known that the poor gent truly does suffer from mental illness). The director could not have gotten a better person to play Ophelia than Helena Bonham Carter (who also does crazy quite well.) All in all, the cast was excellent. Some things were left out, some things were changed around, but the main theme of the play remained.

Now, to move on to this unnamed author's "redoing" of Hamlet. One does not "re-do" Hamlet. It can be translated into modern language. It can be abridged. I personally prefer it not to be, but then I am a total geek who prefers to read Canterbury Tales in Middle English rather than a modern translation. None of that is happening here. Let me explain.

Our author is redoing Hamlet in such a way as to completely change the meaning of the play. In this version, King Hamlet was an ineffectual king because he was...get this...a gay pedophile. He was weak because he was gay, he was evil because he was gay, and he was a pedophile because he was gay. Claudius does not murder the old king. No, the young prince's best friend Horatio murders him...in an act of revenge because the king had molested him, Laertes, Rosencrantz, AND Guildenstern when they were young boys, and MADE THEM ALL GAY. Read that sentence again, then think about it. The old king, now a ghost, then tricks his grief-stricken son into thinking that Claudius killed him, thus damning Hamlet's soul forever and thus father can spend an eternity molesting and sexually abusing his son as he has always wanted to do.

This infuriates me. For one thing, Shakespeare hinted at no such thing, doesn't even MENTION the king's sexual preference. In fact, there are speeches in which Hamlet bemoans the fact that his mother now loves another, for his father loved Gertrude so deeply that Hamlet feels his mother has betrayed his father.  But beyond the fact that THAT love story part of the play has been rewritten to serve our vile author's homophobic purposes, there are even deeper and more disturbing meanings.

There have been studies showing that a large percentage of pedophiles, even those that prey on boys, define themselves as heterosexual. This is not to say that there are no gay pedophiles. Think of it this way: all circles are shapes, yet not all shapes are circles. People are individuals, and one's sexuality has nothing to do with whether or not one preys on children. Yet, if we follow the intent of our author, Old King Hamlet was a pedophile because he was gay. A horrible assumption, for one has nothing to do with the other.
Alas there is more. To quote Polonius again, stay awhile. In our author's sick and twisted murder of this wonderful play, Horatio, Laertes, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern  have all BECOME gay because of the abuse they suffered as children.

Now, please. Many of my closest friends are gay or lesbian. Some of them did, yes, have horrible things happen to them, sometimes as children, on one or two occasions as adults. However, these atrocities did not MAKE them gay. It is not possible to MAKE someone gay, just as it is not possible to MAKE someone straight. Sexuality is not a switch that gets flipped one way or another. Think of it; it is flawed logic. I know many women who have been raped, myself included, and most of us are not lesbians. I know gay men who have had practically idyllic childhoods, and they're still gay. I also know gay men who were assaulted well after their sexuality came into play for them; being assaulted did nothing to change their sexuality. This "retelling" simultaneously equates homosexuality with evil and yet dooms the abused to "become" gay and therefore evil. Blame the victim.

I could go on. I could give specific examples. I could continue to list my complaints. I think I've said what needs to be said, however. This is not a "retelling" of Hamlet. This is a butchering of a wonderful play and turning it into something that is not only homophobic propaganda, but is also doing far-reaching damage to people who have been inexcusably abused. I am all for people having their own opinions, but this goes beyond having an opinion. This is hate-mongering at its sneakiest and worst.