MsRepresented: Romeo & Juliet Are NOT the Ultimate Love Story
Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, literary analysis, classic literature, misunderstood stories, theatrical adaptations, Verona, Montagues, Capulets, tragic romance, stage plays, film adaptations, Baz Luhrmann, Franco Zeffirelli, West Side Story, balcony scene, literary misconceptions, dramatic analysis, theater history, Renaissance literature, classical drama, love stories, teenage romance, literary themes, History, Education, Facts, watchmojo, watch mojo, top 10, list, mojo,
Ms Represented Episode 2: Romeo and Juliet
Shaina Higgins
Welcome to MsMojo. What’s in a name? That which we call the ultimate love story has a lot more going on beyond the balcony scene. Today we’re exploring how the most famous play by the world’s most famous writer has been Misrepresented.
Fun fact: Did you know that the text of Shakespeare’s 1597 tragedy, “Romeo and Juliet” contains no mention of a balcony? In fact, the first use of the word balcony doesn’t even show up in speech usage until more than 20 years later. The choice to stage Act II scene ii around this famous architectural feature isn’t a bad one by any means. The big spatial divide between the besotted pair is a metaphor for the challenges separating them, yada, yada, yada. Effective as it is, it’s probably not what Shakespeare envisioned. The fact that it is the most indelible image of the play in collective consciousness though, that makes it an excellent signifier for the way we’ve collectively decided to misinterpret it.
The names Romeo and Juliet instantly conjure up a specific image. One of passionate, pure, undying love. Okay, maybe not undying. But that’s what gives the story its potency, right? Two young people who fall instantly and deeply in love. They’re so deep that the very thought of having to be without one another eventually causes each to take their own life. So that’s the point of the play, right? The power of love, and the tragedy of its denial?
Most people read “Romeo and Juliet” for the first time in high school. But we’re introduced to the material way before then. In fact, most of us in the modern day and age probably got our first dose of it in our cartoons. As we get older, we continue to see this play referenced in the shows we watch. Anyone growing up outside the English speaking world would be forgiven for assuming that performing in “Romeo and Juliet” is required to finish school here. An endless parade of teen and tween characters take on these roles, almost always meant to parallel some plotline about a crush, or give two characters an excuse to lock lips. And no scene is more often recreated than the balcony scene. Years before reading or seeing “Romeo and Juliet” in full, this one piece, arguably the most romantic scene in the show, creates our framework to understand it. If this is the most popular part of “Romeo and Juliet,” our young minds reason, it follows that it must be a love story first and foremost.
Sorry to go against our girl, Lane Kim, but her mom’s reading on this is closer to correct. Kind of. It is indeed a cautionary tale, but the parents don't come off great either. For anyone in need of a refresher, “Romeo and Juliet” is the story of Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet, two “star-crossed” young Italian nobles whose families have split the city of Verona with their ongoing feud. One night Romeo gatecrashes a Capulet party, and he and Juliet are smitten at first sight. After knowing each other for less than a day, they decide to marry in secret, aware that their families would never approve of a match between them. When Romeo’s best friend Mercutio is killed by Juliet’s cousin, Tybalt, Romeo, in his grief and rage, accidentally kills Tybalt in turn. He flees Verona, while Juliet is left to escape the suitable marriage her parents have arranged for her. Following some questionable advice from her priest, she fakes her own death, planning for Romeo to then come and spirit her away. Except the details get garbled on the way to Romeo, and he returns home believing she has actually died. In her tomb, he takes his own life, and Juliet awakens only to then follow his lead. Their bodies are discovered by their devastated families, and the play ends on a subdued note with most of its major players dead.
“But MsMojo,” we hear you say, “That still sounds like a tragic love story.” Well, it is definitely a tragedy. And the love story matters for sure. But when you expand the scope and look at the whole show instead of just that balcony scene, it’s clearer that “Romeo and Juliet” isn’t about love so much as passion. Or to put an even finer point on it, what happens when we let passion, as in intense, irrational emotion, drive our actions.
Not to twist the knife in Mercutio here, but he’s a prime example of what we’re talking about. For most of the show, Mercutio is a good hang. This guy is charming, witty, fun…But he’s also impulsive to a fault. This becomes a fatal flaw when he runs afoul of Tybalt Capulet. Tybalt is characterized by two things: His skill with a sword, and his hair trigger aggression. Already spoiling for a confrontation with Romeo, his behavior goads Mercutio into a fight instead. Neither consider the ramifications of a duel between them, and they both die as a result of their pride, temper, and recklessness. Worse than just paying the price on an individual level though, their actions ripple out to affect their community.
That brings us back to the titular duo. Of course they are obviously touched by the deaths of Tybalt and Mercutio. Romeo goes from trying to make peace with Tybalt at the beginning of a scene to giving in to senseless rage and murdering him by the end of it. However, Romeo proves from the start of the play that he was always a creature of passion perhaps more than any other character.
When we first meet the seventeen year old Montague heir, he is lost in the depths of despair over his unrequited love. For Juliet…’s other cousin Rosaline. He only attends the Capulet party out of a desire to see his disinterested crush. When he meets Juliet something about her flips a switch though, and he turns all that obsessive attention in her direction. For the rest of the play, Romeo shows himself to be a character totally in service to his wildly swinging emotions. Though he enjoys rapturous highs in his scenes with Juliet, he is quick to give in to darker sentiments like sadness or anger, and tends to act impetuously based on whatever he’s feeling most strongly in the moment. Which is how he wound up drinking poison in a tomb.
His counterpart is not much better, but is more complex than we often get a sense of when we’re just given her love scenes. Juliet, who is just shy of 14, is not particularly interested in romance when we meet her. She is told of her arranged marriage to Paris, a relative of the ruling Prince, just hours before she first meets Romeo. Though pure physical attraction seems to have played no small part in her initial interest in him, his last name is a problem. Or is it?
Juliet goes through the motions of bemoaning the divide between her family and Romeo’s, but one could attribute at least part of her instant attachment to him as a subconscious rebellious instinct. Stripped of agency by an impending marriage she does not want, Romeo on some level may represent a chance to do something on her own terms, with the added bonus that it would upset her parents, which is the most teenage thing we can imagine. Her actions throughout the play all read as an attempt to take control in a world that gives her none. Be it choosing her own romantic partner, planning the most dramatic runaway from home ever, or actually ending her own life, Juliet is driven by a desperate desire to escape her circumstances. And like Romeo, she doesn’t pause long enough to master her emotions and think clearly.
Had either taken a beat or a breath, they might have handled situations differently. Or it might have transpired that what they felt wasn’t love at all, but just kind of hyper intense infatuation you can only really work up to when you’re young. And as for the oft repeated idea that “love conquers all…” it demonstrably doesn’t. The reckless passion of two teenagers led to six deaths in under a week. The text doesn’t really judge either character too harshly, though. The real condemnation falls on their families.
Throughout the story we see Verona practically in a state of civil war over the grudge between the two factions. And yet for all the strife, we never learn the root of it. Ultimately the cause doesn’t matter. The bitterness and ego of both Montague and Capulet were allowed to spread like venom, destroying both families. Passion, unchecked by temperance or reason, could only end in scorched earth.
That’s a very relevant idea in any time or place. So what gives? Why don’t we make more of that part of the narrative? Well, the big screen doesn’t help. Unlike TV show appearances, full adaptations of “Romeo and Juliet” do lay the full story out there for everyone. Franco Zeffirelli[a]’s 1968 adaptation was nominated for best picture at the Academy Awards and remains in contention for the definitive film version. The modernized musical re-telling, “West Side Story,” is widely considered to be one of the greatest works of American musical theater and American cinema. And if you grew up in the ‘90s Baz Luhrmann’s “Romeo + Juliet” definitely made an impact on you. The problem is that on screen the scale becomes so grand and sweeping, that it’s easy to, well, do what the characters do and get carried away with our emotions. Great performances make us invest in the characters. Two good looking young people with incredible chemistry get us rooting for their relationship, however ill-conceived it may seem. And when you add stirring music, and evocative cinematography, it’s hard to keep your wits about you.
There’s also the fact that love is one of the most unifying experiences of the human race. We all yearn for connection, and most people have experienced the vivid emotional rollercoaster of a desperate crush. For a lot of us it doesn’t work out, and often those strong feelings lead us to moments we may not be the most proud of. So, that part of us that longs for the great romance wants better when we escape into a story. We want the fantasy of “meant to be” and “happily ever after,” not the reality of being told we should probably learn to moderate our emotional responses and adjust our expectations. Even creators that really know their Shakespeare steer into that sentimentality more often than not.
More recent pieces of media have tried to reframe “Romeo and Juliet,” and restore some of the context that pop culture misses. After centuries of earnest fixation on the love story aspect, it’s become almost too easy to satirize. There have been plenty of funny, thoughtful, and interesting attempts to recontextualize the doomed fling between two kids. Yet nothing quite seems to stick like the starcrossed lovers angle.
Ultimately, we want to believe in a Romeo and Juliet kind of love. And when it doesn’t work out for them, we still feel a sense of catharsis in getting to feel big, wild emotions through the safety of somebody else’s experience. Shakespeare knew what he was doing. He understood that like the Montagues and the Capulets, his larger point wouldn’t resonate with his audience unless we were personally invested. He did his job, it’s just on us to remember to look at the whole picture. Marry a little logic with emotion. Practice what he preached. Wow. Shakespeare was pretty smart.
But let’s be real, Romeo and Juliet 100% would have driven each other nuts in the long term. That’s just facts.
What do you think? What other classic stories get muddled between page and screen? Let us know in the comments.
Shaina Higgins
Welcome to MsMojo. What’s in a name? That which we call the ultimate love story has a lot more going on beyond the balcony scene. Today we’re exploring how the most famous play by the world’s most famous writer has been Misrepresented.
Fun fact: Did you know that the text of Shakespeare’s 1597 tragedy, “Romeo and Juliet” contains no mention of a balcony? In fact, the first use of the word balcony doesn’t even show up in speech usage until more than 20 years later. The choice to stage Act II scene ii around this famous architectural feature isn’t a bad one by any means. The big spatial divide between the besotted pair is a metaphor for the challenges separating them, yada, yada, yada. Effective as it is, it’s probably not what Shakespeare envisioned. The fact that it is the most indelible image of the play in collective consciousness though, that makes it an excellent signifier for the way we’ve collectively decided to misinterpret it.
The names Romeo and Juliet instantly conjure up a specific image. One of passionate, pure, undying love. Okay, maybe not undying. But that’s what gives the story its potency, right? Two young people who fall instantly and deeply in love. They’re so deep that the very thought of having to be without one another eventually causes each to take their own life. So that’s the point of the play, right? The power of love, and the tragedy of its denial?
Most people read “Romeo and Juliet” for the first time in high school. But we’re introduced to the material way before then. In fact, most of us in the modern day and age probably got our first dose of it in our cartoons. As we get older, we continue to see this play referenced in the shows we watch. Anyone growing up outside the English speaking world would be forgiven for assuming that performing in “Romeo and Juliet” is required to finish school here. An endless parade of teen and tween characters take on these roles, almost always meant to parallel some plotline about a crush, or give two characters an excuse to lock lips. And no scene is more often recreated than the balcony scene. Years before reading or seeing “Romeo and Juliet” in full, this one piece, arguably the most romantic scene in the show, creates our framework to understand it. If this is the most popular part of “Romeo and Juliet,” our young minds reason, it follows that it must be a love story first and foremost.
Sorry to go against our girl, Lane Kim, but her mom’s reading on this is closer to correct. Kind of. It is indeed a cautionary tale, but the parents don't come off great either. For anyone in need of a refresher, “Romeo and Juliet” is the story of Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet, two “star-crossed” young Italian nobles whose families have split the city of Verona with their ongoing feud. One night Romeo gatecrashes a Capulet party, and he and Juliet are smitten at first sight. After knowing each other for less than a day, they decide to marry in secret, aware that their families would never approve of a match between them. When Romeo’s best friend Mercutio is killed by Juliet’s cousin, Tybalt, Romeo, in his grief and rage, accidentally kills Tybalt in turn. He flees Verona, while Juliet is left to escape the suitable marriage her parents have arranged for her. Following some questionable advice from her priest, she fakes her own death, planning for Romeo to then come and spirit her away. Except the details get garbled on the way to Romeo, and he returns home believing she has actually died. In her tomb, he takes his own life, and Juliet awakens only to then follow his lead. Their bodies are discovered by their devastated families, and the play ends on a subdued note with most of its major players dead.
“But MsMojo,” we hear you say, “That still sounds like a tragic love story.” Well, it is definitely a tragedy. And the love story matters for sure. But when you expand the scope and look at the whole show instead of just that balcony scene, it’s clearer that “Romeo and Juliet” isn’t about love so much as passion. Or to put an even finer point on it, what happens when we let passion, as in intense, irrational emotion, drive our actions.
Not to twist the knife in Mercutio here, but he’s a prime example of what we’re talking about. For most of the show, Mercutio is a good hang. This guy is charming, witty, fun…But he’s also impulsive to a fault. This becomes a fatal flaw when he runs afoul of Tybalt Capulet. Tybalt is characterized by two things: His skill with a sword, and his hair trigger aggression. Already spoiling for a confrontation with Romeo, his behavior goads Mercutio into a fight instead. Neither consider the ramifications of a duel between them, and they both die as a result of their pride, temper, and recklessness. Worse than just paying the price on an individual level though, their actions ripple out to affect their community.
That brings us back to the titular duo. Of course they are obviously touched by the deaths of Tybalt and Mercutio. Romeo goes from trying to make peace with Tybalt at the beginning of a scene to giving in to senseless rage and murdering him by the end of it. However, Romeo proves from the start of the play that he was always a creature of passion perhaps more than any other character.
When we first meet the seventeen year old Montague heir, he is lost in the depths of despair over his unrequited love. For Juliet…’s other cousin Rosaline. He only attends the Capulet party out of a desire to see his disinterested crush. When he meets Juliet something about her flips a switch though, and he turns all that obsessive attention in her direction. For the rest of the play, Romeo shows himself to be a character totally in service to his wildly swinging emotions. Though he enjoys rapturous highs in his scenes with Juliet, he is quick to give in to darker sentiments like sadness or anger, and tends to act impetuously based on whatever he’s feeling most strongly in the moment. Which is how he wound up drinking poison in a tomb.
His counterpart is not much better, but is more complex than we often get a sense of when we’re just given her love scenes. Juliet, who is just shy of 14, is not particularly interested in romance when we meet her. She is told of her arranged marriage to Paris, a relative of the ruling Prince, just hours before she first meets Romeo. Though pure physical attraction seems to have played no small part in her initial interest in him, his last name is a problem. Or is it?
Juliet goes through the motions of bemoaning the divide between her family and Romeo’s, but one could attribute at least part of her instant attachment to him as a subconscious rebellious instinct. Stripped of agency by an impending marriage she does not want, Romeo on some level may represent a chance to do something on her own terms, with the added bonus that it would upset her parents, which is the most teenage thing we can imagine. Her actions throughout the play all read as an attempt to take control in a world that gives her none. Be it choosing her own romantic partner, planning the most dramatic runaway from home ever, or actually ending her own life, Juliet is driven by a desperate desire to escape her circumstances. And like Romeo, she doesn’t pause long enough to master her emotions and think clearly.
Had either taken a beat or a breath, they might have handled situations differently. Or it might have transpired that what they felt wasn’t love at all, but just kind of hyper intense infatuation you can only really work up to when you’re young. And as for the oft repeated idea that “love conquers all…” it demonstrably doesn’t. The reckless passion of two teenagers led to six deaths in under a week. The text doesn’t really judge either character too harshly, though. The real condemnation falls on their families.
Throughout the story we see Verona practically in a state of civil war over the grudge between the two factions. And yet for all the strife, we never learn the root of it. Ultimately the cause doesn’t matter. The bitterness and ego of both Montague and Capulet were allowed to spread like venom, destroying both families. Passion, unchecked by temperance or reason, could only end in scorched earth.
That’s a very relevant idea in any time or place. So what gives? Why don’t we make more of that part of the narrative? Well, the big screen doesn’t help. Unlike TV show appearances, full adaptations of “Romeo and Juliet” do lay the full story out there for everyone. Franco Zeffirelli[a]’s 1968 adaptation was nominated for best picture at the Academy Awards and remains in contention for the definitive film version. The modernized musical re-telling, “West Side Story,” is widely considered to be one of the greatest works of American musical theater and American cinema. And if you grew up in the ‘90s Baz Luhrmann’s “Romeo + Juliet” definitely made an impact on you. The problem is that on screen the scale becomes so grand and sweeping, that it’s easy to, well, do what the characters do and get carried away with our emotions. Great performances make us invest in the characters. Two good looking young people with incredible chemistry get us rooting for their relationship, however ill-conceived it may seem. And when you add stirring music, and evocative cinematography, it’s hard to keep your wits about you.
There’s also the fact that love is one of the most unifying experiences of the human race. We all yearn for connection, and most people have experienced the vivid emotional rollercoaster of a desperate crush. For a lot of us it doesn’t work out, and often those strong feelings lead us to moments we may not be the most proud of. So, that part of us that longs for the great romance wants better when we escape into a story. We want the fantasy of “meant to be” and “happily ever after,” not the reality of being told we should probably learn to moderate our emotional responses and adjust our expectations. Even creators that really know their Shakespeare steer into that sentimentality more often than not.
More recent pieces of media have tried to reframe “Romeo and Juliet,” and restore some of the context that pop culture misses. After centuries of earnest fixation on the love story aspect, it’s become almost too easy to satirize. There have been plenty of funny, thoughtful, and interesting attempts to recontextualize the doomed fling between two kids. Yet nothing quite seems to stick like the starcrossed lovers angle.
Ultimately, we want to believe in a Romeo and Juliet kind of love. And when it doesn’t work out for them, we still feel a sense of catharsis in getting to feel big, wild emotions through the safety of somebody else’s experience. Shakespeare knew what he was doing. He understood that like the Montagues and the Capulets, his larger point wouldn’t resonate with his audience unless we were personally invested. He did his job, it’s just on us to remember to look at the whole picture. Marry a little logic with emotion. Practice what he preached. Wow. Shakespeare was pretty smart.
But let’s be real, Romeo and Juliet 100% would have driven each other nuts in the long term. That’s just facts.
What do you think? What other classic stories get muddled between page and screen? Let us know in the comments.
[a]frAHN-koh dZEH-fee-REH-lee:
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