The bogus defense of Julius Caesar as Donald Trump.

Another thread mentioned that Bank of America and Delta had pulled their sponsorship of the Julius Caesar production which depicted Caesar as Donald Trump and Calpurnia as Melania. Good for them.

Today we learned that the New York Times defended the production and would continue to support it. No surprise there.

But let's take a look at the bullshite explanation by both the director as well as the reviewer from the NYT. First of all, from the NYT reviewer, Jesse Green:

"“Even a cursory reading of the play, the kind that many American teenagers give it in high school, is enough to show that it does not advocate assassination. Shakespeare portrays the killing of Caesar by seven of his fellow senators as an unmitigated disaster for Rome, no matter how patriotic the intentions.”

This is condescending bullshite. "Cursory reading of the play"? Like in high school? Green assumes that his readers either never read the play or else slept through English class. From the final climactic scene, after Brutus has committed suicide, the dialogue between Marc Antony and Octavius:

Antony:

"This was the noblest Roman of them all:
All the conspirators save only he
Did that they did in envy of great Caesar;
He only, in a general honest thought
And common good to all, made one of them.

Octavius:

According to his virtue let us use him,
With all respect and rites of burial.
Within my tent his bones to-night shall lie,
Most like a soldier, order'd honourably."

That's right. The guy who the audience saw brutally stab Caesar/Trump in such a bloody fashion was the noblest Roman/American of them all...worthy of having his body lie in state and a funeral with full military honors.

But no, the play doesn't advocate assassination of Trump.

The director, Oskar Eustis, on the theatre company's website, offers more condescending bullshite, claiming that there are four possible protagonists in the play. Sure, there are other major characters. But anyone who has ever studied the play knows that Brutus...i.e., the guy who stabbed Trump to death...is the tragic HERO of the play, meeting the classic definition in every sense. That's right...tragic HERO.

The play is titled Julius Caesar, but the play isn't about Caesar. It's about Brutus and his struggle with his decision to join the conspiracy, and his downfall as a tragic hero. Green and Eustis's defense of the production is an insult to the intelligence of anyone who ever engaged in that "cursory reading of the play, the kind that many American teenagers give it in high school."

Again, good for Delta and BoA. I may just sign up for a credit card and go buy a plane ticket.