Propaganda disguised as a rom-com
Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” gives us more than the Beatrice and Benedick template for romantic comedies
I’m reading through Shakespeare’s plays in an attempt to make sense of the world. Today I’m writing about “Much Ado About Nothing.” For a quick reference to posts on previous plays, click here. Next week we return to young Hal as a king in “Henry V.”
You know the Beatrice and Benedick plot even if you’ve never seen or read “Much Ado About Nothing.” Smart, mouthy girl who’s too jaded for marriage meets a charming man whose wit matches hers and is determined to win her heart, no matter the obstacles. Their friends, who of course see the chemistry between them, conspire to bring them together. When the comedians are deft in their craft, the quick patter and devastating barbs keep the comedy spinning until the end, when romance brings the two together. It’s a solid prototype that’s yielded innumerable copycats.
Shakespeare created one of his most endearing and enduring female characters in Beatrice, who is—as is usual with the strong women in his plays—more likable than her suitor. Benedick is more Cary Grant than Kate’s arrogant Petruchio (“Taming of the Shrew”): smooth, witty, endearingly in love. But Beatrice, well she’s a firecracker.
The play would be interesting and enjoyable if that’s all you came for. And of course, there’s more: a faked death, a criminal investigation, character assassination. It ends with two weddings and also a promise to exact justice.
It probes topics that are as current as today’s news: willful deception, self-delusion, the ascendance of illusion over substance. Why are some people tricked into believing propaganda while others aren’t? Shakespeare has some thoughts on that.
Summary
Don Pedro, Prince of Aragon, has just defeated his brother, Don John, in a military engagement that was relatively benign1. The Governor of Messina, Leonato, welcomes Don Pedro’s arrival. Accompanying Don Pedro are two gentlemen, Claudio and Benedick. Leonato’s daughter Hero, and niece Beatrice—both beautiful—are on hand to meet the young men. They quickly sort into pairs: the virtuous paradigms of romance, Claudio and Hero, and the anti-romantic couple, Benedick and Beatrice, whose barbed witticisms hazard the course of love. Claudio and Hero plan to wed and Benedick sets to woo Beatrice, no matter the obstacles she presents.
Don John arrives with his companions Conrad and Borachio under less sunny circumstances. Don John is bitter and intent on sowing discord. He concocts a scheme to shame Hero and prevent the wedding.
Borachio is romantically involved with Hero’s attendant, Margaret. Don John will ensure that Claudio and Don Pedro are outside Hero’s house late on the night before the wedding. Borachio will leave Hero’s chamber after an assignation with Margaret, who will be wearing Hero’s clothing. Borachio and Margaret will make an ostentatious display of their leave-taking, impressing on any watchers that they’ve been intimate many times together. Thus, Claudio will easily be manipulated into decrying Hero and leaving her unwed at the altar, and Don Pedro will be humiliated for having supported the union.
Constable Dogberry and his partner Verges contribute the comic thread to the plot. Dim and ineffectual, Dogberry hires some night watchmen. The watchmen observe Conrad and Borachio talk about the scheme to dupe Claudio and Don Pedro. They hear Borachio brag about how much he earned from the plot. The watchmen apprehend them.
As Hero prepares for her wedding, Dogberry and Verges approach Leonato and ask him to sit in on the interrogation of the men who were brought in by the watchmen. Leonato begs off, saying he can’t be bothered since he’s too busy with the wedding.
At the wedding, Claudio charges Hero of being a slut, which Don Pedro confirms based on what he saw the night before. The two accusors leave the wedding. Hero having fainted, Leonato berates his unconscious daughter and disowns her.
The friar speaks up for Hero, at which point Hero awakes and denies the charges. Leonato devises his own scheme: they will all pretend that Hero died of shame. This, he thinks, will help Claudio appreciate what he has now lost. Beatrice tells Benedick that if he loves her, he must kill Claudio. He’s unwilling but since he’s smitten with Beatrice, he agrees to her demands. He approaches Claudio and challenges him to a duel.
Leonato brings the news of his daughter’s death to Claudio and Don Pedro. They receive it as sad news, but deserved.
Don Pedro hears Borachio’s testimony. He and Claudio are stricken to learn that the accusations against Hero were false. Leonato offers to Claudio his brother Antonio’s ‘daughter’ (who looks just like Hero, because she is) as consolation, which Claudio accepts. Don John decides to skip town.
Claudio mourns Hero at Leonato’s family vault. The next day, Antonio brings out his veiled ‘daughter’ and stipulates that Claudio must agree to marry her sight unseen, to which he agrees. Hero is then unmasked, and the couple are reunited. Meanwhile, Benedick gains the prickly Beatrice’s agreement to marry. The ending ties up the several loose ends: Don John is captured as he attempts to sneak out of Messina and Margaret is found to be blameless in playing her part in the scheme.
Thoughts
One of my university professors told me that in Shakespeare’s time, ‘nothing’ would have been pronounced ‘noting,’ so “Much Ado About Nothing” wouldn’t mean ‘a lot of bother for no reason’ but ‘lots of people watching.’
That was an aha! moment for me, opening a door into the work. This play brims with people spying on each other, gossiping, watching each other. The word ‘note’ pops up repeatedly, in all its meanings, as in this exchange between Don Pedro and the singer named Balthasar:
DON PEDRO Nay, pray thee, come;
Or if thou wilt hold longer argument,
Do it in notes.
BALTHASAR Note this before my notes:
There’s not a note of mine that’s worth the noting.
-Act 2 Scene 3
With an abundance of people watching each other, what’s there to hide? Although it seems logical that lack of privacy yields transparency, the opposite is true. People can see but draw the wrong conclusions.
‘Fashion’ also appears repeatedly, and pointedly. Sometimes the word means what we expect: outfitting oneself to make an impression. It also suggests something that’s been made (fashioned): an artifice. This example comes from the scene when Conrad and Borachio conspire on a rainy night, standing beneath the eaves of a shed with the rain dripping down on them. The Watchmen who observe them are literally eavesdropping:
BORACHIO That shows thou art unconfirmed. Thou knowest that the fashion of a doublet, or a hat, or a cloak is nothing to a man. CONRADE Yes, it is apparel. BORACHIO I mean the fashion. CONRAD Yes, the fashion is the fashion. BORACHIO Tush, I may as well say the fool’s the fool. But seest thou not what a deformed thief this fashion is? FIRST WATCHMAN aside I know that Deformed. A has been a vile thief this seven year. A goes up and down like a gentleman. I remember his name. BORACHIO Didst thou not hear somebody? CONRAD No, ’twas the vane on the house. BORACHIO Seest thou not, I say, what a deformed thief this fashion is, how giddily a turns about all the hot- bloods between fourteen and five-and-thirty, sometimes fashioning them like Pharaoh’s soldiers in the reechy painting, sometime like god Bel’s priests in the old church window, sometime like the shaven Hercules in the smirched worm-eaten tapestry, where his codpiece seems as massy as his club? CONRAD All this I see, and I see that the fashion wears out more apparel than the man. But art not thou thyself giddy with the fashion too, that thou hast shifted out of thy tale into telling me of the fashion? BORACHIO Not so, neither. But know that I have tonight wooed Margaret, the Lady Hero’s gentlewoman, by the name of Hero. She leans me out at her mistress’ chamber window, bids me a thousand times good night—I tell this tale vilely. I should first tell thee how the Prince, Claudio, and my master, planted and placed and possessed by my master, Don John, saw afar off in the orchard this amiable encounter. CONRAD And thought they Margaret was Hero? BORACHIO Two of them did, the Prince and Claudio, -Act 3 Scene 3
Men (especially the young, according to Borachio) fashion looks that change how others perceive them, whether playing a role or emphasizing their manhood. For the artifice to work, the audience must be complicit. This is his rationale for his own treacherous deception of Claudio and Don John. He’s showing them a spectacle that they’re primed to interpret for themselves.
In a bittersweet scene before her wedding, Hero tries to decide which dress to wear to her wedding, innocently unaware that she won’t wed that day. Ironically, she seeks Margaret’s advise on which dress to wear.
MARGARET I like the new tire within excellently, if the
hair were a thought browner. And your gown’s a most
rare fashion, i’faith. I saw the Duchess of Milan’s gown
that they praise so.
HERO O, that exceeds, they say.
MARGARET By my troth, ‘s but a night-gown in respect
of yours—cloth ‘o’ gold, and cuts, and laced with silver,
set with pearls, down sleeves, side sleeves, and skirts
round underborne with a bluish tinsel. But for a fine,
quaint, graceful, and excellent fashion, yours is worth
ten on’t.
HERO God give me joy to wear it, for my heart is exceeding
heavy.
-Act 3 Scene 4
Contrasting with Borachio’s meaning, Hero selects the fashion for her wedding to complement her true nature: quaint, graceful, unostentatious.
The characters most true to themselves are the only nominally secondary characters in the play: Beatrice and Benedick, templates for modern rom-coms. She’s all sharp angles and snark; he’s smooth and sunny, quick to hand back everything she throws his way. Think Hepburn and Tracy (in just about every film they made together), Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis in “Moonlighting”, “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.” Selena Gomez’s “Mabel Mora” character in “Only Murders in the Building” is a descendant of Beatrice, a character whose edges haven’t been smoothed by romance.
The play maintains the will-they-won’t-they tension until the very last scene, providing much-needed spice to an otherwise bland pairing between their friends Claudio and Hero. In a play absorbed with the deception of appearances, these two characters stand out. Beatrice’s emotions are quickly triggered, and she voices them without reservation. As unvarnished as she appears, she harbors desires that she can’t own up to, professing that she will never marry. Benedick maintains his optimism that she’ll eventually return his love, which Beatrice notes and appreciates, even if she can’t allow herself to acknowledge it. Their friends conspire to get them together. It’s a plot line so familiar now that it’s hard to believe it dates back at least to the end of the sixteenth century.
The value of transparency
“The only way to keep a secret is to never have one.”
Julian Assange
The WikiLeaks organization and its followers justify the publication of private and previously-secure public documents in their pursuit of transparency. For them, transparency is an ethic synonymous with honesty; its opposite is secrecy. If you don’t want your e-mails made public, you must have something to hide, and if you have something to hide, you’re not being honest.
Left out of that conclusion are intentional and interpretative bias. A House committee chair promises that shining a light on his political opponents will uncover truth. The mission of the committee is:
Our mission statement is to ensure the efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability of the federal government and all its agencies. We provide a check and balance on the role and power of Washington - and a voice to the people it serves.
Genuinely good government requires a commitment to expose waste, fraud, and abuse. We ultimately report to hard working taxpayers to ensure their investment in government is spent effectively, efficiently, and transparently.
We identify problems, shine light on the situation, and propose reforms to prevent abuses from being repeated.
Despite the stated goal to ‘shine [a] light’, the chairman curates witnesses and testimony that support his allegations. This week, his primary target of supposed corruption agreed to testify only in the full view of the public, and the chair declined.
The chairman had been delighted, as was Borachio with his pantomime of infidelity, to present a confrontation obscured by the staging. With testimony given only behind closed doors, the committee would be able to spin it in news and social media afterwards. The chairman could rely on his intended audience accepting what was fashioned for them. But the witness’ stipulation to testify publicly would remove the spectacle from the darkened eaves into the light of day. This is the offer he declined.
Truthful testimony
Constable Dogberry presents Borachio to testify for the dénouement. Borachio’s testimony discloses the truth to Don Pedro and Claudio, who had witnessed the spectacle Don John had orchestrated.
DON PEDRO (to Conrad and Borachio) Who have you offended, masters, that you are thus bound to your answer? This learned constable is too cunning to be understood. What’s your offence? BORACHIO Sweet Prince, let me go no farther to mine answer. Do you hear me, and let this Count kill me. I have deceived even your very eyes. What your wisdoms could not discover, these shallow fools have brought to light, who in the night overheard me confessing to this man how Don John your brother incensed me to slander the Lady Hero, how you were brought into the orchard and saw me court Margaret in Hero’s garments, how you disgraced her when you should marry her. My villainy they have upon record, which I had rather seal with my death than repeat over to my shame. The lady is dead upon mine and my master’s false accusation, and briefly, I desire nothing but the reward of a villain. -Act 5 Scene 1
The Prince and the Governor (Don Pedro and Leonato) accepted Hero’s infidelity as truth based on scant evidence. The eyewitness testimony wasn’t reliable for several reasons. The scene occurred late on a night obscured by rain as well as darkness. Two men standing side by side that night could not see each other. The witnesses hadn’t happened by chance on the scene, they had been invited to it. Every aspect of this spectacle should have cautioned Don Pedro and Claudio against drawing conclusions. And yet they do. Even Hero’s father denounces her virtue. He’s only dissuaded when the friar reminds him that this is one accusation that should be placed against her lifetime of evidence to the contrary. Preposterously, the most foolish of men were able to see through the illusion: Dogberry, Verges and the watchmen.
Why indeed would the Prince and the bride’s groom be so gullible?
These are characters more of fashion than men. As Beatrice says of Benedick: “He wears his faith but / as the fashion of his hat; it ever changes with the next block.” (Act 1 Scene 1) Benedick observes the same in Claudio:
BENEDICK
I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much
another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviors
to love, will, after he hath laughed at such
shallow follies in others, become the argument of
his own scorn by falling in love—and such a man is
Claudio. I have known when there was no music
with him but the drum and the fife, and now had he
rather hear the tabor and the pipe; I have known
when he would have walked ten mile afoot to see a
good armor, and now will he lie ten nights awake
carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont
to speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest
man and a soldier, and now is he turned orthography;
his words are a very fantastical banquet, just so
many strange dishes.
-Act 2 Scene 3
Adorning himself with a wife who has a taint of impropriety would be unthinkable to Claudio, a superficial man of fashion. Don Pedro himself feels affected by Hero’s supposed conduct, although he’s not directly involved. He’s more worried about how Claudio’s reputation will sully his: “I stand dishonoured, that have gone about / To link my dear friend to a common stale.”
Dogberry and his men, however, are authentic. Comic in his malapropisms, Dogberry reaches for words he’s heard and misapprehended, in hopes that his verbal embroidery will make him look more intelligent than he is. But Dogberry is a plain man, dogged in his job and dog-like in his lack of artifice. He did nothing special to extract a confession; he just asked a question. And so he elicited the truth.
Misinformation and disinformation propagate in every aspect of life, dressed in garments of common sense, patriotism, and virtue. Like Hero, you may feel you’re being knocked to the ground with the overwhelming assault of daily lies and false accusations.
The truth, stripped of its pretense, is likely very simple. Strip away the histrionics and attacks created for show. Ask the simple questions.
Ellie’s Corner
Today was vaccination day, and the shots made her sleepy this afternoon. Dave sacrificed his fleece to comfort her as she napped. She keeps track of the smells around her even in her sleep. I bet she dreamed of him.
She received a good report card from the vet, which makes us happy. What would we do without this pup? I don’t really want to know.
Thanks for reading
The play isn’t explicit on Don Pedro’s opponent, but the editors of “The Oxford Shakespeare” draw this conclusion, which makes sense. Don John is certainly spoiling for a fight with his brother, and being on the losing end of a skirmish would suit his motivations.
How apropos of a post by Thom Hartmann today regarding current events and lies masquerading as policy. Also, Selena Gomez indeed plays an excellent Beatrice as Mabel in “Only Murders.”