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Shakespeare Today
These film adaptations are only one avenue of the Shakespearean influence, and the easiest one to compare. As Nicholas Moschovakis writes, “there are speculative exchanges about the significanec of even the faintest allusions, like the title of the movie What Dreams May Come (from that soliloquy by the Danish prince—remember?)” (Moschovakis). Shakespeare has infiltrated every aspect of American pop culture, with most everything taking some aspect from the playwright.On the Internet, there are millions of pages dedicated to everything Shakespeare, including a current pop culture Shakespeare Blog. The blog deals with every aspect of current day culture, from film, to sports, to movies, to even rappers and current news stories. Its interesting to see how the authors of the blog can incorporate two seemingly unrelated ideas such as football and Shakespeare. As the blog states,
"With its powerful figures, career-ending injuries, and (sometimes) stadium-sized egos, professional football is an ideal world to examine through a Shakespearean lens. While an untimely trade or a botched salary negotiation may not seem like a big deal to us (particularly when those involved are so incredibly wealthy), don’t we look to our sports heroes, like our movie stars, in the same way Europeans of the 1600s viewed their kings and queens?" (Shakespeare Blog)
The blog goes back two years and is organized in many different ways to easily find a specific post, whether looking for a particular play or an actor of current day that has done some Shakespearean work.
Majorie Garber is a well known Shakespeare historian, having written many books and critical analyses relating to Shakespeare and current culture. She argues that Shakespeare is the “last vestiage of universalism,” that anyone can relate to the issues in Shakespeare’s plays and writing, whether it was in his time or ours. (Garber)
Shakespeare is the timeless author that will always be relevant and even a basis for popular culture.