Think you know Shakespeare's most famous love story? Think again! Join us as we explore how "Romeo and Juliet" has been misinterpreted through the ages. From the non-existent balcony to the true themes of passion and recklessness, discover why this isn't just a simple tale of star-crossed lovers.
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00:00What are you doing? What? What? What are you doing?"
00:04Welcome to Ms. Mojo.
00:06Once in a name, that which we call the ultimate love story
00:09has a lot more going on beyond the balcony scene.
00:12Today we're exploring how the most famous play
00:14by the world's most famous writer has been misrepresented.
00:18How could this happen?
00:20We started out like Romeo and Juliet, but it ended up in tragedy.
00:23Fun fact, did you know that the text of Shakespeare's 1597 tragedy
00:29Romeo and Juliet contains no mention of a balcony?
00:33In fact, the first use of the word balcony
00:35doesn't even show up in speech usage until more than 20 years later.
00:39Okay, who built the balcony?
00:43Okay, in retrospect it might have been foolish of me
00:45to consider Pace the nail-silent cousin.
00:48But you live, you learn.
00:49The choice to stage Act 2, Scene 2, around this famous architectural feature
00:53isn't a bad one by any means.
00:55The big spatial divide between the besotted pair
00:57is a metaphor for the challenges separating them.
01:00Yadda, yadda, yadda.
01:01How camest thou hither? Tell me, and wherefore?
01:04The orchard walls are high and hard to climb,
01:06and the place deaf, considering who thou art,
01:09if any of my kinsmen find thee here.
01:10Effective as it is, it's probably not what Shakespeare envisioned.
01:14The fact that it is the most indelible image of the play
01:16in collective consciousness though,
01:18that makes it an excellent signifier for the way
01:20we've collectively decided to misinterpret it.
01:23And what kind of statement would we be making today
01:25if we were to emulate such a paradigmatic transformation?
01:31Exactly.
01:32The names Romeo and Juliet instantly conjure up a specific image,
01:36one of passionate, pure, undying love.
01:39Eyes, look your last.
01:42Arms, take your last embrace.
01:52Okay, maybe not undying,
01:54but that's what gives the story its potency, right?
01:56Two young people who fall instantly and deeply in love.
01:59I am too fond, and therefore thou mayest think my havia light,
02:05but trust me, gentlemen, I'll prove more true
02:09than those that have more cunning to be strange.
02:11They're so deep that the very thought of having to be without one another
02:15eventually causes each to take their own life.
02:17So that's the point of the play, right?
02:19The power of love and the tragedy of its denial?
02:21Oh God, I have an ill-divining soul,
02:24and it thinks I see thee now thou art so low
02:26as one dead in the bottom of a tomb.
02:28Either my eyesight fails or thou looks pale.
02:31And trust me, love, in my eyes so do you.
02:34Most people read Romeo and Juliet for the first time in high school,
02:38but were introduced to the material way before then.
02:41In fact, most of us in the modern day and age
02:43probably got our first dose of it in our cartoons.
02:46Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo?
02:52Herefore I art.
02:54As we get older, we continue to see this play referenced in the shows we watch.
02:58Anyone growing up outside the English-speaking world
03:01would be forgiven for assuming that performing in Romeo and Juliet
03:04is required to finish school here.
03:06Yes, and in a few minor minutes,
03:10I shall seduce the audience with my Romeo,
03:12and lay a kiss upon my Juliet.
03:18An endless parade of teen and tween characters take on these roles,
03:21almost always meant to parallel some plotline about a crush,
03:25or give two characters an excuse to lock lips.
03:27And no scene is more often recreated than the balcony scene.
03:31Years before reading or seeing Romeo and Juliet in full,
03:34this one piece, arguably the most romantic scene in the show,
03:38creates our framework to understand it.
03:40If this is the most popular part of Romeo and Juliet,
03:43our young minds reason,
03:45it follows that it must be a love story first and foremost.
03:48But trust my mom to turn one of the world's great love stories
03:51into a cautionary tale of what happens when children disobey their parents.
03:54Sorry to go against our girl Lane Kim,
03:56but her mom's reading on this is closer to correct.
03:59Kind of.
04:00It is indeed a cautionary tale,
04:02but the parents don't come off great either.
04:04You are to blame, my lord, to rate us so!
04:06And why, my lady wisdom,
04:08hold your tongue!
04:09Good prudence spatter with your gothic bow!
04:11I speak no treason!
04:12You failed godly law!
04:13I may not once speak!
04:15You mumbling fool!
04:16For anyone in need of a refresher,
04:18Romeo and Juliet is the story of Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet,
04:23two star-crossed young Italian nobles
04:25whose families have split the city of Verona with their ongoing feud.
04:29One night, Romeo gatecrashes a Capulet party,
04:32and he and Juliet are smitten at first sight.
04:35Did my heart love till now?
04:38Forswear it, sight,
04:40for I never saw true beauty till this night.
04:43After knowing each other for less than a day,
04:45they decide to marry in secret,
04:47aware that their families would never approve of a match between them.
04:51When Romeo's best friend Mercutio is killed by Juliet's cousin Tybalt,
04:55Romeo, in his grief and rage,
04:57accidentally kills Tybalt in turn.
04:59Be gone!
05:00The citizens are up and Tybalt slain!
05:03Stand not amazed!
05:05The prince will doom thee death if thou art taken.
05:08Hence, be gone away!
05:11Cold!
05:12I am fortune's fool!
05:14Why dost thou stay?
05:15He flees Verona,
05:17while Juliet is left to escape the suitable marriage her parents have arranged for her.
05:21Following some questionable advice from her priest,
05:23she fakes her own death,
05:24planning for Romeo to then come and spirit her away.
05:27Except the details get garbled on the way to Romeo,
05:30and he returns home believing she has actually died.
05:33Never from this palace of dim night depart again.
05:41Here, here will I remain,
05:47with worms that are thy chambermaid.
05:51Oh, God!
05:53In her tomb, he takes his own life,
05:55and Juliet awakens,
05:56only to then follow his lead.
05:58Their bodies are discovered by their devastated families,
06:01and the play ends on a subdued note with most of its major players dead.
06:05For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo.
06:13But Miss Mojo, we hear you say,
06:15that still sounds like a tragic love story.
06:17Well, it is definitely a tragedy,
06:20and the love story matters for sure.
06:22But when you expand the scope and look at the whole show
06:24instead of just that balcony scene,
06:27it's clearer that Romeo and Juliet isn't about love so much as passion.
06:30Or to put an even finer point on it,
06:32what happens when we let passion,
06:34as in intense irrational emotion,
06:37drive our actions?
06:38Have courage man,
06:40the wound cannot be much.
06:42No, it is not so deep as a well,
06:47nor so wide as a church door,
06:50but it is enough to all serve.
06:53Not to twist the knife in Mercutio here,
06:55but he's a prime example of what we're talking about.
06:57For most of the show, Mercutio's a good hang.
07:00Romeo, we must have you dance.
07:02Not I, not I, believe me.
07:04You have dancing shoes with nimble soles.
07:06I have a soul of lead.
07:08You are a lover.
07:09Borrow Cupid's wings and soar with them above a common bound.
07:13This guy is charming, witty, fun,
07:15but he's also impulsive to a fault.
07:18This becomes a fatal flaw when he runs afoul of Tybalt Capulet.
07:22No calm, dishonorable, vile submission.
07:24No Mercutio, leave me.
07:27Tybalt, you rat catcher.
07:29What must I have with me?
07:32Good king of cats,
07:33nothing but one of your nine lives that I mean to make bold with all.
07:38Tybalt is characterized by two things,
07:40his skill with a sword and his hair trigger aggression.
07:43Already spoiling for a confrontation with Romeo,
07:46his behavior goads Mercutio into a fight instead.
07:49Neither consider the ramifications of a duel between them,
07:52and they both die as a result of their pride, temper, and recklessness.
07:56Worse than just paying the price on an individual level though,
07:59their actions ripple out to affect their community.
08:02A plague of both your houses!
08:05They've made worms meat of me, I have it,
08:08and soundly to your houses!
08:11That brings us back to the titular duo.
08:14Of course they are obviously touched by the deaths of Tybalt and Mercutio.
08:17Romeo goes from trying to make peace with Tybalt at the beginning of a scene,
08:21to giving in to senseless rage and murdering him by the end of it.
08:25However, Romeo proves from the start of the play
08:27that he was always a creature of passion,
08:29perhaps more than any other character.
08:32Then I defy you stars!
08:40When we first meet the 17-year-old Montague heir,
08:43he's lost in the depths of despair over his unrequited love
08:46for Juliet's other cousin, Rosalind.
08:49She'll not be hit with Cupid's arrow,
08:51nor abide the encounter of assailing eyes,
08:53nor ope her lap to saints seducing gold.
08:56Didn't she have sworn that she will still live, Chase?
08:59She has, and then that sparing makes huge waste.
09:01He only attends the Capulet party out of a desire to see his disinterested crush.
09:06When he meets Juliet, something about her flips a switch though,
09:09and he turns all that obsessive attention in her direction.
09:12If I profane with my unworthiest hand this holy shrine,
09:19my lips, two blushing pilgrims ready stand
09:23to smooth that rough touch of their tender kiss.
09:26For the rest of the play,
09:27Romeo shows himself to be a character totally in service
09:30to his wildly swinging emotions.
09:32Though he enjoys rapturous highs in his scenes with Juliet,
09:35he is quick to give in to darker sentiments like sadness or anger,
09:38and tends to act impetuously based on whatever he's feeling
09:41most strongly at the moment,
09:43which is how he wound up drinking poison in a tomb.
09:45She is to my love.
10:00His counterpart is not much better,
10:02but is more complex than we often get a sense of
10:04when we're just given her love scenes.
10:06Juliet, who is just shy of 14,
10:09is not particularly interested in romance when we meet her.
10:12Tell me, daughter Juliet, how stands your disposition to be married?
10:25It is an honor that I dream not of.
10:27She is told of her arranged marriage to Paris,
10:29a relative of the ruling prince,
10:31just hours before she first meets Romeo.
10:33Though pure physical attraction seems to have played
10:36no small part in her initial interest in him,
10:38his last name is a problem.
10:40Or is it?
10:42Shame on for thy name which is no part of thee.
10:47Take all myself.
10:49Juliet goes through the motions of bemoaning the divide
10:52between her family and Romeo's,
10:53but one could attribute at least part of her instant attachment to him
10:57as a subconscious rebellious instinct.
10:59Stripped of agency by an impending marriage she does not want,
11:03Romeo on some level may represent a chance to do something
11:06on her own terms,
11:07with the added bonus that it would upset her parents,
11:10which is the most teenage thing we can imagine.
11:13Wow, a non-good nurse.
11:16Sweet Montague, be true.
11:21Stay but a little, I will come again.
11:24Her actions throughout the play all read as an attempt to take control
11:27in a world that gives her none.
11:29Be it choosing her own romantic partner,
11:31planning the most dramatic runaway from home ever,
11:34or actually ending her own life,
11:36Juliet is driven by a desperate desire to escape her circumstances.
11:40And like Romeo,
11:41she doesn't pause long enough to master her emotions and think clearly.
11:45I love him.
11:45You love him?
11:46You met him Sunday.
11:47It's barely Thursday morning.
11:49Slow down, crazy.
11:51Slow down.
11:52Had either taken a beat or a breath,
11:54they might have handled situations differently,
11:56or it might have transpired that what they felt wasn't love at all,
12:00but just kind of hyper intense infatuation you can only really work up to
12:04when you're young.
12:05And as for the oft-repeated idea that love conquers all,
12:08it demonstrably does not.
12:10Alas, my liege, my wife is dead tonight.
12:13Grief at my son's exile has stopped her breath.
12:16What new woe conspires against mine age?
12:20Look and I shall see.
12:21The reckless passion of two teenagers led to six deaths in under a week.
12:25The text doesn't really judge either character too harshly, though.
12:28The real condemnation falls on their families.
12:31What misadventure is so early up that calls our persons from our morning rest?
12:38Bring forth the parties of suspicion.
12:41Throughout the story, we see Verona practically in a state of civil war
12:45over the grudge between the two factions.
12:47And yet for all the strife, we never learn the root of it.
12:50Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word by thee, old Capulet, and Montague,
12:58have thrice disturbed the quiet of our streets.
13:03If ever you disturb our streets again,
13:05your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.
13:07Ultimately, the cause doesn't matter.
13:09The bitterness and ego of both Montague and Capulet were allowed to spread like venom,
13:14destroying both families.
13:16See what a scourge is laid upon your hates,
13:22that heaven finds means to kill your joys with love.
13:26Passion, unchecked by temperance or reason, could only end in scorched earth.
13:31And I for winking at your discolored face,
13:33and I for winking at your discourse to have lost a brace of kinsmen,
13:42all are punished.
13:44That's a very relevant idea in any time or place.
13:47So what gives?
13:48Why don't we make more of that part of the narrative?
13:51Well, the big screen doesn't help.
13:52With love's light wings did I aperch these walls,
13:56for stony limits cannot hold love out,
13:58and what love can do, that dares love attempt.
14:01Unlike TV show appearances,
14:03full adaptations of Romeo and Juliet do lay the full story out there for everyone.
14:08Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 adaptation was nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards,
14:13and remains in contention for the definitive film version.
14:16The modernized musical retelling West Side Story
14:19is widely considered to be one of the greatest works of American musical theater
14:23and American cinema.
14:25And if you grew up in the 90s,
14:26Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet definitely made an impact on you.
14:30Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purged.
14:34Then have my lips, isn't that they have took?
14:36Sin from my lips?
14:38O trespass, sweetly urged, give me my sin again.
14:41The problem is that on screen the scale becomes so grand and sweeping
14:45that it's easy to, well, do what the characters do
14:48and get carried away with our emotions.
14:50Great performances make us invest in the characters.
14:53Two good-looking young people with incredible chemistry
14:56get us rooting for their relationship,
14:58however ill-conceived it may seem.
15:00And when you add stirring music and evocative cinematography,
15:04it's hard to keep your wits about you.
15:16Mother Christ, a word with you.
15:17There's also the fact that love is one of the most unifying experiences of the human race.
15:22We all yearn for connection,
15:24and most people have experienced the vivid emotional roller coaster
15:27of a desperate crush.
15:28What sadness lengthens Romeo's hours?
15:30Not having that which having makes them short.
15:33In love?
15:34Out.
15:35Of love?
15:36Out of her favor where I am in love.
15:38For a lot of us, it doesn't work out,
15:40and often those strong feelings lead us to moments
15:43we may not be the most proud of.
15:45So that part of us that longs for the great romance
15:48wants better when we escape into a story.
15:50I dreamed a dream last night.
15:53And so did I.
15:54Well, what was yours?
15:56That dreamers often lie.
15:57We want the fantasy of meant to be and happily ever after,
16:01not the reality of being told we should probably learn to moderate
16:04our emotional responses and adjust our expectations.
16:07Even creators that really know their Shakespeare
16:09steer into that sentimentality more often than not.
16:12I want warm light.
16:14I want those balls deflated and removed.
16:16Did you hear that?
16:18Not a zombie!
16:19I have a soul!
16:21I can feel!
16:22Take those cages off!
16:23More recent pieces of media have tried to reframe Romeo and Juliet
16:27and restore some of the context that pop culture misses.
16:30After centuries of earnest fixation on the love story aspect,
16:34it's become almost too easy to satirize.
16:36I'm a grown woman.
16:37I think you're 14 and you're an idiot.
16:39You took a roofie from a priest.
16:41Look at your life.
16:42Look at your choices.
16:43There have been plenty of funny, thoughtful,
16:45and interesting attempts to recontextualize
16:48the doomed fling between two kids.
16:49Yet nothing quite seems to stick like the star-crossed lover's angle.
16:53You're in my head.
16:54And you in mine, my sweet.
16:56What are we doing?
16:58You're married, I'm dead.
17:00It can never work.
17:01Can it?
17:02Maybe it can.
17:03Like Romeo and Juliet.
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17:20Ultimately, we want to believe in a Romeo and Juliet kind of love.
17:24And when it doesn't work out for them,
17:26we still feel a sense of catharsis in getting to feel big,
17:29wild emotions through the safety of somebody else's experience.
17:32Won't thou leave me so unsatisfied?
17:34What satisfaction canst thou have tonight?
17:37The exchange of thy love's faithful vow for mine.
17:41I gave thee mine, for thou didst request it.
17:45Shakespeare knew what he was doing.
17:47He understood that like the Montagues and the Capulets,
17:50his larger point wouldn't resonate with his audience unless we were personally invested.
17:54They do see thee, they will murder thee.
17:56Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye than twenty of their swords.
18:02Look thou but sweet, and I'm proof against their enmity.
18:06He did his job.
18:07It's just on us to remember to look at the whole picture.
18:10Marry a little logic with emotion.
18:13Practice what he preached.
18:14Wow, Shakespeare was pretty smart.
18:16The boy is a genius!
18:19I'll make them laugh.
18:21I'll make them cry!
18:23But let's be real, Romeo and Juliet 100% would have driven each other nuts in the long term.
18:29That's just facts.
18:30I like veal.
18:33Baby cow.
18:34Is it?
18:42Just seven more hours to go.
18:46What do you think?
18:47What other classic stories get muddled between page and screen?
18:50Let us know in the comments.
18:52Yes, miss, I have an opinion about everything.
18:55Do you want this in iambic pentameter?
18:57Do you agree with our picks?
18:58Check out this other recent clip from Ms. Mojo.
19:01And be sure to subscribe and ring the bell to be notified about our latest videos.