Nah, killing two family members of your archnemesis and feeding them to said archnemesis, is Shakespearean levels of metal, so much so that even South Park riffed on this in the Scott Tennorman Must Die Episode.
@@AllonKirtchik Not sure how good is his Shakespeare chops, but that can be an excuse to get Mads to play both a loving father and Hannibal at the same time.
I went to a local theater that did a show called "the entire works of William Shakespeare abridged." They did all the comedies in one super story line that touched on all the plots of all Shakespeare's comedies, they did Othello as a rap, and did Titus andronicus as a cooking show
When I saw the red pie slice, I had a sinking suspicion there was going to be a "Your sons make a fine pie, I'm sure gonna miss them". Also, with Hannibal Lector in the room, we all knew someone was gonna be eaten.
ztslovebird The original line came across as even crazier than that: *TITUS (after revealing the heads of Chiron & Demetrius):* Why, there they are, both baked in that pie; Whereof their mother daintily hath fed, Eating the flesh that she herself hath bred. ‘Tis true, ‘tis true; witness my knife’s sharp point. **Titus stabs and kills Tamora**
It's interesting to note that while this play may have been among the earliest ones Shakespeare ever wrote, that "The Tempest" is the last. This play deals with revenge taken to its ultimate extreme, with various characters screwing each other over in retaliation for hideous acts. "The Tempest" is also about vengeance...but Prospero opts for forgiveness. What is the result? In "TA", almost all the major characters die and in "Tempest", everybody lives, a marriage is formed, a duke gets back his rightful kingdom and two slaves are freed. It's as if Shakespeare himself went through a transformation during his life or wanted people to progress with him to have peaceable solutions. Food for thought, anyhow.
Please dont remind me of this play atm, my head is aching remembering all the analyzing I had to do in school, good play, but but jesus were the essays complicated 😭
@@professorbutters "The Tempest" might not have been WS's last play, but "Cardenio" and "The Two Noble Kinsmen" are lost... and does anyone really give a rat's ass about "Henry VIII"?
People hate on Titus as not a Shakespeare play but we studied it at my University and it has all the Shakepearisms that he does in all his plays. Like meter, rhymes, allusions, and his puns. Also I could be remembering wrong but It was written right after a plague outbreak so he probably was feeling a bit morbid
In the play and in this film version, the baby is kept alive (I believe carried off by Titus' youngest son), potentially as a sign that the cycle of revenge has stopped. It could also be seen as allowing the cycle to continue, however, if one believes that the baby will grow up full of hatred.
Well, Red does point out that he might be emulating Jacobean revenge plays from earlier, but he probably put his own spin on them, as you do when you're a writer. Those "Shakespearisms" you mention are present in a couple other plays as well NOT by him though he of course did them way better.
I think it's _hilarious_ how hard people try to justify not thinking of this atrocity as a Shakespeare play. Why does it have to be a fake, or a Peele collab, or a silly riff on current trends, or something? Why can't English majors just accept that Shakespeare wasn't Playwright Jesus and that some of his plays really suck?
Not really the best production, in my opinion. Anthony Hopkins is the only one that made it acceptable. The movie is trippy as all hell. And I thoroughly hate the aesthetics
Hell torture porn is far older than Shakes. The idea of cooking people into food an serving them to unwitting relatives goes back to classical mythology and the blood soaked gory revenge plot is a cliche as old as time itself.
I don't really think it's torture porn. It had more going for it than some people think. I really like this play, and it has a lot to say about the self destructive nature of revenge. Plus when done right is actually pretty funny in a twisted way.
Apparently Titus Andronicus was also the origin of Frey pies...and who would not be surprised to find out that this is George RR Martin's favourite Shakespeare play
Watching Anthony Hopkins dancing around like a madman while wearing a goofy chefs outfit is not what I expected to see in this video. I mean I'm not disappointed but still
Honestly, I like Titus Andronicus. Sometimes you just need a good gore feast where you don't have to feel sorry for anyone involved except Lavinia because my god did that girl not deserve any of this.
And as far as gorefests go, this one is actually kinda good. Gory, puddle deep, but it's still a good time, which might be more of a testament to Shakespeare' skill than any of his well-known plays. His skill doesn't just end with writing good plots, even with a mediocre plot you feel proper empathy for Lavinia and laugh at some jokes that have no business being so good. It shows how much this low-born playwright elevates his work simply by the quality of its storytelling, that even though the plot is pretty much a Tarantino movie, Shakespeare kinda makes it work. Also for the record, 'baked into a pie' has yet to be topped for me as most creative death imaginable, and while strange meat pies are not unique to this play Shakespeare does seem to be the first one who did it.
What’s interesting to note about this story is that it seems to draw heavily from the story of Thyestes in which two brothers (the grandsons of none other than Tantalus himself) Thyestes and Atreus are stuck in an endless circle of vengeance, to the point that Atreus kidnaps, “sacrifices”, and cooks Thyestes’ two sons and feeds them to him. Even though it is established early on in the play that Thyestes is a bad dude and that Atreus is who we should root for, it’s all through Atreus’ perspective and there’s an interesting moment of twisted catharsis when Thyestes is eating and he’s sobbing for reasons he doesn’t know, but we as the audience are fully aware of why. It’s hard to not feel bad for Thyestes, and it makes the audience wonder if they should’ve really trusted Atreus’ narration all along. What seemed to be a fairly simple revenge plot ended up much more complex and interesting, and it ends with Thyestes vowing revenge on Atreus himself. There’s no definitive conclusion, almost like a warning against revenge. Yes both Titus and Thyestes are gore feats, but I think the true reason for those stories was to show the idiocy and pointlessness of revenge. Also..... don’t do cannibalism. Just... don’t. It doesn’t end well for anyone
tricking a parent to eat the cooked remains of their children? yeah, that's definitely your typical roman tragedy. I can totally see how this was normal back then.
Bloody Marine Lol. now I'm wondering though if tantalus is where we get the word tantalizing, considering his punishment in tartarus (if that's the guy you're referring to). to Google!
I mean, if you think that talented artists can't write pointless two-hour gore fests, I'd like to remind you that Peter Jackson, the man who directed Lord of the Rings and King Kong, also directed Brain Dead.
While I'm not inclined to wholeheartedly disregard all criticism towards this play, I don't think people really read it with the right interpretation. Hear me out! My mother and sister did this play, and as we are all into Celtic history we noted that Goths are a subsection of Ancient Celtic People. And Celts are well known for having an abundance of women's rights. They could inherit, own property, be warriors, gain political power, divorce without losing their children, etc. Meanwhile, Roman women were property. In this play, daughters and wives are commonly killed for being raped because it dishonors the men who owned them. On a side note, Shakespeare probably didn't know this but, girls with female siblings didn't even get their own names. So if your parents named your eldest sister Viola, then you and any other sisters you have would also be named Viola. They only get differentiated names when they marry and take their husband's last name. But I digress. The point is that the story has a very, "There is no wrath like a woman scorned!" Feel to it. Keep in mind, Tamara is a queen in her own right. Not only that, but she's a Goth Queen, meaning she's spent her life enjoying freedom and independence in every sense. As a prisoner to Titus, she should be the most valuable prisoner and be the one they need to contain with the utmost caution. But Titus, as a Roman, doesn't see Tamara as valuable. To him, the most valuable are her sons, since she has no husband. That's why he kills her eldest despite her protests! He thinks he's the one who will be in charge since he's male and of age. But as it's established, this is simply not true! Tamara is queen. She doesn't lose power or authority because she has no husband and sons to take her place, she is queen in her own right. So when Titus kills her son but keeps her alive, he doesn't fathom that he's made a powerful enemy. Shakespeare loves conflict through misunderstandings, and this is one of them. Even the Roman Emperor who married Tamara clearly only sees her as a woman he can do with as he pleases. The title of queen is just the equivalent of being part of a noble line. He does not equate that to meaning she has any power of her own. And the whole play shows Tamara taking advantage of the sexism in Rome to avenge her family. Titus only starts taking her seriously when she and her sons have already done major damage.
@@shahbanu-amestris "We owe the confusion of what peoples were Celts to the Romans, depending on whether they became Romanized, or retained their Celtic character. About 50 BCE the Romans acknowledged that the Celtic people and culture were essentially one, but Rome had designs on France, Spain, the Balkans, and the Danube basin... Thus, the Romans had names for a dozen or more Celtic tribes in the conquered regions. The rest, the Romans generally described with one term: Germanii. These were also Celts, according to the Roman historians and included tribes with names of Alemanii, Teutonii, and Goeti/Goths." americeltic.net/celtic-origins/
@@purplehoodieproductions8505 Sorry, but that source is bullshit. The Alemanni and Goths were GERMANIC because they spoke Germanic languages. A sample of the now-extinct Gothic language exists in the _Codex Argenteus_ and is unmistakably a GERMANIC language, not Celtic. The problem was that some ancient Roman writers weren't certain of the difference and used Celt as a synonym for barbarian. "The Alemanni (also Alamanni; Suebi "Swabians") were a confederation of *Germanic* tribes on the Upper Rhine River. First mentioned by Cassius Dio in the context of the campaign of Caracalla of 213, the Alemanni captured the Agri Decumates in 260, and later expanded into present-day Alsace, and northern Switzerland, leading to the establishment of the Old High German language in those regions, by the eighth century named Alamannia." "The Goths (Gothic: Gut-þiuda; Latin: Gothi) were an *East Germanic* people, two of whose branches, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, played an important role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire through the long series of Gothic Wars and in the emergence of Medieval Europe. "The German spoken today over the range of the former Alemanni is termed *Alemannic German*, and is recognised among the subgroups of the *High German* languages." "Gothic is an extinct *East Germanic* language that was spoken by the Goths."
Having been able to perform this show as the pasty roman Emperor myself, I both disagree and agree with a lot of the criticisms levied against this show. Cause yeah, its fucking brutal. But it sort of touches on the folly of traditionalism, and how truly destructive revenge is. Also, how bad of an idea it is to elect a leader who is easily manipulated, and has no sense of leadership, into office soley based on old traditions.
He doesn't get the credit. "...of your mother is by the one who has intercourse with her. What or who is it?" - Damaged Babylonian fragment, with several jokes about beer and sex.
I actually have to disagree. I finished listening to an audio play of Titus and I really enjoyed it. No one in it is innocent (Lavinia slut shaming Tamora and perfect happiness with Bassinus telling Saturninus about her affair which would lead to her death. Young Lucius being perfectly willing to be involved in the revenge plot) and that is the point. Do not be like the Andronicai audience. They learned nothing so please do not have the morality of Titus who is upset with murdering a fly unless it happens to resemble Aaron someone because killing some is fine as long as it is for revenge. Seriously the cycle of vengeance is not broken by the end of the play and the characters learn nothing. Fascinating stuff
Titus Andronicus was one of Shakespeare's early works, and these super gorey almost no story involved just a bunch of killing was hugely popular at the time. He wrote to what the masses wanted, not what was high quality.
For me, Shakespare was still early on and was fed up with all the revenge stories, so he, while not as skillful as he is, decided to write a parody of it, creating characters that want revenge after they receive revenge in this cycle that will lead everyone to destruction. Might not be the best prism to examine it, but hey, try seeing it as a comedy: not in the sense that it's fun, but as a parody, kinda like Romeo and Juliet.
@@d.tsukuyomi1869 Some now deceased ass hole, whom everyone deferred to _(including yourself)_ , largely because he was marketed as "brilliant". What Robert Parker was to wines, this character tried to attach himself to Shakespeare plays. Nice hustle while he lived .
Credits: It's like "Hannibal, Ancient Rome Edition." Except not _that_ Hannibal in Ancient Rome. Oh goodness, I'm gonna confuse myself real quick with this one.
Me: "I've never even heard of this play! I wonder what it's about?" Me after the video: " ... I'm pretty sure I have whiplash after reeling back from so many unexpected twists in that summary."
This was the first Shakespeare play I read in high school, my class voted on it... by the time we were done with it, we were ready to throttle anyone who so much as said the word "Titus."
Jacob Willis Meanwhile I only really like the tempest and Macbeth, find the others ok and can't bring myself to finish the historical tragedies. What does everyone see that I don't?! Am I wrong? I have never heard anyone else finding him mostly ok. Is it hype backlash? Because I'm pretty sure that I didn't always hate monologues and I liked a lot of scenes that now make me cringe. WHY?
@@laraa739 *shrug* people have different tastes. Shakespeare lives and dies on the language. If youn don't appreciate they way he writes there's really no way around it. Half the reason I love his work is how elegant the verse is. It gives a magical feel to his stories.
@@silverselkie1692 I think this one was inspired by the myth Procne, Philomena, and Tereus. There's something really close to what happened to Lavinia + revenge cooking a child, and the whole thing is super messed up
The grandfather of Cyrus the Great (Cyrus is the founder of the Persian Empire) tricked one of his generals into eating his own child, so the general defected to Cyrus eventually.
As an actor and Enlgish teacher, I LOVE Titus. It's Shakespeare's most visceral play. When people tell me Shakespeare is boring, I tell them the plot of this. It's ABSOLUTELY Shakespeare. Aaron is basically a prototypical Richard III or Iago. Macbeth is a musing/warning on Ambition. Othello is all about Envy/Jealousy. This is all about Revenge. It's as valid as any of his other works, and even fits with his whole 'subversion of genre' found in other tragedies too. Where Macbeth has the Porter, Titus LITERALLY has a clown. It's Shakespeare at it's most raw. Even if someone doesn't like it (everyone is entitled to be wrong), it's arguable that it has early elements of all of Shakespeare's most popular works.
Honestly I think was a perfect play for a society that enjoyed bear baiting as a casual recreational viewing experience. Also, the trope of everyone dying at the end of Shakespeare’s tragedies is his calling card he just got more refined about it as he grew as a playwright.
He also did penis jokes, which is why you should NEVER get the quote 'Some are born to greatness, others have greatness thrust upon them' tattooed on you. In context, greatness was a synonym for penis...
I found interesting that the only one who extends compassion when he has the upper hand is Lucius. Tamora begs for her son and Titus sacrifices him anyway; Lavinia begs for a quick death and Tamora ignores her; Titus begs for his sons and cuts off his hand yet he receives their heads. But Lucius promises Aaron not to kill his kid, even after learning he orchestrated every single misfortune that happened to his family.
For someone who started out wanting vengeance for the deaths of his sons, Titus sure has no qualms murdering one of his sons and his daughter (Romans treating women like property and killing their daughters for being raped was to be expected in their society; but seriously, Titus, f### you). Oddly enough, this play isn't nearly as horrifically depressing as Orwell's "1984".
My classmates and I made this into a cooking show. "Cooking with Titus". It had Live, Laugh, Love in the back crowd and we were teaching how to make a meat pie. We made the sons and the queens into modern goths and had a lovely time.
So I def saw this video when it came out, but I had a hard time keeping up with it because "too many characters with similar names" and "too many duos". Now that I know each of the characters... I can fully feel the horror of this play. Lavinia and Brassius deserved better, but honestly her dad eliminating her before he gets eliminated... probably her best outcome.
In summer camp the oldest group did this play. In addition to how many mental health days they needed, given how intense the acting in this play was, they decided to have the "bloody pie" in the end be red velvet cake. Makes me rethink eating it ever since!!
As stupid as this play is, it has 2 of my favorite Shakespearean insults: the aforementioned yo mama joke and "foul-spoken coward that thundrest with thy tongue and with thy weapon nothing dares perform."
3:18 This part is so confusing. Did twigs somehow get stuck in her wounds? Is it just bad special effects? What even are the twig-looking things in Lavinia's cut off hand wounds?
Julie Taylor directed, she has a penchant for placing style and extended metaphor above common sense. She probably thought it looked really coo and/or she was making a point about Lavinia’s suffering by making her prosthetic limbs thorny and painful.
Shakespeare: and he kills the people who violated his family and makes pies out of them to feed it to there parent. GOT writers: Write that down , hurry!
I have done a thousand dreadful things As willingly as one would kill a fly, And nothing grieves me heartily indeed But that I cannot do ten thousand more. I mean...say what you want about the play but the dialogue's honestly metal AF
Titus Andronicus is an essay about what defines villainy, a lot of people miss the point of it. Shakespeare was not following what was famous and accepted, he was questioning the nature of it.
I once saw a production of this play that made a couple of modifications (naimly replacing the rape with the two wooing Lavinia while the actor playing Aaron sang "I Wanna Hold Your Hand", as well as cutting out the fly scene) and played it as a comedy, a dark, dark comedy. And it was hillarious.
There's something that's just so...fitting about Red's whole 'Ehh, talking's probably not an option anymore' combined with Sir Anthony Hopkins' acting in that scene. It just sort of works.
I just want to thank you guys so much. I just graduated from a shitty High-School that had barely any classes worth taken. And with it being 2020, and I'm still working with a bunch of hours during a pandemic, I don't get much time. I've always wanted to study culture, mythology, etcetera.... These videos summarize things extremely well, and honestly have to easily be my favorite videos, allowing me to learn things I want to learn, with it being really entertaining.
Another theory on the play's origin: Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet as a critique of a similar story called The Tragical Tale of Romeus and Juliet. The original play blamed the young lovers for their own deaths, while Shakespeare blamed everyone but mostly the warring families. Shakespeare also wrote Othello as a response to Un Capitano Moro. In the original, the moral is that interracial marriage is bad and that's why it ends in a tragedy. In Shakespeare's version, the tragedy is Iago's fault and no one else's. It's possible then, that Titus Andronicus was written to satirize other vengeance-driven gorefests.
In his "The Flesh Made Word" lecture, the great lyricist, musician, novelist, script writer Nick Cave mentions that his father, a English professor, would read out to young Nick from "Titus Andronicus" and "Lolita" and pontificate on their qualities.
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
"Villain, what hast thou done"
"that which thou canst not undo"
"thou has undone our mother"
"Villian, I have done thy mother"
i should totally make that my senior quote
The only reason this play deserves to be remembered and not forgotten to the sands of time
Nah, killing two family members of your archnemesis and feeding them to said archnemesis, is Shakespearean levels of metal, so much so that even South Park riffed on this in the Scott Tennorman Must Die Episode.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Who wants a pie.
"Shakespearean excuse for a Tarantino Movie."
Pure Gold
i hope tarantino tries to make a shakesperean play into a movie...
Tarantino needs to remake this. Now that would be perfect.
@@pifilixxiv3192 seconded
@@AllonKirtchik Not sure how good is his Shakespeare chops, but that can be an excuse to get Mads to play both a loving father and Hannibal at the same time.
@@RVRgeek thirded
I went to a local theater that did a show called "the entire works of William Shakespeare abridged." They did all the comedies in one super story line that touched on all the plots of all Shakespeare's comedies, they did Othello as a rap, and did Titus andronicus as a cooking show
That sounds friggin amazing.
My school did that last year!
Titus: Now, the final step is to salt the dish with all tears cried from mourning over all your dead kids! :')
Around Dallas, I've started seeing signs for a "Potted Potter" show: All the Harry Potter books mashed together in an 80 minute play.
Zellder .
also, I wish you had drawn this episode and had the "army of goths" be an army of teenagers in eye liner and hot topic t-shirts
Lmao
Becareful of what you wish for as you could get St. Trinians.
777th like. She HAS to do that now.
Yes
@@MikeGreenwood51 those werent goth they were emo hehe
"nobody can defend their early writing"
*Flashes back to high school*
"You're not wrong there Red"
Am I the only one that likes my writing from my teen years? Given I only completed 2 short stories but man were they fun!
Ahm SirTerryPratchett Ahm
Zaxor Von Skyler you ‘completed’ stories? I’ve never done that despite writing for 5 years.
I legit did the same thing. The shame...
@@khizarch4910 try learning about story structure and how to outline and plan your story it might help!
When I saw the red pie slice, I had a sinking suspicion there was going to be a "Your sons make a fine pie, I'm sure gonna miss them". Also, with Hannibal Lector in the room, we all knew someone was gonna be eaten.
That's kinda why Anthony Hopkins got the role, that and his acting skills.
ztslovebird
The original line came across as even crazier than that:
*TITUS (after revealing the heads of Chiron & Demetrius):*
Why, there they are, both baked in that pie;
Whereof their mother daintily hath fed,
Eating the flesh that she herself hath bred.
‘Tis true, ‘tis true; witness my knife’s sharp point.
**Titus stabs and kills Tamora**
My enemy’s sons raped my daughter, I turned them into pie with a nice Chianti
@@marloyorkrodriguez9975 ya want some fava beans with that?
Gideon Valdo Takidjo of course I would who wouldn’t want fava beans with human meat pie?! Lol hahaha
It's interesting to note that while this play may have been among the earliest ones Shakespeare ever wrote, that "The Tempest" is the last. This play deals with revenge taken to its ultimate extreme, with various characters screwing each other over in retaliation for hideous acts. "The Tempest" is also about vengeance...but Prospero opts for forgiveness. What is the result? In "TA", almost all the major characters die and in "Tempest", everybody lives, a marriage is formed, a duke gets back his rightful kingdom and two slaves are freed. It's as if Shakespeare himself went through a transformation during his life or wanted people to progress with him to have peaceable solutions. Food for thought, anyhow.
QueenBoadicea Tempest isn’t actually his last play. It’s one of the last, but not THE last. Also, it’s dangerous to assume that plays=biographies.
lol thanks im righting a research paper on this
Please dont remind me of this play atm, my head is aching remembering all the analyzing I had to do in school, good play, but but jesus were the essays complicated 😭
@@professorbutters "The Tempest" might not have been WS's last play, but "Cardenio" and "The Two Noble Kinsmen" are lost... and does anyone really give a rat's ass about "Henry VIII"?
QueenBoadicea: Interesting username for someone talking about the dangers of seeking revenge XD
People hate on Titus as not a Shakespeare play but we studied it at my University and it has all the Shakepearisms that he does in all his plays. Like meter, rhymes, allusions, and his puns. Also I could be remembering wrong but It was written right after a plague outbreak so he probably was feeling a bit morbid
New to the channel, but was the fate of the baby changed in the movie?
Remember watching a BBC production, in which the baby was buried (alive?).
In the play and in this film version, the baby is kept alive (I believe carried off by Titus' youngest son), potentially as a sign that the cycle of revenge has stopped. It could also be seen as allowing the cycle to continue, however, if one believes that the baby will grow up full of hatred.
Well, Red does point out that he might be emulating Jacobean revenge plays from earlier, but he probably put his own spin on them, as you do when you're a writer. Those "Shakespearisms" you mention are present in a couple other plays as well NOT by him though he of course did them way better.
I think it's _hilarious_ how hard people try to justify not thinking of this atrocity as a Shakespeare play. Why does it have to be a fake, or a Peele collab, or a silly riff on current trends, or something? Why can't English majors just accept that Shakespeare wasn't Playwright Jesus and that some of his plays really suck?
I like to think of it as tongue and cheek, "Yo, this is what the audience likes." And he turns it up to 11. Thing is, it kinda backfired.
*Lavinia: Dies*
Me: That took a quick turn
Evil me: So did her neck
Oooooh noooo 😭😭😂😂
What's that cracking noise?
*grins*
HAAAAAA - this made me ugly cackle. That's a feat.
Good on you sir.
😆
That was a neck-breaking turn, one may say.
5:21
"Villain I have done thy mother!"
Best. Shakespeare. Quote. Ever.
The original "yo mama" :P
“Exit, pursued by a bear”
@@Matrim42 stage left
I love how in the Titus Andronicus film, it looks like a future dystopia.
Not really the best production, in my opinion. Anthony Hopkins is the only one that made it acceptable. The movie is trippy as all hell. And I thoroughly hate the aesthetics
@@rezandrarizkyirianto-1933 You just haven't been Taymorpilled
Yes, especially Rome being invaded by an army of bikers with (very nice I might add) shotguns.
@@cheshire4856 Titus no Ken.
You should watch Psych-Pass that delves briely on this topic. That is the reason I am even here.
I think Hopkins got typecasted as "that one guy who cooks people"
True, but at least he got to look like Chef Boyardee while doing it here. ;)
IT'S RAW
wait Titus was Sir Anthony Hopkins???
DUUUUUUUDE how did i not see that?
😂😂😂 Yes!
@@kaboomluong9373 8 8 Di 0xdu ddxiik1
*sees the counter for deaths and lost body parts*
This is gonna be a wild party.
That line delivery of the first yo mama joke is just fantastic
Shakespeare makes even yo mamma jokes sound elegant.
That's right, the original "Yo Mama" joke
Loved it! Huh larious!
There's a reason the Zeroth Law of Trope Examples exists.
tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/JustForFun/TheZerothLawOfTropeExamples
Shakespeare the first bad joke lord.
"In order to MEATiate..." I see what you did there
i'm torn between laughing at the joke and puking at the implications
Spoiled it totaly
Wow. People were writing torture porn in Shakespeare's day? The more you know.
Hell torture porn is far older than Shakes. The idea of cooking people into food an serving them to unwitting relatives goes back to classical mythology and the blood soaked gory revenge plot is a cliche as old as time itself.
European folktales are full of this kind of thing. Those Grimm fairy tales got, uh, grim.
I don't really think it's torture porn. It had more going for it than some people think. I really like this play, and it has a lot to say about the self destructive nature of revenge. Plus when done right is actually pretty funny in a twisted way.
The Deep Web
LONG before that. Go read the Norse sagas and myths. Holy hell. Or check out Beowulf. The dude rips a guy's arm off.
Apparently Titus Andronicus was also the origin of Frey pies...and who would not be surprised to find out that this is George RR Martin's favourite Shakespeare play
Namacub95 Actually, this play isn’t the origin of that trope. It appears in several Greek myths. The story of Tantalus is a notable one.
GRRM loves his Shakespeare
seems like the spiritual predecessor to Hannibal
Like Wyman Manderly would say : "We should have a song about the rat cook".
And Sweeney Todd
i guess Arya Stark is a big fan of this play
Hahaha, that's what I was thinking!
She probably funds productions of it
And Lord Manderly bakes the pies
Every time people go on about GoT, I refer them to Titus Andronicus, but strangely none of them have the time?
Even better, the "meat pies" are also a thing, three fray pies to be exact. And now I'm wondering if grrm ever read this play.
“Villain, I have done thy mother” is my favorite Shakespeare line EVER because I’m a nerdy 12yo at heart.
Watching Anthony Hopkins dancing around like a madman while wearing a goofy chefs outfit is not what I expected to see in this video.
I mean I'm not disappointed but still
Honestly, I like Titus Andronicus. Sometimes you just need a good gore feast where you don't have to feel sorry for anyone involved except Lavinia because my god did that girl not deserve any of this.
And as far as gorefests go, this one is actually kinda good. Gory, puddle deep, but it's still a good time, which might be more of a testament to Shakespeare' skill than any of his well-known plays. His skill doesn't just end with writing good plots, even with a mediocre plot you feel proper empathy for Lavinia and laugh at some jokes that have no business being so good. It shows how much this low-born playwright elevates his work simply by the quality of its storytelling, that even though the plot is pretty much a Tarantino movie, Shakespeare kinda makes it work. Also for the record, 'baked into a pie' has yet to be topped for me as most creative death imaginable, and while strange meat pies are not unique to this play Shakespeare does seem to be the first one who did it.
What’s interesting to note about this story is that it seems to draw heavily from the story of Thyestes in which two brothers (the grandsons of none other than Tantalus himself) Thyestes and Atreus are stuck in an endless circle of vengeance, to the point that Atreus kidnaps, “sacrifices”, and cooks Thyestes’ two sons and feeds them to him. Even though it is established early on in the play that Thyestes is a bad dude and that Atreus is who we should root for, it’s all through Atreus’ perspective and there’s an interesting moment of twisted catharsis when Thyestes is eating and he’s sobbing for reasons he doesn’t know, but we as the audience are fully aware of why. It’s hard to not feel bad for Thyestes, and it makes the audience wonder if they should’ve really trusted Atreus’ narration all along. What seemed to be a fairly simple revenge plot ended up much more complex and interesting, and it ends with Thyestes vowing revenge on Atreus himself. There’s no definitive conclusion, almost like a warning against revenge. Yes both Titus and Thyestes are gore feats, but I think the true reason for those stories was to show the idiocy and pointlessness of revenge. Also..... don’t do cannibalism. Just... don’t. It doesn’t end well for anyone
It is by far my favorite Shakespearean play. Its like fast food- not good for you, but fun.
And like fast food, you should not try to look up where the meat comes from ;)
Aron puma Just don't try any suspicious looking pies and you should be fine
I agree titius is good and macbeth plus a mid summers night dream (i have fond memories of reading those in school).
And it also has the first ever yo mama joke
tricking a parent to eat the cooked remains of their children? yeah, that's definitely your typical roman tragedy. I can totally see how this was normal back then.
adoranymphlupin Tantalus' style 😃!
Bloody Marine Lol. now I'm wondering though if tantalus is where we get the word tantalizing, considering his punishment in tartarus (if that's the guy you're referring to). to Google!
Yes, it is.
QueenBoadicea
Its not because the idea of eating children is tantalizing
sounds like classic Greek mythology
*glares at Tantalus, and, to a lesser extent, Kronos*
I mean, if you think that talented artists can't write pointless two-hour gore fests, I'd like to remind you that Peter Jackson, the man who directed Lord of the Rings and King Kong, also directed Brain Dead.
While I'm not inclined to wholeheartedly disregard all criticism towards this play, I don't think people really read it with the right interpretation.
Hear me out! My mother and sister did this play, and as we are all into Celtic history we noted that Goths are a subsection of Ancient Celtic People. And Celts are well known for having an abundance of women's rights. They could inherit, own property, be warriors, gain political power, divorce without losing their children, etc.
Meanwhile, Roman women were property. In this play, daughters and wives are commonly killed for being raped because it dishonors the men who owned them. On a side note, Shakespeare probably didn't know this but, girls with female siblings didn't even get their own names. So if your parents named your eldest sister Viola, then you and any other sisters you have would also be named Viola. They only get differentiated names when they marry and take their husband's last name.
But I digress. The point is that the story has a very, "There is no wrath like a woman scorned!" Feel to it. Keep in mind, Tamara is a queen in her own right. Not only that, but she's a Goth Queen, meaning she's spent her life enjoying freedom and independence in every sense. As a prisoner to Titus, she should be the most valuable prisoner and be the one they need to contain with the utmost caution. But Titus, as a Roman, doesn't see Tamara as valuable. To him, the most valuable are her sons, since she has no husband. That's why he kills her eldest despite her protests! He thinks he's the one who will be in charge since he's male and of age. But as it's established, this is simply not true! Tamara is queen. She doesn't lose power or authority because she has no husband and sons to take her place, she is queen in her own right.
So when Titus kills her son but keeps her alive, he doesn't fathom that he's made a powerful enemy. Shakespeare loves conflict through misunderstandings, and this is one of them. Even the Roman Emperor who married Tamara clearly only sees her as a woman he can do with as he pleases. The title of queen is just the equivalent of being part of a noble line. He does not equate that to meaning she has any power of her own. And the whole play shows Tamara taking advantage of the sexism in Rome to avenge her family.
Titus only starts taking her seriously when she and her sons have already done major damage.
Interesting comment.
@@johntresnak4080 Thank you. :)
The Goths were East Germanic, not Celtic.
@@shahbanu-amestris "We owe the confusion of what peoples were Celts to the Romans, depending on whether they became Romanized, or retained their Celtic character. About 50 BCE the Romans acknowledged that the Celtic people and culture were essentially one, but Rome had designs on France, Spain, the Balkans, and the Danube basin... Thus, the Romans had names for a dozen or more Celtic tribes in the conquered regions. The rest, the Romans generally described with one term: Germanii. These were also Celts, according to the Roman historians and included tribes with names of Alemanii, Teutonii, and Goeti/Goths."
americeltic.net/celtic-origins/
@@purplehoodieproductions8505 Sorry, but that source is bullshit. The Alemanni and Goths were GERMANIC because they spoke Germanic languages. A sample of the now-extinct Gothic language exists in the _Codex Argenteus_ and is unmistakably a GERMANIC language, not Celtic. The problem was that some ancient Roman writers weren't certain of the difference and used Celt as a synonym for barbarian.
"The Alemanni (also Alamanni; Suebi "Swabians") were a confederation of *Germanic* tribes on the Upper Rhine River. First mentioned by Cassius Dio in the context of the campaign of Caracalla of 213, the Alemanni captured the Agri Decumates in 260, and later expanded into present-day Alsace, and northern Switzerland, leading to the establishment of the Old High German language in those regions, by the eighth century named Alamannia."
"The Goths (Gothic: Gut-þiuda; Latin: Gothi) were an *East Germanic* people, two of whose branches, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, played an important role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire through the long series of Gothic Wars and in the emergence of Medieval Europe.
"The German spoken today over the range of the former Alemanni is termed *Alemannic German*, and is recognised among the subgroups of the *High German* languages."
"Gothic is an extinct *East Germanic* language that was spoken by the Goths."
Having been able to perform this show as the pasty roman Emperor myself, I both disagree and agree with a lot of the criticisms levied against this show. Cause yeah, its fucking brutal. But it sort of touches on the folly of traditionalism, and how truly destructive revenge is. Also, how bad of an idea it is to elect a leader who is easily manipulated, and has no sense of leadership, into office soley based on old traditions.
So, we can add inventing the "yo mama" joke to Shakespeare's list of accomplishments.
He doesn't get the credit.
"...of your mother is by the one who has intercourse with her. What or who is it?" - Damaged Babylonian fragment, with several jokes about beer and sex.
There's one in the Talmud, and that was written during the time of the Western Roman Empire.
You have to admit that Lavinia got the short end of the "stick". She had no "hand" in this mess. She was always so "tongue" tied. Sorry I'll stop now.
*Lavinia
Maeve Mackie that pie was alla-gory
No please keep going.
That's basically what Chiron and Demetrius tell her after the... You know
I actually have to disagree. I finished listening to an audio play of Titus and I really enjoyed it. No one in it is innocent (Lavinia slut shaming Tamora and perfect happiness with Bassinus telling Saturninus about her affair which would lead to her death. Young Lucius being perfectly willing to be involved in the revenge plot) and that is the point. Do not be like the Andronicai audience. They learned nothing so please do not have the morality of Titus who is upset with murdering a fly unless it happens to resemble Aaron someone because killing some is fine as long as it is for revenge. Seriously the cycle of vengeance is not broken by the end of the play and the characters learn nothing. Fascinating stuff
Theatre professionals say this play almost always evokes one of two reactions from the audience: either somebody faints or everybody starts laughing.
Okay Red...when are we getting a full length version of you acoustic cover of 'What goes around...Comes around' ?
i had a feeling it was her voice. I just wasn't absolutely sure
thou hast been spotted!!
AtholAnderson Yeah Red should just make a series of doing full covers of the songs shes done at credits
@@andrewstephenson5825 agreed
"villain, I have done thy mother" I'm dying omg best line-
"That's right folks. The original 'Yo Mama' joke." The hands down no argument best line on You Tube.
true, also 69 likes lolo
Well, now we know Eric Cartman's favorite play.
My favorite Shakespeare play. Not even joking. I unironically really love this play.
Better than Taking of the Shrew.
Titus Andronicus was one of Shakespeare's early works, and these super gorey almost no story involved just a bunch of killing was hugely popular at the time. He wrote to what the masses wanted, not what was high quality.
For me, Shakespare was still early on and was fed up with all the revenge stories, so he, while not as skillful as he is, decided to write a parody of it, creating characters that want revenge after they receive revenge in this cycle that will lead everyone to destruction.
Might not be the best prism to examine it, but hey, try seeing it as a comedy: not in the sense that it's fun, but as a parody, kinda like Romeo and Juliet.
@@d.tsukuyomi1869 Harold Bloom was a fool. Think for yourself.
@@stephencarter7266 who the fuck is Harold Bloom
@@d.tsukuyomi1869 Some now deceased ass hole, whom everyone deferred to _(including yourself)_ , largely because he was marketed as "brilliant".
What Robert Parker was to wines, this character tried to attach himself to Shakespeare plays.
Nice hustle while he lived .
@@stephencarter7266 Why are you instantly assuming I deferred to this dude when I never heard his name even once in my life?
Villain I have done thy mother
Wow
1000 subs with no videos challenge
For what its worth i have 2 subs and i dont know why
Am I the only one questioning the FUCKING SHOTGUNS?
DEFINITELY not.
The very first shot you see of "Rome" has a kid reading a newspaper. It's not like you couldn't have anticipated it.
The film adaptation kind of took place across any and no time period, it's pretty interesting.
Am I the only one who questions how you ONLY NOTICED THE SHOTGUNS
I honestly love the movies which take these plays and put them in an entirely different setting. Gives more variety imo.
Credits: It's like "Hannibal, Ancient Rome Edition."
Except not _that_ Hannibal in Ancient Rome.
Oh goodness, I'm gonna confuse myself real quick with this one.
Me: "I've never even heard of this play! I wonder what it's about?"
Me after the video: " ... I'm pretty sure I have whiplash after reeling back from so many unexpected twists in that summary."
This was the first Shakespeare play I read in high school, my class voted on it... by the time we were done with it, we were ready to throttle anyone who so much as said the word "Titus."
ok I can not hate this, I just can't hate Shakespeare.
Jacob Willis Meanwhile I only really like the tempest and Macbeth, find the others ok and can't bring myself to finish the historical tragedies. What does everyone see that I don't?! Am I wrong? I have never heard anyone else finding him mostly ok. Is it hype backlash? Because I'm pretty sure that I didn't always hate monologues and I liked a lot of scenes that now make me cringe. WHY?
@@laraa739 *shrug* people have different tastes. Shakespeare lives and dies on the language. If youn don't appreciate they way he writes there's really no way around it. Half the reason I love his work is how elegant the verse is. It gives a magical feel to his stories.
@@laraa739 You may just not like the genre, and that's okay
"Nothing is sexier than murderous intent."
...Well, I mean. You're not WRONG...
I don't think it was Shakespeare who wrote this play.
It was obviously a time-displaced George R.R. Martin
Well, warging in the past is a thing
There's one teeny, tiny thing that disproves that theory. "Titus Andronicus" isn't 1000 pages long.
Two words best describe that final scene...
THE ARISTOCRATS!
*slow claps*
That movie looks awesome. Like a beautifully cheesy mixture of Rome, Equilibrium and Warhammer 40k. I need it.
Talon One I know
Why Warhammer 40k
@@merrittanimation7721 Tech-tyranny and bling.
Talon One The movie is called “Titus” and it was released in 1999
So this is the play that spawned the “I made you eat your loved ones” trope.
I think one or two of the old Greeks might've, first. Don't quote me...But it does kind of sound up Medea's alley
@@jean-paulaudette9246 Medea did not. Although Zeus has been tricked into eating human flesh more than once. Never a relative though.
@@silverselkie1692 I think this one was inspired by the myth Procne, Philomena, and Tereus. There's something really close to what happened to Lavinia + revenge cooking a child, and the whole thing is super messed up
The grandfather of Cyrus the Great (Cyrus is the founder of the Persian Empire) tricked one of his generals into eating his own child, so the general defected to Cyrus eventually.
I adore your videos, guys!
OMG so epic the first "your mama" joke!
As an actor and Enlgish teacher, I LOVE Titus. It's Shakespeare's most visceral play. When people tell me Shakespeare is boring, I tell them the plot of this. It's ABSOLUTELY Shakespeare. Aaron is basically a prototypical Richard III or Iago. Macbeth is a musing/warning on Ambition. Othello is all about Envy/Jealousy. This is all about Revenge. It's as valid as any of his other works, and even fits with his whole 'subversion of genre' found in other tragedies too. Where Macbeth has the Porter, Titus LITERALLY has a clown. It's Shakespeare at it's most raw. Even if someone doesn't like it (everyone is entitled to be wrong), it's arguable that it has early elements of all of Shakespeare's most popular works.
I read a summary of this years ago and thought, “It can’t be this murdery and nothing else, surely they left out a lot.”
Nope, it’s just murder.
I loved the casting in the film version for this and I am really glad you used the scenes from that movie as your backdrop.
"Don't you dare make me feel feelings, you Shakespearean excuse for a Tarantino movie."
NANANANANANA! I MADE YOU EAT YOU PARENTS!
All silliness aside, Kyle Kallgren did an amazing review on this movie that I highly recommend watching.
The first time I heard of Titus Andronicus was in the Reduced Shakespeare Company where they made it a parody of a cooking show. Highly recommend it.
Honestly I think was a perfect play for a society that enjoyed bear baiting as a casual recreational viewing experience. Also, the trope of everyone dying at the end of Shakespeare’s tragedies is his calling card he just got more refined about it as he grew as a playwright.
Wait did SHAKESPEARE ACTUALLY MAKE A MOM JOKE
HE INVENTED IT
ALSO WHY ARE WE YELLING
He also did penis jokes, which is why you should NEVER get the quote 'Some are born to greatness, others have greatness thrust upon them' tattooed on you. In context, greatness was a synonym for penis...
I found interesting that the only one who extends compassion when he has the upper hand is Lucius. Tamora begs for her son and Titus sacrifices him anyway; Lavinia begs for a quick death and Tamora ignores her; Titus begs for his sons and cuts off his hand yet he receives their heads. But Lucius promises Aaron not to kill his kid, even after learning he orchestrated every single misfortune that happened to his family.
I heard this play got more populair recently. It is sometimes seen as sign of tastes getting darker.
They said the same about Game of Thrones, btw.
Society's thirst for violence is as old as civilization itself. We just say we're "above" that just to make ourselves feel better.
I really want to read this play now.
Two decapitated heads not qualify as missing body parts no?...
Perhaps it was meant to be ones that didn't lead to the character's death
Technically, the bodies were missing.
For someone who started out wanting vengeance for the deaths of his sons, Titus sure has no qualms murdering one of his sons and his daughter (Romans treating women like property and killing their daughters for being raped was to be expected in their society; but seriously, Titus, f### you).
Oddly enough, this play isn't nearly as horrifically depressing as Orwell's "1984".
Probably because it's so over the top.
To be fair, it really was a mercy killing here. Not because she was sexually assaulted, but because she had her hands and tongue cut off. Ouch.
My classmates and I made this into a cooking show. "Cooking with Titus". It had Live, Laugh, Love in the back crowd and we were teaching how to make a meat pie. We made the sons and the queens into modern goths and had a lovely time.
MsFlyingSnake dude that is awesome! I would totally watch that! 😀
Note, all tragedies have happy endings. When the tragic hero falls, the city is at peace. All comedies of the classic ages end with unhappy marriages.
"There's a lot wrong about this play."
Goes into telling everything that makes this play absolutely fantastic!
So I def saw this video when it came out, but I had a hard time keeping up with it because "too many characters with similar names" and "too many duos". Now that I know each of the characters... I can fully feel the horror of this play. Lavinia and Brassius deserved better, but honestly her dad eliminating her before he gets eliminated... probably her best outcome.
You ever come across a feeling that you have no idea how to express? Just happened to me when 6:31 happened. Sooo fucking good.
So who did the "serve your family to your enemies" revenge plot better?
- Titus Andronicus
- Eric Cartman
In summer camp the oldest group did this play. In addition to how many mental health days they needed, given how intense the acting in this play was, they decided to have the "bloody pie" in the end be red velvet cake. Makes me rethink eating it ever since!!
As stupid as this play is, it has 2 of my favorite Shakespearean insults: the aforementioned yo mama joke and "foul-spoken coward that thundrest with thy tongue and with thy weapon nothing dares perform."
3:18 This part is so confusing. Did twigs somehow get stuck in her wounds? Is it just bad special effects? What even are the twig-looking things in Lavinia's cut off hand wounds?
Julie Taylor directed, she has a penchant for placing style and extended metaphor above common sense. She probably thought it looked really coo and/or she was making a point about Lavinia’s suffering by making her prosthetic limbs thorny and painful.
Shakespeare: and he kills the people who violated his family and makes pies out of them to feed it to there parent.
GOT writers: Write that down , hurry!
5:32 this kid has been alive for 5 minutes, and he’s already done with everyone’s bull
I have done a thousand dreadful things
As willingly as one would kill a fly,
And nothing grieves me heartily indeed
But that I cannot do ten thousand more.
I mean...say what you want about the play but the dialogue's honestly metal AF
I think the RSC said it best that this was Shakespeare's brief Quentin Tarantino phase.
Probably my favourite Shakespeare play other than Henry IV, Part I (1597).
why does that movie look like the hunger games
Probably the people who made hunger games liked the way it looked.
Visplight It came before the Hunger Games. It's a 1999 movie called Titus.
Titus Andronicus is an essay about what defines villainy, a lot of people miss the point of it. Shakespeare was not following what was famous and accepted, he was questioning the nature of it.
I love the sass with which Titus reveals that he fed Tamara her own sons.
I once saw a production of this play that made a couple of modifications (naimly replacing the rape with the two wooing Lavinia while the actor playing Aaron sang "I Wanna Hold Your Hand", as well as cutting out the fly scene) and played it as a comedy, a dark, dark comedy.
And it was hillarious.
I didn't know this movie existed and now it's my most favorite thing ever.
I have watched most of these Shakespeare video's now and the quality drops and rizes is funny af
6:26 Odin and Hela: the early years
You have a great voice. I love your style and your sarcasm. I am an English teacher and hence I am really enjoying your explanations.
4:28 Now I want to see Tarintino do this!
One lesson learned in this play is, never assume someone is too crazy to NOT do something.
I lost track of what the hell was going on at about 3:00
There's something that's just so...fitting about Red's whole 'Ehh, talking's probably not an option anymore' combined with Sir Anthony Hopkins' acting in that scene. It just sort of works.
Just found the original Sweeney Todd
Oh that is beautiful
I just want to thank you guys so much.
I just graduated from a shitty High-School that had barely any classes worth taken. And with it being 2020, and I'm still working with a bunch of hours during a pandemic, I don't get much time.
I've always wanted to study culture, mythology, etcetera....
These videos summarize things extremely well, and honestly have to easily be my favorite videos, allowing me to learn things I want to learn, with it being really entertaining.
6:03 The famous roman SPAS XII
Another theory on the play's origin: Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet as a critique of a similar story called The Tragical Tale of Romeus and Juliet. The original play blamed the young lovers for their own deaths, while Shakespeare blamed everyone but mostly the warring families. Shakespeare also wrote Othello as a response to Un Capitano Moro. In the original, the moral is that interracial marriage is bad and that's why it ends in a tragedy. In Shakespeare's version, the tragedy is Iago's fault and no one else's. It's possible then, that Titus Andronicus was written to satirize other vengeance-driven gorefests.
So I think that maybe this play was Shakespeare's way of showing the audience that vengeance only breads vengeance
In his "The Flesh Made Word" lecture, the great lyricist, musician, novelist, script writer Nick Cave mentions that his father, a English professor, would read out to young Nick from "Titus Andronicus" and "Lolita" and pontificate on their qualities.
It's like cinema sins but a decapitation tally
My name is Titus.
Please do Coriolanus!! Talk about the ultimate Shakespearean slash-fic.....
hi i needed an explanation for an audition and this saved my life, i appreciate you
have you done catcher in the rye, and if not could you? :D
Yeah, do catcher!
lexalina132 Ah yes, every terrorist's favorite feel good novel.
I just hope that Aaron Jr was ok