Arrogance, thy name is Anne.

[rebness]

I've been fawning over Ben Goldacre of late. He's the British scientist who forced Gillian McKeith to stop calling herself Dr. as it was false. He's the one who has taken on homeopathy and big pharma and I adore him. He constantly presses the reader -- look at the study, read it properly. Are the people presenting you with 'facts' full of bias?

This fucking woman. She drives me up the wall, and not merely for splintering my dearest fandom, not merely for dragging canon over the coals of crap. She comes out with the most stupid, simplistic shit that I get so angry. There was the time someone asked her why she came out with anti-abortion rhetoric in one of her later novels when she's all for womens' rights and she was all, 'but the facts I stated were true.' There was the idiotic 'the French don't respect freedom the way Americans do' (what?) and now this.

I dislike anti-Stratfordians, and probably not for the reasons you think. It's the inherent class bias -- that's always the thought behind it! A working-class man couldn't possibly have written such imaginative, beautiful, moving things. How could he have ever known these places without travelling? (Because he didn't make any geographic mistakes like canals in Verona, and none of us have ever written about cities we haven't yet visited, have we?) It had to have been a royal figure! It had to have been a rich man, for imagination is the sole domain of the rich and powerful. Obviously, he was some bumpkin picked by De Vere to capitalise on the plays and become a very, very rich, very revered man in his own lifetime. I await Vincent Van Gogh's unmasking as Emperor Franz Josef.

But it's more than that. It's this woman. Look at the arrogance of what she says! She has studied it 'in depth', which as we all know can mean anything from Rice truly doing a great bit of research for 18th-century Lestat or making hideous, ridiculous mistakes about modern British people and our culture. She maintains throughout her Facebook page that she has taken the time to study all this, and dissenters are really stupid, and Kenneth Branagh will totally make a film about how Shakespeare was a fraud and we're all wrong, because studying literature and loving literature, much less studying authorship can never grant us the same authority as being a published fiction writer.

A pox on her!

I read a really interesting article and debate in the Guardian  a few days ago where several academics who have studied Shakespeare and the issue of whom he truly was for years argued about this. Here I will demonstrate bias myself (Ben Goldacre is side-eyeing me right now) but the academics convinced me more than ever that he was the author of the plays. As one pointed out, we have less evidence that Marlowe was the author of his own work, yet we don't dispute his authorship really, do we?

But Queen Anne has made her increasingly annoying, pig-headed mind up. IShe has pronounced herself expert, as she always, always does on issues she obviously knows very little about. She has a secret door right into sixteenth-century England and her many dorky fans are following, as if she's some tacky jewellery-clad Prophet. Ugh! How did I ever fanworship this clown?

Comments

[ashling-c.livejournal.com]

Now I wouldn't dare get into this debate as I know sweet f-all about Shakespeare. But wasn't the genius behind his plays the fact that they were pretty much stories people knew already, just with his slant on them?
Or perhaps I'm not explaining that right. It's just something that I heard. It's not that Shakespeare plagiarised someone else's story, he just took well known tales and re-worked them. (kinda like Bram Stoker took the legend of vampires, and created Dracula. Still his creation, but he just took inspiration from mythology)

[londonesque.livejournal.com]

I adore Ben Goldacre! And I agree, the whole attitude that Shakespeare couldn't have written the plays because he wasn't of noble birth, gets so on my tits. I'm not averse to the debate, I've heard some people who argue that Christohper Marlowe wrote them raise some interesting points, but from what I've heard about Anonymous, the crux of their argument seems to be 'Hurrr, look at this chump'.

[pointedulac.livejournal.com]

I thought they recently proved William Shakespeare was, in fact, William Shakespeare.

Also Anne is ridiculous. Not just as a writer but as a person.

We worshipped her when were young and she, at times, at least the times we knew of, mostly made sense. Now she has a forum and an audience so her soapbox is easier for her to access. Gah.

[versailles-rose.livejournal.com]

Of course, she knows. She knows it all. Her vampires don't sparkle, but I am sure she glows in the dark from her all knowing radiance.

Silly old cow. This just makes her look even more senile than usual.

[mcgarrygirl78.livejournal.com]

Your whole post is compelling and well-written but its truly the last line that gave me a real chuckle. I love Shakespeare and I admit to while knowing about these debates, I dont know much about who they say he was or couldnt be. But it sticks in my craw that they argue he couldnt be a regular, working-class guy because the plays were simply too good.

How dare they? That's to say every writer who ever wrote something good or beautiful or truly creative, or even something remotely interesting or beloved, must have been from the monied classes because the 'regular folk' know nothing and have never been anywhere. Ugh, this is why I wanna throw rocks at people.

And Anne Rice, seriously, did she bump her head and forget that she used to be imaginative and cool and creative? She's like some kind of bot now, who says the most inane and ridiculous things out of her mouth.

[ashling-c.livejournal.com]

Just looking at the trailer for this film now - I'll be avoiding this one like the plague. I think I'd rather sit through a double screening of Twi-shite rather than this.

[gairid.livejournal.com]

If we took her word on everything that she has supposedly 'studied in depth' she most certainly would be a vampire hersef because such a vast amount of scholarship would surely have taken severla lifetimes.

The film itself (I heard it discussed on NPR yesterday) has many gaping historic holes in it so how on earth can it be taken seriously when there are actual scholars who really have studied the premise in depth and come to the conclusion that OMG, a commoner could actually have the imagination to write the Works. Go back to writing your cruddy Jesus fic , Mater, and leave studying to those who know what it means.

[gairid.livejournal.com]

She has a secret door right into sixteenth-century England and her many dorky fans are following, as if she's some tacky jewellery-clad Prophet. Ugh! How did I ever fanworship this clown?

OMG, secret door into the 16th century---that made me LOL because that's just exactly how much authoritative weight her words have. As for the fan-worship---I expect it had more to do with the the fandom and your tender age and less about Mater herself, no? I remember first finding the online fandom and at first thinking she was pretty cool for interacting with fans so much---that is until I realized she did it for the ego-stroking sycophants more than any real desire to associate with the rabble.

(Also - load of pants FTW!)

[hw-campbell-jnr.livejournal.com]

Does she really want comments from Anonymous? Does she know what she's asking?

Oh wait, the film is called 'Anonymous'. Okay, I get it now!

Oh. I wish I didn't get it. :(

[jenifae.livejournal.com]

I really don't know a lot about Anne Rice. Before reading your post, i didn't realize she was such a conceited woman. But i do know this much, i am upset with her for more or less blaming her atheism for the cause of her writing the Vampire Chronicles. I think it's great that she has her religion now and seems very happy with it, but it's almost like she's trying to justify her reasons for writing the Vampire Chronicles, like it's something she's ashamed of? I don't know...just her attitude is such a disappointment to me.