Illustration by ShadowSantos.
Mr Twit’s not ugly,
The Trunchabal’s not fat,
Bilbo went off with 13 small-ish folk,
And it’s Mr Mouse now, not Mr Rat.
“Rat” has too many connotations
Didn’t you know? We have to be so careful
The knights all use rubber swords now,
And the dragons are all gender neutral,
We mustn’t have any dark thoughts at all
And please - no one better even mention Hogwarts!
Romeo and Juliet got some good advice,
Didn’t rush in, didn’t over-react,
She had counselling,
He took Prozac,
Took out all that ‘doest’ and ‘thou’ mumbo-jumbo,
Tibalt got a restraining order and an ASBO
Julias Caesar had far too many knives; it’s better this way,
King Lear got an advance care plan and carers four times a day,
Midsummer Nights Dream is now much less problematic,
How can a donkey even give consent? It was just emblematic
Of the kind of out-moded content of which we need to be aware
And Othello? My word, don’t even go there.
The problem with chopping off the sharp edges is what are the end goals?
Five-minute hate and memory holes.
Twelfth Night doesn’t need a #metoo
The people on the page make mistakes
so that we don’t have to.
The Trunchabal’s not fat,
Bilbo went off with 13 small-ish folk,
And it’s Mr Mouse now, not Mr Rat.
“Rat” has too many connotations
Didn’t you know? We have to be so careful
The knights all use rubber swords now,
And the dragons are all gender neutral,
We mustn’t have any dark thoughts at all
And please - no one better even mention Hogwarts!
Romeo and Juliet got some good advice,
Didn’t rush in, didn’t over-react,
She had counselling,
He took Prozac,
Took out all that ‘doest’ and ‘thou’ mumbo-jumbo,
Tibalt got a restraining order and an ASBO
Julias Caesar had far too many knives; it’s better this way,
King Lear got an advance care plan and carers four times a day,
Midsummer Nights Dream is now much less problematic,
How can a donkey even give consent? It was just emblematic
Of the kind of out-moded content of which we need to be aware
And Othello? My word, don’t even go there.
The problem with chopping off the sharp edges is what are the end goals?
Five-minute hate and memory holes.
Twelfth Night doesn’t need a #metoo
The people on the page make mistakes
so that we don’t have to.
Many thanks to ShadowSantos for the excellent illustration, which I commissioned via Fiver.
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