TEXTUAL POACHING: "SHAKESBRO"

     I like men. It’s as simple as that. My heterosexuality is something that defines me and something that I identify with. I still remember each boy I have “liked” from kindergarten to the 12^th grade, and could definitely write you out a list. I love love and that has been a significant part of my identity since I was a little girl. As I have gotten older and have become more aware of what love truly is, I have started to see qualities in others that I can’t live with and can’t live without. The physical appearances of men and women have changed throughout each generation, and along with this has come new lingo, new hairstyles and fashions, and new ideals of what is appealing at the time. My “ideal man” has changed (thankfully) since kindergarten, and continues to change along with my own personal growth. However, our pop culture has played a significant role in shaping the kind of person that we are attracted to. We see pictures and videos of celebrities that ignite an attraction and often give us unrealistic expectations when it comes to physical appearance. Something that I have come to identify with as I have gotten older is the fact that physical appearance changes and can be altered with. I have come to place less of a significance on physical appearance and more of an importance on personality traits, inner potential, and the unique, fundamental characteristics that make up an individual. 

     Anyone who knows me knows that I love William Shakespeare. It is definitely not something that I try and hide because Shakespeare has become a part of my identity the more I have read and understood his life and his works. I chose to take a very famous self-portrait of William (we are on a first name basis at this point) and remix his appearance to identify with a typical man of our current society, man-bun and all. The point of this weirdly intriguing remixed self-portrait of Shakespeare is to prove that adding a man-bun and some awful lingo (lingo I wish our generation could be punished for) to his appearance and person doesn’t change the fact that he is still William Shakespeare. If Shakespeare were alive and thriving during our time, I would not be surprised at all if he had a man-bun… I mean, look at his earring! The man had style. Despite all of these enhancements to his appearance, underneath it all he is still the most brilliant and influential writer/poet of all time. Our world has become so obsessed with physical appearance that we have sacrificed character for physical attractiveness. Being attracted to the man I choose to love is obviously important, but it is in no way more important than knowing that he is capable of loving me in return.

     In Jenkins’ “How Texts Become Real,” he quotes from the children’s story The Velveteen Rabbit and reminds us that the physical appearance of someone can be altered, but our love for something deeper within them is what truly binds us together, “It doesn’t happen all at once. You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real, you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand” (Jenkins 51).