The Merchant of Venice/YMMV: Difference between revisions

* [[Designated Hero]]: She probably wasn't intended to be originally, but Portia really comes off like this to modern audiences--both for her role as the lawyer who makes Shylock lose everything, and in the whole ring subplot. She is a [[Jerkass]], with not even a hint of a heart of gold. The other Christian characters come off like this too, to a certain extent

** But then again, all Portia knows is "my husband's best friend is in trouble for making a bad bargain with a sadistic man" (how else would Bassanio describe Shylock?) and wants to help. And a lot of modern women who have had unfaithful boyfriends support the ring plot--Bassanio ''did'' promise to ''never'' give it away after all.

* [[Ensemble Darkhorse]]: Shylock himself, after a fashion. The protagonist of the piece is Portia, the leading man is Bassanio, and the titular character is Antonio, but is any of them the most famous character in the show? (Or, for that matter, one of the most famous characters in theatre?)

* [[Esoteric Happy Ending]]: And how. Are we really supposed to be thrilled about Shylock's humiliation and forced conversion?

* [[Misaimed Fandom]]: Depending on whether or not the play is intended as anti-Semitic, the legions of anti-Semites who have enjoyed the play down the years might count as this. [[wikipedia:Shylock#Influence on antisemitism|See here.]]

* [[Tear Jerker]]: When Shylock learns his daughter has traded a ring of his for a monkey. It is Shylock's only possession that has purely sentimental value.

** Which helps explain ''why'' he suddenly becomes hellbent on getting the flesh debt out of Antonio. Thanks to Jessica's treachery, ''that's all he has left.''

** Any production that does the wailing for the courtroom scene. When Shylock leaves the courtroom after having lost everything, the action stops as you hear him scream and wail at losing, essentially, his identity.

* [[Unfortunate Implications]]: Playing Shylock as tragic and [[Driven to Villainy]] rather than a dyed-in-the-wool villain simply opens up a ''different'' set of un-PC implications: it makes the three women of the play (Portia, Nerissa and Jessica) into sadistic harpies and can be seen to imply that a smart woman is an evil woman.

** On the other hand, in such an interpretation Antonio is still an anti-Semite who has abused Shylock in the past, and Bassanio and Gratiano are morons who promptly surrender the tokens of love just given to them by their ladies to what they think are a pair of men on a whim. So really ''nobody'' comes off looking too nice.