Thank you. I mean technically they did get married, but I’ve always found that whole “love” story ridiculous.

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    I actually wrote a research essay during high school on why Romeo and Juliet didn’t really love each other.

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      That’s awesome. Did your teacher buy your argument?

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        Pft. She didn’t really say anything but I got 87%. I thought I should have gotten more. Lol.

        There are actually a lot of books stating that they weren’t really in love. I mean, Romeo was “in love” with Rosaline that he wanted to die but 2 seconds after he met Juliet, he already jumped ships. I still don’t get why people find it romantic.

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          Yeah, I’ve known a few people who agree that it’s not really all that romantic of a love story, so it’s made for interesting conversations.
          I just never got why pop culture has made it into some ultimate love story. I always roll my eyes when someone in a show/movie/song wishes to meet their “Romeo” or they want a love like “Romeo and Juliet.”

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          I did a paper on this play and how the Leonardo Decaprio/Clare Danes movie ruined it for a term paper in creative writing in college and got a B+ as well! It was like 90% of my grade, so I ended up with a B+ in the class. I was Pre-med and made straight A’s in all my other science and math classes and this was the only B on my transcript! At the time, I was furious—all because of Romeo and Juliet. To this day, I still think the professor was biased because I didn’t think very highly of the film.

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            That’s the worst. My only B was Spanish and while admittedly I did suck at it, I still think my grade was because I argued with him over his ever changing parameters on the final project…

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      My Shakespeare professor in uni basically started teaching this play by telling us that the entire tragedy would have been avoided if only Romeo had some game and could get laid before he met Juliet. But, no, he had to be a whiny little goober.

      Still one of my favorite tragedies, because its comic elements are so strong and pretty much everyone besides R+J is fascinating (Mercutio is the best, and totally in love with Romeo) and the commentary on gender norms is insanely cool and dense and fun to parse. I mean, I could extol the virtues of the play for ages…

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        Lol sounds about right.
        Romeo was a failed player and Juliet read one too many YA romance novels.

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          But, like, also Juliet was really smart, she was just a child still (like, literally, she was 14) so she had no idea what love was. But like, she was also the one who used the “language of love” while speaking, which was usually only given to male characters, which was a really cool and subtle way of giving her power through speech despite her age and gender. And she fought her marriage to Paris, which like, yeah, her reason was R, but really, she probably would’ve fought it anyway because she was a boss like that. Basically she was way too good for Romeo, but she was too young to know that yet. Also, hormones.

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            True enough. Shakespeare was good at subverting gender expectations by empowering women and challenging stereotypes. What I find clever with Juliet is her ramblings really are these overdramatic, teenage angsty speeches, but they have this “accidental” depth to them which of course is not accidental to Shakespeare. So, I’ll give it that much lol

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        I appreciate the comic elements in it and it’s something that Shakespeare does really well. And I agree. Mercutio is indeed the best.

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          I never was able to fully appreciate this play until I studied it in uni, though I did like in in high school. It’s just so full of interesting elements that I can’t not love it. I actually don’t love the tragedies that much, but this is a favorite. (OK, not true, I love Hamlet, King Lear and Othello too. But I prefer the comedies!)

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