Apparently, this Ira Glass person, who is "famous" in some circles (he has a radio program on the public radio service in the United States), saw John Lithgow in a performance of "King Lear" and he thought Lithgow was "amazing" (I sure would like to see him play King Lear -- he has the combination of craziness and pomposity that would be just terrific) but that Shakespeare sucked. And then, apparently the internet exploded with people refuting the "Shakespeare sucked" thing.
Okay, so can I first say, I don't get the tweeting thing. Usually my first response to anything is that I don't want to comment, but the tweeting thing seems to work in the opposite way. You come out of a movie or a play and the first thing you do is react on Twitter for all the world to see. Or maybe you react WHILE THE THING IS STILL ACTUALLY GOING ON. (It seems excessive to capitalize that, but I just mean I'm saying it louder and slower than the rest of what I'm saying -- Elaine Benes, forgive my punctuation.) One of the things about tweeting is that you want a lot of people to "follow" you. Am I right? But that just reminds me of that Gain commercial where the guy had his shirt washed in Gain and he's at a basketball game, and the people around him are smelling his shirt. They're smelling it passionately because he smells so darn great. Now, do you want that? I don't want to be smelled and I don't want to be followed! But I guess, if you do, you have to say shocking things, so some people are suggesting that this Glass guy is "trolling" (see how my vocabulary is expanding?). Now, in my day, "trolling" meant that you were in a boat with your fishing line out and it was dragging behind the boat, hoping to attract a fish's attention. And I guess that's what this kind of trolling is, too. You're trying to catch a fish's attention, so he'll follow you! I guess Ira Glass has been successful, because a lot of metaphorical fish are reacting to his Shakespeare remark.
My second comment is "who cares?" I don't know anything about Ira Glass, but if he didn't like King Lear, I don't care. Lots of people don't like King Lear, I suppose. Lots of people would go to see it and like John Lithgow and not understand the play. My understanding about Twitter is that you don't get much room to give an analysis of what worked and what didn't in any given production, and maybe Ira Glass couldn't give an analysis anyway (probably not, if he's saying something "sucked" although I think he did add that it wasn't "relatable" whatever that might mean). I'm really tired of having the words of famous people (and their actions and what they wear and where they eat and what their houses look like, blah,blah,blah) being reported as news.
And in Ira Glass's defense (I defend his right to say stuff and everybody's right whether I disagree with them or not), Shakespeare says, in King Lear, "Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say".
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