#beatrice and benedick

[davidtennantgenderenvy]

love story between feisty redhead and emotionally constipated but lovable Scottish guy

pop culture references

goofy on the surface but actually really emotional

holding out for a hero (or an homage to holding out for a hero)

dance party ending

Am I talking about Shrek 2 or Much Ado About Nothing (2011) starring David Tennant and Catherine Tate

[sunshineonashelf]

today my actual shakespeare professor referred to hero/claudio as the side plot to beatrice/benedick and ykw she was so real for that

[antagonistic-sunsetgirl]

Hey, don't cry. You don't only live in the timeline in which David Tennant and Catherine Tate play the most beautiful enemies-to-lovers story ever. You also live in the timeline in which, after our first hero's version got taken down, a second hero came and brought the entire thing back to YouTube.

There's David in drag. There's David in a captain's uniform. There's Catherine being iconic while drinking bottled beer. There are stupid relatives, bitch sessions, there's "Ah shit there's the person I'm alive for" and there's "I'll kill a man because he hurt your friend and you're sobbing in my arms and oh this is love"

Just. Much ado about nothing, Catherine+David edition, people. Screw Shakespeare for writing something so damn beautiful.

Don't cry. Here you go

Part 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pB6RWi05-Y

Part 2

https://youtu.be/hravRIyVnUg?si=mSUBYlNLrBnjjTBK

[jomarchswritingjacket]

best ship is awesome woman and her husband who won’t shut up about his awesome wife

[belpheg0r-luna]

I just wanted to watch benedick and beatrice having fun, bickering and being in love!!!! Why must it come with me crying over what happened to Hero and Margaret and the tragedy of the whole play?!???

[thelibraryofalexandriastillburns]

I don’t know why they keep calling it a battle of wits. She keeps shooting him and he was dead on the floor 10 insults ago. Like sir, that’s not a battle, that’s a massacre

@pleureros

[checkoutmybookshelf]

Ok, it's no surprise that I deeply enjoy Much Ado About Nothing as a play (and there are some truly delightful film and filmed staged productions), and there's a lot of talk about the scene between Beatrice and Benedick after Hero and Claudio's aborted wedding (Act IV, scene i).

What I don't see a lot of though, is how Benedick literally accidentally talks Beatrice into asking him to kill Claudio.

Yeah, Beatrice didn't walk into that scene ready to ask BENEDICK to make this right. Let's walk through the lesser-quoted lines from this scene.

We all know the iconic, "Lady Beatrice, have you wept all this while," but then we get this little exchange:

Benedick. Surely I do believe your fair cousin is wronged. Beatrice. Ah, how much might the man deserve of me that would right her! Benedick. Is there any way to show such friendship? Beatrice. A very even way, but no such friend. Benedick. May a man do it? Beatrice. It is a man's office, but not yours.

Benedick asking if a man may do "it" is a blatant offer to try to fix things, but it's pretty damn clear at this point in the text that he has big-ass heart eyes and hasn't thought this offer through, because the way to right Hero is to either get Claudio to recant--which he's not going to do because that is going to make him look like an absolute dingus and it will embarrass Don Pedro--or else to kill him in a duel. To ask a man to kill his best friend--even if that best friend is a complete and utter chungus--is cruel. It is one thing to call a friend out for being a dick to Hero, but to ask for Benedick's to be the hand that kills Claudio is a whole other level that Beatrice is going out of her way to excuse him from.

She is explicitly--and correctly, frankly, given the chains of command and power dynamics involved--excusing Benedick from being responsible for Claudio's behavior and correction. And while yes, part of dismantling the patriarchy is men holding each other accountable, murder is not accountability, it's the beginning of a goddamn blood feud. So Beatrice is over here very subtly going "You have clearly not thought this offer through, and I'm not going to ask you to kill your best friend." It is not his office.

And rather than hearing what Beatrice is saying, Benedick goes and MAKES IT HIS OFFICE by declaring his love for Beatrice. Which like...aside from this being not the moment, it just makes it even clearer that Benedick is not actually listening to Beatrice here. His focus is on her, but Beatrice is razor-focused on Hero and the fact that Claudio just more or less ended Hero's life. But here's the other thing.

I subscribe to the "Beatrice and Benedick had a prior relationship before the play and it ended badly" theory, because I think it explains a lot about their dynamics. But that also makes this scene a little bit risky and pointed. Because yeah, while Beatrice warns him not to swear he loves her and then eat his words, if they have a history, then her "Kill Claudio" is not just a request. It's a test.

He already didn't choose her once, presumably for way lower-stakes reasons. So to ask him to choose her, to be on her side, with all of what that means, is a test of a possible new relationship. And it's one Benedict comes perilously close to failing, because of course he's not going to kill his best friend and brother-in-arms.

And just like that, Beatrice is out, because Benedick "dare easier be friends with [her] than fight with [her] enemy." His choice is not her, and she will not be anyone's second choice. Especially given that choosing Claudio means that Benedick is engaging in the infuriating mental gymnastics where Hero can have been done badly wrong, but Claudio somehow isn't Hero and Beatrice's enemy.

This is not a complicated situation; Claudio was absolutely in the wrong, caused harm, and needs to be called on the goddamn carpet for it, and Benedick is over here trying to "both sides" it. I'd have been out too, and then he has the nerve to insist that he and Beatrice be friends before she's allowed to leave the stage! I adore that she then full-on goes off on him, and every single time Benedick tries to get a word in edgewise, Beatrice comes up with another argument and just cuts his ass off. There is no "letting him explain," there is no "I'm just playing devil's advocate," there is no "trust me, I know Claudio." There is only the facts of what happened, and Beatrice hammering them directly into Benedick's head. Lots of productions cut out the attempted interruptions by Benedick in favor of letting Beatrice run with a monologue, but if you look at the text, he tries FOUR SEPARATE TIMES to interrupt her.

But Beatrice just steamrolls on, and the thing is, it works.

Beatrice hits and refutes key arguments that we can just imagine Benedick bringing up. The bullshit logic of him being in a romantic relationship with Beatrice while supporting Claudio's actions. The undeniable public slander of Hero. The bullshit that is slut-shaming and measuring a woman's worth by her virginity. The divide between an "ideal" manhood and the reality of men's behavior. The nonsense that is how easily men are valorized for slandering women. Every point brought up and thrown in Benedick's face until he is left with only one final question; the only possible question that could matter at the end of this scene:

Benedick. Think you in your soul the Count Claudio hath wronged Hero?

And Beatrice is very, very sure. Which ultimately is enough for Benedick to choose her, and agree that yeah, Claudio needs to be called out and corrected, and he is now on board with taking that responsibility.

It is kind of wild to me that this scene begins with Beatrice trying to protect Benedick from the reality of the situation, and insisting that if he wants to be in love with her, if he wants to be in her life again, then this time he has to choose her for all that that means. And as Beatrice makes clear, what that means is a disruption--if brief--of the patriarchy and the status quo. Being with Beatrice means that Benedick has to stop being the prince's jester and stand against toxic masculinity and harmful patriarchy in a real, concrete way.

It's Shakespeare, so that doesn't stick beyond the happy ending, but it is here, and Beatrice really said "if you want to be with me, you have to stand with and for me and the women around me" when it was clear Benedick wasn't taking no for an answer.

[transfemmbeatrice]

"I will kiss your hand, and so I leave you. By this hand, Claudio shall render me a dear account. As you hear of me, so think of me. Go comfort your cousin. I must say she is dead, and so, farewell."

[withasideofshakespeare]

Modern Much Ado but it’s just Beatrice and Benedick yelling at each other in a grocery store because they both refuse to change their shopping schedule and repeatedly being told to get a room.

[midnightcerealblog]

For this International Women’s Day, I would like to eat a man’s heart in the marketplace

[lizziebathory42]

It is definitely implied in the text that Benedick and Beatrice had a thing previously. When the Prince claims Beatrice lost Benedick's heart (after Benedick has a meltdown and storms off from being roasted by Beatrice) she responds:

"Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile, and I gave him use for it, a double heart for his single one. Marry, once before he won it of me with false dice. Therefore your Grace may well say I have lost it."

"Yeah, he gave me his heart for a while and we used our hearts together. Then he won his heart back using loaded dice, so you can totally say I 'lost' it."

[thatwritererinoriordan]

[artfulusername]

Has anyone written a Much Ado About Nothing modern AU where Beatrice and Benedick are dueling stand-up comics?

[jomarchswritingjacket]

they’re not the exact same flavor of enemies to lovers tbh but they’re the ones who got it started

but WHO DID IT BETTER???

or just pick your favorite idc

[belpheg0r-luna]

Benedick's and Beatrice's first dialogue in much ado becomes so much funnier and even more delicious when you realise that that's the first time they are meeting after the breakup and are just jabbing at each other and pretending to not care for love and relationships so that the other knows that the aforementioned breakup has not affected them at all