I’m usually not a huge fan of romantic movies and I watched Shakespeare in Love several times so far. I didn’t quite like it but, I decided to give the movie another shot. I really did love the concept of the movie in that it portrayed William Shakespeare as a man with a real life instead of the great literary master that he is. Although we don’t know quite a lot about him concerning his private life, I think this movie was a great way to show how he came up with his ideas, just like everyone else. The movie depicted Viola as Shakespeare’s muse in writing Romeo and Juliet. It’s lovely how the movie foreshadows the doomed romance of William and Viola and I like it when movies don’t necessarily have a happy ending. The bittersweet ending kind of made the story better even if it was purely fiction.

Viola’s character made me wonder how many women would have dressed up as men to venture into the theatrical world. In fact, there must have been a lot of women who dressed as men to do things they would not be allowed to do. For some odd reason, Deborah Sampson comes to mind each time I think of a crossdressing women and then I think of dear old Mulan. Regardless, both of the women I have mentioned were in the military and it’s striking to think of which occupations did women have to disguise themselves in.