Romeo and Juliet

I have always thought the title characters in this play were idiotic. If you look at the story dispassionately it is far more depressing then heartwarming. They were too young, had just met each other, made incredibly stupid decisions, and died because of silly mistake. It isn't exactly something we'd want anyone we love to emulate.

Yet the power of the story is not in its logic but its emotion. However ridiculous the story may seem when we lay it out in its bare bones, for those two characters it was REAL. Shakespeare's writing makes us see how real it was- that however unwise and impetuous and short sighted their love affair may have been, yet still it had legitimacy.

How many young couples (and lonely young persons) have longed for that legitimacy? Adolescent experiences may appear predictable and short lived, but that doesn't mean they aren't real. Perhaps it is an eccentricity of our culture that we honor that reality at all. Works that Romeo and Juliet open the door for real life stories of romantic love. The stories that we tell dictate what we will and will not accept, what we will choose.

There is good reason that so many more hetrosexual couples then queer couples survive out of college. The story of straight people meeting as undergraduates and getting married afterwards is a path well blazed and accepted. The story of two women meeting as undergraduates and getting wed, or two men? They have far far more to prove, and no clear trail to walk down.

Will there be an artistic or literary or dramatic work that blazes the trail for these couples? I find it hard to believe it is only a matter of politics. Politics ride on the stories that we tell and how those stories are told.

Writers and artists of all stripes, I dare you- rise up and create! Tell stories that will blaze the path! Romeo and Juliet had to die, and so did Harvey Milk, but there are so many more stories out there needing to be heard, needing your art to rise to cultural legitimacy. Brokeback Mountain was not enough. We need more.