Gertrude = Kardashian

Today we finished the rest of Hamlet 2000, then discussed.

In order to view the film, we had to walk from the classroom to the basement of the library, which is a five second walk. The class is at 8 AM. The second we step outside, this one student, I'll call him Daniel, has a cigarette in his mouth. During class he keeps a cigarette on his desk. He's 19. He's awesome. As we're walking, "You know what I can't believe? I can't believe people fucking dress up to come to school. Like last spring semester I saw this guy wearing a fucking chinchilla coat."

The class hated the movie. General consensus: Julia-Stiles-as-Ophelia was boring as hell. Nobody could figure out why, if she's a photographer in NYC, she was so blah, such an utter pushover, and why she went crazy--since in the scenes with her father, she either stares out into space, or is quietly crying. And what were her feelings towards her brother, exactly? Who the fuck knows.

Daniel thought Laertes-by-Liev Shrieber was "a perv," and believable. Students agreed.

He said that Gertrude, played by Diane Venora, "reminds me of the Kardashian mother." I could see that perfectly. He also thought the film was ridiculous because there were murders, and no cops. "You can't spit on the floor in New York without getting arrested."

After class, as he's walking out, he comes up to me: "GOD I fucking hate that old English. Can you imagine someone talking like that on the fucking subway? I mean, right?"