Shakespeare, Disney, and Love (?)

Alright, I'm at a loss as to what else I could write, but in both of the plays I'm currently reading, Love's Labour's Lost and As You Like It, this has been totally bugging me!
Fernando and his pals are all ready to go woman-free, with the total "bros before hos" mentality . . . and BAM! In walks pretty girls and suddenly they're in love.





Meanwhile in the other play, Rosalind and Orlando only meet once before deciding that they are in love, and get all mopey about it.

Shakespeare darling. . .you know I love you but that's not how it does or should work.


Now obviously, not all of his plays are like that. Hamlet and The Winter's Tale seemed to portray deeper and more meaningful relationships at least. But there are a few like this [*cough*Romeo and Juliet *cough*] , and it's the one thing that I have a hard time not scoffing at.

In some ways, you really can't blame him though. Read any old fairy tale, even 50 years old or more, and how does it go? Man (usually prince) sees woman (usually princess). They both think the other one is mega-hot, and suddenly they are in love.Then they get married like what. . .a week later? I remember once looking through all of the fairy tales in my two ancient books of them, one Grimm's and the other Andersen's. . .and there was not a single tale that did not follow that pattern.

Hence the reference to Disney. Instead of railing on him myself, though, I found a related article that I think better sums up what I'm trying to say here.

http://community.sparknotes.com/2011/09/29/why-disney-princesses-are-the-worst-role-models-ever







P.S. I completely agree with the remark about the redone Rapunzel (Tangled). Heck. I pretty much agree with all of it.

As You Like It

Pardon the lack of pictures. I'm having technical difficulties.

Have to be perfectly honest here, when I learned I'd be reading As You Like it for my personal reading, I was a little bummed; I had hoped to experience new plays in this class. This play is not only the first I've ever read, (granted it was quite some time ago. . . it was way back in Seventh grade English class) but also the first I've ever seen; both in the form of a play (at the Utah Shakespearean Festival, 2009) and of a film (2006 version directed by Kenneth Branagh, the one with the colorblind cast and set in feudal Japan).
But, at the same time. . . I guess it's a good opportunity to take a look back at it. . .because otherwise, I probably would have never read it again. And let's be honest, it's a wonder I could even figure out the  basic plot reading it at that age. I may as well read it again, now that I can actually understand what they're saying.
To get myself back up to speed with it, I first consulted with the almighty Sparknotes on the summary of the plot, all about Rosalinda and Celia cross dressing and running about the woods, trying to "train" Orlando in the way he should woo her. . .Really it's just Robin Hood with cross dressing, mixed in with [insert name of modern Romantic Comedy here. . . they're all the same]. Then, I  moved on to Netflix to see what film versions were available there. Unfortunately, the above mentioned version directed by Kenneth Branagh was not on instant play, so I contented myself with watching bits and pieces from two other versions. The first, a "modernized" (set in 1992) version where Oliver is some big shot CEO and Orland is his punky, hard-edged (yet surprisingly soft spoken) younger brother, and the woods where they were exiled to was more like a hobo village somewhere in the U.K. I can't say I was very impressed by it. The other was a 1936 version that I also had difficulty watching, due to the fact that Rosalind spoke like she had been hit over the head with a stupid-stick and acquired some strange, half-slurred accent in the process. The helpless-female, cry-baby attitude so often adopted by actresses of that time also irritated me.
As far as a "reading plan" goes, it looks like I've got 8 days left to read a total of 8 acts(3 in Love's Labour's Lost, 5 in As You Like It). . . So a One-Act-Per-Day from either book sounds sufficient. What I'd like to get out of [re-]reading this is finding outs why Shakespeare wrote it. It seems to me like it was targeted very much at the female audience; after all, what girl wouldn't like to dress up like a dude to pick the brain the man she's got her eye on?