The tag line on the poster for Roland Emmerich’s Anonymous reads “Was Shakespeare a Fraud?” Given the long history of William Shakespeare as Hollywood source and subject,this might be the only new angle left. And odd though the question may be, it matches our current cultural mindset, where everything is suspect and nothing worth trusting. Witness last week’s raging debate: “Is Beyoncé’s Baby Bump a Fraud?”
The ‘evidence’ was a slow motion clip of Beyoncé sitting down on a talk show set, either causing her detachable baby bump to shift or her dress to billow in the breeze created by her downward motion. The latter explanation should be favoured, also known as a sensibly presumed truth, just as is believed William Shakespeare wrote a few plays in his day.
Emmerich thinks differently, and his approach to the Shakespeare question is Oxfordian with a twist of Prince Tudor. Having thoroughly examined our fictional future through a cynical and histrionic (but not humorless) lens in Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow, Emmerich has turned his attention to the past.
