The NZ Woke have just canceled Shakespeare for crimes of imperialism! This is cultural vandalism!

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What the actual fuck now?

NZ has cancelled Shakespeare for crimes against imperialism???

New Zealand pulls funding for school Shakespeare festival, citing ‘canon of imperialism’

New Zealand’s arts council has pulled funding for a Shakespeare festival that has been running in secondary schools for roughly three decades, after questioning its relevance to the country and because it focuses on “a canon of imperialism”.

Every year, the Shakespeare Globe Centre New Zealand runs the Sheilah Winn Shakespeare festival – a secondary school competition where students perform excerpts from Shakespeare’s plays.

Students are given the scope to direct, compose music, perform and create sets and costumes for their show. It has been a popular event, with more than 120,000 high school students from more than half the country’s secondary schools having participated in the festival since its inception.

The festival regularly secures about $30,000 a year from the government’s arts funding body – Creative New Zealand. But this year, the council has decided to pull the money.

In the funding assessment document, the advisory panel said that while the festival has strong youth engagement, and a positive impact on participants, it “did not demonstrate the relevance to the contemporary art context of Aotearoa in this time and place and landscape”.

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The board signalled concerns that the organisation was “quite paternalistic” and that the genre was “located within a canon of imperialism and missed the opportunity to create a living curriculum and show relevance”.

One assessor said the application made them “question whether a singular focus on an Elizabethan playwright is most relevant for a decolonising Aotearoa in the 2020s and beyond”.

…I want the names of these fucking little quislings on this Board and I want them outed now!

Come not between the dragon and his wrath. Let grief Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it. This tiger-footed rage. There is no following her in this fierce vein

I am the hugest fan of Shakespeare, he is not just the greatest writer in English, he’s a global phenomena, an incredibly powerful artist whose work spans centuries and this little fuckwit woke  board of book burners has killed the $30 000 in funding because they want to decolonize Aoteroa?

Fucking NZ on Air have pissed $6million into the fucking Spinoff so don’t tell me that we don’t have the cash!

This is a very specific attack on culture by the woke, they are cancelling Shakespeare for fucks sakes!

See how malicious these little cultural Maoists are!

STAND UP YOU COWARD NZERS! Stand up against these woke censors! They are all vegans, and have little muscle mass, we can beat them to a crimson pulp!

We need the names of the Board who made this and a campaign of harassment against them until they are either forced to resign or this stupid fucking decision rescinded!

Fuck the woke! If you allow them to desecrate the art of Shakespeare, there is no going back.

I am incandescent with rage over this decision, the beauty, the power of Shakespeare calls out to us across 4 centuries, and these woke quislings see it as ‘Imperialism’ – get fucked!

I’m voting for whatever political party that will stop this madness and stop it now!

The woke are no different to ISIS who destroy the Art of other cultures. This is cultural vandalism and I for one refuse point blank to allow the Professional Managerial Class to rob the next generation of this art for bullshit woke virtue signals!

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118 COMMENTS

  1. This was reported in the Guardian yesterday but I have not seen a peep in our amazing MSM.
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/14/new-zealand-pulls-funding-for-school-sheilah-winn-shakespeare-festival-citing-canon-of-imperialism
    The headlines we are generating around the world, including our PM’s UN speech, barely rate or don’t get a mention here in NZ. It is actually very spooky. Because how do we counter this BS if no-one knows about it? So thanks again Martyn.
    By implication then you won’t be voting Labour Martyn. Neither will I.
    Who you gonna call? Votebusters 2023!

    • Magit. All our crap stuff gets into the UK Guardian – Marama wanting cunt back in common usage, and now Shakespeare’s out and cunts are in, and that sums up the screwball Greens ; Chloe got in too, with her ‘Ok Boomer’ comment to Gerry Brownlee , but he’s an older white male so that’s fine too with today’s horrible destructive sociopath is wokesters hell bent on wrecking our cultural heritage any which way they can.

      Disgraceful, and very sad. They should all be named, and explain themselves, publicly. The numskulls probably don’t even realise that many of their aphorisms, and commonplace sayings derive from the genius of Shakespeare – accepted conventional wisdoms spring unexpected surprises.

      I now believe that the last couple of decades of dumbing down the New Zealand school system and thus handicapping our kids has been deliberate.

      • Second that 100% Snow White.
        The Greens particularly the ones you mention have set themselves above everyone else.
        The Left have cancelled Shakespeare in the same way they want history rewritten.
        Are we going to accept this? Don’t we have a say?

        • Bob the first No, we don’t accept it, and the PM sort of realises it now.

          The cancelling of the Commissioner for Children. Enough said. The same Minister as Arts and Culture, Sepuloni. And only a fool would even begin to think that she’s not doing as proscribed.
          .

  2. Martyn I agree it’s a bullshit justification and off the charts in terms of wankery but “cancelling Shakespeare”? How is it cancelling something if you simply decide to fund something different? It’s not removing his works from publication

    • Wheel Don’t forget that the New Zealand National library has been burning books and only keeping books published in New Zealand. That’s why booksters must hang onto theirs, and make provision for them for when they die. School texts get a fair bit of wear and don’t last forever, and our off-shore literary heritage is massive, apart from Shakespeare, but who is unlikely to ever be surpassed in the English language.

  3. Well said Bomber. Shakespeare did more to create our modern language than all other individuals combined. He will be relevant in 3022. This is feeble. And when the quislings are confronted: the Devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon! We’re got test thou that goose look?

    • Why is that Trevor? I would assume Martyn is very ‘left’ but he is against this. It’s not like the left have a dominant position on stupidity. That’s like me saying you sound like you are to the right so by default you believe in child sacrifices at pizza joints.

      • And the left are baby-eating Hollywood elites, but the right are only greedy bastards who make it in society, then pull the ladder up behind them and forget the other humans.

        Left, the common good, providing school lunches for the poor!
        Right, lower taxes for the rich elites and let the poor “bottom-feeders” eat cake!

        How did that work out for the rich like Marie Antoinette during the French Revolution Trevor?

        Truss is “full steam ahead, damn the torpedoes, tax cuts for the Tory elite!”. Let’s see how that concept of taxing the rich less goes for Liz, the Brit economy and UK Pension funds Trevor?

        Luxon is “full steam ahead, damn the torpedoes, tax cuts for the likes of John Key’s Tories who would vote Trump and Bolsonaro!”. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/13/former-new-zealand-pm-john-key-says-he-would-have-voted-for-trump-and-bolsonaro .

        Let’s see how that concept of taxing the rich less, drinking bleach to cure Covid, selling off the Amazon jungle and denying climate change goes for National, ACT the Kiwi economy, Kiwisaver funds and coastal Kiwi communities Trevor?

        UK and Kiwi rich elites under Trump and Bolsonara Tory groupies are going to need the following:
        1. Higher fences topped with razor-wire and better security systems.
        2. Guillotine protection like the South Ndebele peoples of Africa – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neck_ring
        3. More right-wing Zippy Wiiliams’ biased polls to help emulate the local body apathy that National, ACT or Brian Tamaki will save more lives than Labour did during Covid.
        4. More safe rooms with bigger vaults to put your tax savings cash into.

    • I think a major mistake has been made by woke Creative NZ. Once they realize that Rosamund in As you Like it was really trans (after all she dressed up as a man in the forrest of Arden), they will punish themselves hugely for their own transphobia and cancel themselves

  4. You couldn’t even make this bs up could you? Very very dangerous times ahead if those that make these sorts of decisions to marginalise someone/something as benign like William Shakespeare because of weasel piss ideals, then we should all be wary.
    Good on you @ MB for bringing this to our attention

    • This. The Left keep screaming, “how do the Nats and Act expect to pay for their tax cuts?”

      Simple, just do away with these ridiculous govt paid fiefdoms, filled with experts in group identity and not much else.

      Personally I’d include the many silly ministries as well.

  5. “What the actual fuck now” is exactly what I thought.

    The dead rat you now have to swallow Martyn is to vote for the party that opposes this fascism. That means someone other than Labour and Greens.

  6. Unfortunately the woke cult comprise all parties of the left, they enable this madness.
    That’s going to limit your voting options.
    Check out the cultural vandals overseas defacing the Van Gough painting.
    If these cultural Marxist’s aren’t all utter wankers they are all wank adjacent.

    • and you are a spoof stain keepcalm

      and it’s Van Gogh….learn to spell it before you bitch about it, if you’re going to pose as a defender of culture.

  7. I’m a bit surprised it hasn’t happened earlier. But there it is, for those who think woke capture of our institutions is just “rightard” paranoia.

    There are actually good reasons for giving Shakespeare a rest – he might be appreciated more if he wasn’t so overexposed, and the focus on the bard leads us to overlook great plays by some of his contemporaries. But not this virtue-signalling BS.

    • But Pope other great plays will be a canon of imperialism. So they too must be stopped! We must cleanse Aotearoa of this scurge!

    • “There are actually good reasons for giving Shakespeare a rest ”

      The problem is he is the best and he is also a Straight White Man.

    • “Imperialist Canon” are the words Martin quotes. I haven’t seen the whole reason in context but at face value that’s a damning indictment on any decision making process. I hope what ever they are funding is in the same league.

      • What a lawyer, a strategic marketeer, and a consultant? I wouldn’t automatically assume they are all radically left leaning.

        • I thought this was about the arts widely, but we have some stick-on post-it notes on this body from a marketing background, charity background, the disabled. heavy preponderance of Maori. Where are the numbers with wide arts thinking and experience. The Womad facilitator is one, primarily oral.

          Would it be better to name the particular expertise? There should be some with painting, sculpture, dance, as their niche. Youth, hip hop would be another area. Having been an actress isn’t enough.
          Art philosophy,, representing its epoch and thinking. It seems like personalities and their connection with some sort of art are what the resumes are about. What about patchwork quilts, the domestic arts. – I hope they come in somewhere. Everything doesn’t have to be performance. I would like an Inia Te Wiata award for aspiring carvers amongst other things.

          (I just did a search on Radionz – RNZ for ‘te maari art exhibition’.
          Result – ‘Nothing was found.’)

    • Looking at the memorandum about the purpose of Creative NZ it all becomes clear.
      Creative New Zealand is a Crown entity governed by the Arts Council. The council encourages, promotes and support New Zealand arts to benefit all New Zealanders. It upholds the right to artistic freedom and promotes a New Zealand identity in the arts.

      Uhuh – Shakespeare wasn’t born or lived in NZ – what can he tell us?

      (Statement heard from a fundamentalist Christian? about why his child was not to play, mix with other children, was to be be home schooled – a prisoner from thought, from hegemony,
      from difference or diversity. ‘What could my child learn from them’.)

      • Creative NZpromotes a New Zealand identity in the arts. seems to be the key to this. They could merely have stated that Aotearoan art was their priority. Mentioning imperialist canon is what I’d describe as an unnecessary own goal. They’d not survive on my watch.

    • Nick +J. Thank you. I only know, or have known one, and she’s a social martyr: they look like a bunch of philistines, who’ve achieved sfa themselves. Our internationally recognised and acclaimed achievers in instrumental music, literature, opera, should be here, not the critics. And we have them. One of my neighbours is an ex-Covent Garden opera singer, and we’ve at least one top novelist nearby. These people are pc nobodies, and how they got to be on this tax-payer funded council needs to be explained. Ironically, a former colleague is a poet published all over the world, but not in New Zealand. Mind you, he is a white male.

      Long way back I was lucky, as a school girl, to be associated with Ngaio Marsh’s “ King Lear” production at Canterbury University, and it imbued in me an appreciation of Shakespeare which has never left. It is wicked that today’s students are being deprived of such opportunities because of the intellectual void in which this bunch live. I am angry.

      • WTF do they all do?????? We could cut them and use their wages for Shakespeare, Polyfest, Kapa Haka and have change left over.

  8. This is so so mad, it speaks to the deteriorating metal health of the decision makers more than anything.

    This man wrote plays, yes, plays, poems, and … acted… before there was a British empire, about, what was it, 500 fucking years ago? And yet he relevant now!

    Decolonising? What the actual FUCK?

    Quite paternalistic? Team, he can’t help that he was born a male. You know? And got into the gig he did! Damn your eyes William for your gender! That you were a MAN!

    Can funding be pulled on the NZ Arts Council? Like forever?

    • Xray. He was more than a writer, he was an historian- entertainer – philosopher – psychologist. The problem with these highly suspect indigenous poseurs, is that whereas smart people can dumb down when necessary, dumb people can’t smarten up. They seem to me to be the same sort of inadequate characters who are advising Andrew Little about the health service. It’s a pattern. We need to know how they got to be where they are.

  9. There was a letter to the editor apropos a couple of days ago in the O.D.T. And Trevor below read it in the ChCh Press. So it is around.

    If you find out who these philistines are, Martyn, do advise, and I’ll fire off a piece of suitable invective. I applaud your most spirited defence of The Bard. A hit, a very palpable hit!

    And well said, John+Roy.

    Oh, just seen yours, Nick+J. Thanks.

  10. I know hardened lefties who are so disgusted at Labour and Greens cancellation of culture and education and international quality research in NZ and are now shaking their heads and quietly saying maybe it’s better they are not back for another term.

    They have allowed NZ’s version of the cultural revolution into NZ and its not a pretty sight.

    • Cannot use the word culture when referring to a white male.
      Cannot use the word culture when referring to an Englishman.
      The word culture in NZ is exclusive to Maori.
      Literary genius out of the question.

      • Migrant culture is fine – it’s just so called ‘white’ and ‘British’ culture.

        Weird because Britain was part of the treaty but seems to be cancelled because the woke don’t like them. What’s funnier is that the biggest woke and cancellers are from Britain like

        “Siouxsie Wiles MNZM (born Susanna Wiles)[1] is a British microbiologist and science communicator. Her specialist areas are infectious diseases and bioluminescence. She is based in New Zealand.”

        Part of the league to cancel international science and freedom of speech in NZ and destroying other peoples careers with misinformation.

        University of Auckland professor relinquishes role after claiming mātauranga Māori is ‘not science
        https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300368560/university-of-auckland-professor-relinquishes-role-after-claiming-mtauranga-mori-is-not-science

        But wait, it was made up and exaggerated. Not a good look for scientists!

        “An article penned by Siousxie Wiles and published on Stuff.co.nz has been found to have breached media standards.

        As reported this morning by Kiwiblog.co.nz, the decision of the Media Council found Wiles had published inaccurate information in the article, causing ‘serious reputational damage’ to the victims, and Stuff.co.nz had not redressed the wrong adequately or in a timely fashion.”

        https://dailytelegraph.co.nz/news/siouxsie-wiles-column-on-stuff-co-nz-breached-media-standards/

        Crazy times in woke la la land, taking over NZ education and cancelling Pakeha and Maori when they are British in the name of being anti colonial.

  11. These people don’t realize that it’s this kind of shit that got Trump elected.

    “Let’s clean the swamp!”

  12. The Watchers have just realised that Shakespeare was ahead of his time and able to see the present, remember and understand the past, and take an intelligent position about the future.

    Today an intellect like that must be crushed, squashed, hidden etc and students not allowed to participate in or read his output because….
    It just demonstrates we have been on a downward slope intellectually since then. Science and machinery and the industrial revolution and now the technocratic revolution have smothered the humanities. Its official, humanities negated in our higher learning institutions in NZ. The mood and action is similar to the song ‘Video killed the Radio Star, which illustrates the later version of the system, this illustrates ‘Pictures and technocrat performance kill the written word’. We cannot have minds trotting off onto ‘The paths less travelled’; so round up those animals – trot along you dogies on the path laid out for you – don’t make us use the rawhide whip. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_KtQ1BqfHM

    • Anker. “ Fucking ignorant” is an understatement. They are the barbarians at the gate. God help our children.

  13. The left causes contention, so it will be reported in the echoing spaces of the people, and by that they confirm they still exist; they are acknowledged as being relevant not passe’.

  14. Well, you can all go to the Creative NZ website and look at the members of the board who decided this if you want. They’re a rum lot, and very political.

  15. Well, you can all go to the Creative NZ website and look at the members of the board who decided this if you want. They’re a rum lot, and very political.

  16. This company gets a lot more funding from The Ministry of Youth Development than Creative NZ so no need to get too upset, and actually they shouldn’t be allowed to double dip anyway. There have been a huge amount of independent artists suffering from Creative NZ funding cuts in the last couple of months and livelihoods destroyed (because CNZ blew everything during Covid, plus they care more about employing admin staff than funding art). It’s irritating that this super conservative institution is the only one making the news.

    • Felix. If they have funding issues they should just say so, but it’s more than that, and it’s more than Shakespeare, it’s social engineering, and it’s political, and part of the colonialism syndrome which some people globally are actually making a lot of money out, and I say ‘syndrome’ because it’s not just a bandwagon, it’s like the periodic sicknesses and hysterias which at a simple level can have statues defaced, but worse, lead to belief in things like satanic cults, and contemporary martyrs like Peter Ellis being sacrificed on the altars of the mad.

      Killing the drama festival because they don’t like their own infantile interpretation of a wonderful mind, is one thing, but denying students the opportunity to produce and manage their own participation in such an event is depriving them of an opportunity to express themselves, literally, on a stage, and developing the skills and independence and confidence to do so, and which they need. They’re not chopping Shakespeare down, they’re chopping kids down.

      New Zealand writers used to joke that we need to reference paddocks and pohutakawas and barefoot through the cow pats to be regarded as authentic New Zealanders, and writers who have succeeded without doing so are miracles and wouldn’t see the light of day today. The handful of our poets who make it into English anthologies are the product of independent thought, not parochial councils or committees trying to control them, and the abysmal quality of our contemporary political leaders is a graphic illustration of how we are failing at nourishing and producing the independent thinkers and problem solvers which we as a society need.

        • Tui, Yep. For too long we have laughed about New Zealand’s anti- intellectualism, but not uneasily enough. We are now bearing the terrible fruits on all fronts, and not just with this council of fools.

      • I’m not interested in getting into a discussion about “wokeism” from such a reductive stance. Except to say that if that is what Creative NZ represents these days then the classical arts in NZ – Shakespeare but also the ballet, classical orchestras etc – are equally uninterested in the art behind what what they preach and more what it achieves as a status symbol. These kids will be just fine. They need to learn to be independent and they don’t do that by imitating the gestures and voices of actors considered Shakespearean whilst not knowing what the words coming out of their mouths mean. Meanwhile a whole generation of actual living artists has been culled and no one gives a damn.

  17. My reluctance in voting for Act next election is turning into enthusiasm. I thought that “decolonisation” would allow for retaining the best of the various cultures that make up this country. How naive.

    • Badger. You’re not real anyway, so stop thinking. A grandchild told me this week that squirrels aren’t real. This is what happens when racist censors are successful.

  18. I never could get into Sheakespeare at school. All that middle english language, thou, thee, etc and so on.

  19. I don’t really like popcorn that much but recently I’ve been throwing a bit down my gob while watching it all play out. It needs to (play out). A few old sayings come to mind – like “give ’em enough rope “….. etc.
    And unregulated capitalism is going to disappear up its own arse

    Let it all rip. The sooner the better so that we can start to rebuild. And book yourselves in now for whichever graves you’re wanting to piss on. They’ll most likely be the ones who never really understood the concept of a society or were in possession of a bit of humility.

  20. wasn’t will before all that imperialism stuff? I mean if you want to defund it ‘cos it’s boring as fuck so be it but this is bullshit….can I nominate opera and ballet for the cancel list.

  21. I loved studying Shakespeare in high school English class (mid 80s). This is a literal literary tragedy 🙁

  22. Never-mind the 10% funding cut off, who were the people that stated Shakespeare is “Imperialistic?” What does that even mean? No words ever spoken in the English language is more powerful then the sound of a King in Shakespeare. I guess new labor need a safe space from that ….

  23. I am so angry over this arts board resolution, I’m finding it difficult to express myself here. Unfortunately I fear this cancelling culture won’t stop there somehow. What’s next cancelling out the Brontes, Dickens, Steinbeck et al? After all, these are just a few of many in touch authors who write about the society and social conditions of their time.

    Cancelling funding for students to be able to perform their unique performances of Shakespeare, is removing an opportunity for young people to outwardly interpret and express themselves through Shakespeare’s plays.

    Shakespeare’s works are timeless and apply to any time throughout history including today and well into the future I’d say, dealing with just about every detail of the craziness, frailties and strengths of the complex human mind, not to mention the application of the language of the time. Judging by their ignorant action in this case, I doubt the oh-so-woke, yet so-out-of-touch members of the arts board who made this bad decision have ever read or been involved in a Shakespearean experience, which leads me to come to the conclusion, if so, then they shouldn’t be there in the first place!

    • Mary-a. Yes. I am angry too. At first I thought this an April Fools type prank, and I even checked the date. Went for a long walk and imposed myself on relatives who imposed some alcohol on me which I’d pre-decided not to indulge in. Walked home in the risky dark, to accommodate my resurfaced anger with tea. Imported tea. Another imperialist colonial habit which I assume these numskulls reject in the interests of racial authenticity as they do cars, trains, planes, shoes, underpants, the written word, flushing toilets, telephones, and all the other useful things which have reached this cold threshold land ( Baxter, Pakeha) from abroad, and where it is no longer only the mountains which crouch like tigers ( Baxter again), but it’s crippled and crippling products such as these.

  24. It’s sad for many reasons, including the fact that teams of Māori and Pasifika kids have had great successes in the competition.

    • Katy Pai. “F*boy Island” is the product of National Party pervs, not the current lot who are simpler sort of operators, recommending Whittaker’s chocs for their brain dead followers, bake cute scones for Ed Sheeran who happens to own far more properties than Ardern and Luxon combined, exchange gifts and notes with Markle the lying narcissist, and espouse the warped world views of that bitter little moron Harry prince of Hollywood.

      Ops. I forgot. And are busy kneecapping the Commissioner for Children.

  25. I am surprised by the reaction considering that it is only fiction. I guess the reaction about the proposed concert radio to youth radio should have warned me. Personally I don’t care either way.

    • Bonnie. Truth comes from the poets and certainly not politicians or their lackeys. Read some. Nor is this issue about “fiction “. And how much of Shakespeare is “fiction” ? Please tell me.

      • Most readers on this site think the book I believe is fiction so maybe it’s a case of agreeing to disagree. The high school I went to for forms 3-5 did not cover Shakespeare for some reason& it was only when the family shifted & I did 6th form at another school that I studied it,
        “What has been will be again,
        what has been done will be done again;
        there is nothing new under the sun.
        Is there anything of which one can say,
        “Look! This is something new”?
        It was here already, long ago;
        it was here before our time.”
        from a book, lots older is enough of an explanation for why the topics stay relevant.

    • Thank you Peter, a good read. I wouldn’t mind seeing Hyland’s examples of quite how colonisers used Shakespeare as a lesson in behaviour here in New Zealand – or her seeming assumption that he was some sort of negative influence on our local landscape. I don’t believe it. There was a similar lecturer at OU, the late Kenneth Melvin, who asserted the same thing about Christianity, and I think the Green’s Elizabeth Kerekere does too.

  26. Too many ‘points imperative’. I’m for Shakespeare. By all means believe ‘woke’ but never say it again, and explain it every time.

  27. I blame Kelvin Davis the loser for this and look forward to meeting him in another realm and discussing our respective whanau together, for a long, long, long time.

    • Henry + Filth “So who gets the actual money then ?” Consultants. There’s big bucks to be made in dropping out of school before they kick you out, boasting about it, eschewing tertiary education, embellishing your CV, shouting at ladies in public places, and scoring a job with eg Oranga Tamariki.

      I know a lady who said her son decided not to go to university because there was nothing they could teach him. He’d be ideal for one of these government agencies. The cops waiting for him at the airport on drugs charges when he arrived back from London was not his fault. Victimhood reigns.

  28. My message to Creative NZ .. ‘.yet do I fear thy nature is too full of the milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way; thou wouldst be great, art not without ambition, but without the illness should attend it.

    William Wokespeare Macbeth Act 1 Scene 5

    • Prunella the Pukeko. Did you have to mention ‘Macbeth’ ? New Zealand Opera’s forthcoming production of Verdi’s cultural appropriation of Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’ features at least one outstanding Maori tenor with funding from the hypocrites at Creative NZ setting him up to be a traitor to the philosophy ( ha ha ) of the Arts Council, and you have to go and draw attention to it. Get thee to a nunnery.

      • T’would seem the Arts Council did not have the pleasure and privilege of seeing the 2019 Pop Up Globe production of A Summer Night’s Dream – a totally splendid rendition which included a delightful Te Reo component. The Council is obviously ‘not for all markets’.

  29. Our cultural heritage funny that my father use to say when I was at college how is learnig Shakespeare going to get us a job. We were also told its a waste of time learning Maori as there is no jobs better to learn English my how times and what’s valued has changed. Now the tide is turning and some of our Anglo saxon whanau are experiencing how we felt and they don’t like it. Yet the symphony orchestra still get funded unlike the pittance Te Matatini showcasing Maori cultural performances and the best we in Aotearoa have to offer. I say suck it up we had to and still are.

    • ‘Cultural performances ‘ are not the same as ‘culture’. Far from it. Hope that your dad got a good job.

      • Yes Te Matatini is culture Pip its one of the best ways to learn te reo. English literature and many other uni courses have now been downgraded as with many social science degrees.

      • Pip u obviously don’t know anything about Te Matatini typical ignorant comment. Cultural performing arts.

    • @CvP If it was a simple as sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, you have a point.

      However the long overdue renaissance of Māori culture is being used as cover to inculcate woke ideology (ironically founded white males) and Critical Theory is being given a Māori makeover. In the same way as Pākeha intellectuals are deconstructing and problematising western culture, how long do you think it will it will be before a new generation of up and coming Māori intellectuals, immersed in CT, start deconstructing and problematising Māori culture?

  30. Aside from his undoubted genius for exposing and understanding the human condition Shakespeare invented or developed1700 words and phrases, hundreds of which we use in our daily discourses. Here’s a sample of his words, A to Z:
    Alligator, Bedroom, Critic, Downstairs, Eyeball, Fashionable, Gossip, Hurry, Inaudible, Jaded, Kissing, Lonely, Manager, Nervy, Obscene, Puppy dog, Questioning, Rant, Skim milk, Traditional, Undress, Varied, Worthless, Xantippe, Yelping, Zany.
    Pearls before swine? These Art Council morons have no idea.

    • meh. Stuff will probably fuck the whole thing up more. Stuff, govt’s sycophantic little mouthpieces skimmng along on the surface like the ducks landing on frozen Dulwich Pond in the land of hope and glory in winter.

  31. “and missed the opportunity to create a living curriculum and show relevance”
    AKA another step towards the revolution and Year Zero

    “I’m voting for whatever political party that will stop this madness and stop it now!”
    This and so much more, sadly the woke are the best thing to happen to ACT

    • Is that you Joanne ? Did ‘ Othello’ in fourth form did you ? Would it help to know that Othello may not have been a person of colour and that William S wasn’t racist? The ethnicity of Shakespeare’s characters is a separate area of study, with Michael Neill, possibly New Zealander Michael Neill, English student from Otago University, a leading light, and the fact that he wore a white duffle coat could mean anything under the sun which does occasionally shine in Dunedin, but not during university semesters.

  32. Theyre going to ‘reinvent or reinterpret’ Shakespeare! Like …

    ‘To be, or not to be a unicorn! that is the question’ or,

    ‘The lady, he, she, them, they doth protest too much, methinks‘

    ‘What’s in a name? Well let me tell you Shakespeare cis white male chauvinist fuck! its not only, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.’

    ‘Frailty, thy name is woman, man, he, she.’

    I can hear their widdle brainey waineys cogs working through all the Shakespeare they can find.

    • “ How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to eat Witless’s Chocolate. “ King Lear.

      “Meat without salt is like Witless’s Chocolate “. King Lear

      “Blow David and crack your cheeks”. King Lear.

      “ Have your mouth fill’d up Marama before you open it.” Henry V111

      “ Your abilities are too infant- like Kelvin for doing much alone”. Coriolanus

      “ One may smile, and smile, and be a villain “….. Hamlet

      “ I was searching for a fool when I found Trevor “. As You Like It

      There’s a Chris has more hair than wit”. The Comedy of Errors

  33. What in the hell?

    Shakespeare’s work was written in the freest and least imperialistic times that the UK ever saw, between 1300 and the mid 17th century, when Britain was run by British people and didn’t intrude overseas. This is absolute nonsense. It’s not hard to figure out who is behind directing hate at this golden period in British history and English literature.

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