Shakespeare in Pop Culture

Shakespeare in Pop Culture

Shakespeare even after being dead for over 400 years has still influenced modern day culture. In Walt Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, Gaston makes a reference to Shakespeare’s Macbeth. While he is trying to rile up the crowd to get ready to go to the Beast’s castle he says, “Screw you courage to the sticking place.” This was said in Macbeth Act 1 Scene 7 by Lady Macbeth. Just like Lady Macbeth was trying to get Macbeth riled up to kill the king, Gaston was trying to rile up the crowd to kill the Beast. In Disney’s sequel to Pocahontas, they show Shakespeare himself! They show a gravedigger going by that has a skull on the coffin. The skull them falls into Shakespeare’s hand and he says, “What is to be or not to be?” Then he starts writing on the parchment paper as if inspired! This is an allusion to the famous monologue in Hamlet! Disney has used Shakespeare as inspiration in many of their movies, like The Lion King, and referenced him in many. This shows how Shakespeare still inspires us today in the modern world!

Works Cited

Benjamin, Rouge. "10 Shakespeare References in Disney." Geek Girls. Web. 18 Jan. 2016.

Annotated Bibliography

Benjamin, Rouge. "10 Shakespeare References in Disney." Geek Girls. Web. 19 Jan. 2016. I used the first paragraph about Beauty and the Beast. It gave a good allusion to Shakespeare’s Macbeth when it showed that Gaston said one of Lady Macbeth’s lines.

Benjamin, Rouge. "10 Shakespeare References in Disney." Geek Girls. Web. 19 Jan. 2016. I also used the first paragraph about Pocahontas,