ABSTRACT
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Girls: Web Series
Chapter 5 explores constructions of girlhood and marginalized genders in the Shakespearean web series. Independently produced and distributed via YouTube, multipart series like Hamlet the Dame, Twelfth Grade (or Whatever), Rome and Juliet , and The Better Strangers, among others, set Shakespeare’s plays in high schools and colleges, emphasizing the participation of girls and young people of marginalized genders as actors, directors, and producers. Focusing on particular characters and motifs (including “gender-bending” heroines like Viola and Rosalind and adamantly “chaste” characters like Olivia and Rosaline), these web series locate in Shakespeare powerful ways of articulating diverse gender and sexual identities.
