If your girl isn’t your bestfriend what’s the point

Bantonio

This meme, tentatively titled “Bantonio,” emphasizes the bromantic potential of Bassanio and Antonio’s relationship in Merchant of Venice. Their relationship in many ways reflects the modern bromance in that Bassanio is romantically interested in a woman, Portia, and his friendship with Antonio only enables his quest to court and marry Portia. However, as the caption of the meme suggests, their relationship is more romantic than the modern bromance.

In this 2004 film production of the play, the director emphasizes the romance in their relationship by ending their conversation with this kiss. While the kiss is not included in the text of the play, this decision is true to the romantic language used to describe Bassanio and Antonio’s friendship. We are introduced to Antonio as a single, melancholic man, and his closest relationship is his friendship with Bassanio. In Act II, a mutual friend even comments, “I think he [Antonio] only loves the world for him [Bassanio]” (36). Antonio’s aversion to marriage and dedication to Bassanio allows modern readers to see him as a closeted queer figure. In contrast, Bassanio does profess love for women, but he still remains truly devoted to Antonio. When Antonio is under threat of death for forfeiting on a loan, a loan which he took out for Bassanio, Bassanio remarks:

               Antonio, I am married to a wife

               Which is as dear to me as life itself;

               But life itself, my wife, and all the world,

               Are not with me esteem’d above thy life:

               I would lose all, ay, sacrifice them all

               Here to this devil, to deliver you.

Even though Bassanio is presented as the straight character, he professes his love to Antonio to be more valuable than his love for his wife.

Thus, while their relationship has some resemblance to a modern bromance, their romantic devotion to each other suggests that it may indeed be more queer than the modern bromance. In fact, their friendship resembles more of a Greek pederastic relationship, in which an older man engages in a romantic and erotic relationship with a younger man until the younger man is ready for marriage. The difference between the Greek bromance and the modern bromance is that the Greek bromance allows for queer sexuality and practice, and therefore the Greek bromance is a better model for the intense romantic friendship that Bassanio and Antonio share. This meme taps into this distinction by emphasizing the romance and queer potential in their bromance.

~KG

because I have fallen in love with so many pretty girls and never once the least bit with any man

1873 Letter from Louisa May Alcott to Louise Chandler Moulton. Qtd. Michael Bronski A Queer History of the United States. pg. 73

More about Louisa May Alcott and her queer / transgender leanings:

http://anactoria.blogspot.com/2008/07/louisa-may-alcott-i-have-fallen-in-love.html

Poem about Louisa May Alcott written by Louise Chandler Moulton.

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