How was shakespeare sexiest in hamlet?

Answer 1

Shakespeare was not a particularly sexy actor; those parts all went to the leading man Richard Burbage. (Mind you there was that anecdote about the fan who wanted to sleep with Burbage after seeing him play Richard III, but Shakespeare got there first. This is a real story from Shakespeare's time, but is likely a joke and not a rumour. Nevertheless, it proves that someone thought Shakespeare was sexy). In Hamlet, Shakespeare was supposed to have played the ghost which was not a sexy part at all, not even when he shows up in his widow's bedroom.

Or did you mean "sexist" as opposed to "sexiest"? If so, it is true that the character of Ophelia is mistreated and marginalized by all the men in her life: her father, her brother and her boyfriend. Her brother gives her a pile of advice about not going too far with Hamlet who is not in control of who he marries, being a prince. She snaps back that he should follow his own freaking advice. Her father tells her she should lay off Hamlet because young men do all their thinking with their pants. More obnoxiously, he uses her as bait to get Hamlet to reveal his secrets where he can be overheard. Hamlet catches on (maybe Ophelia intended that he should) and he gets violently angry and unbelievably rude and demeaning to her as a result.

The other woman in the play, Hamlet's mother Gertrude, is portrayed as a strong silent type who is totally adored by her husband. (By both of them, actually) But Hamlet for some reason is really angry with her from the start for marrying Uncle Claudius, and he does some pretty rude and mean things to her as well.

But here's the thing: just because Shakespeare has Hamlet say "Now could I drink hot blood" does not make Shakespeare a vampire. Hamlet is quite mean and rude to the women in his life, and is actually quite a misogynist, but that does not mean that Shakespeare was that way. In fact, Hamlet's misogynistic attitude contrasts with what we see of the women Hamlet is dealing with, so we know that we cannot take Hamlet's assessment of Ophelia's or Gertrude's character (or much else, actually) as gospel. Hamlet may be sexist, but that does not mean that Shakespeare was.