"Player"-Hamlet 2

The term "high falutin" could possibly have once been "high fluting." High falutin men are very very arrogant men who think very well of themselves. They need women to affirm their value. "High falutin" men are also superficial and they use women almost as fetishes.

Hamlet's misogyny is derived from his judgement of his mother as a non-actor in the drama, a linguistic attache, a person who possesses no power and not much influence, snaked by the power of the unlawful matrimonial bed. Hamlet realizes that his mother is not phallic and that he can only become phallic through incest. This would be a kind of fundamentalistic Lacanian reading of the text so we can only assume that Hamlet was sent off from Denmark because of rumors of his possible homosexuality. In the text itself, he really shows no affection for either men or women. The body and thoughts of Hamlet are also a text that subverts what Hamlet actually says. Of course he acts like Horatio is his closest and dearest, but he really couldn't care less about him. Hamlet really acts like a Roman aristocrat who is an Epicurean. He is indifferently honest, he says of himself. Truth really takes no sides.

Hamlet does get Ophelia to murder herself but it is rather the queen whom he wants to murder. Claudius is the antagonist (he struggles against Hamlet) and he moves Polonius to move Ophelia to seduce him. Claudius states at the beginning that Hamlet is closest to him a few months after having murdered his father. Claudius text reveals that he usually says the "opposite" of what he means.

Modern "players" or playboys are actually very insecure people. Even great playboys like Warren Beatty are somewhat insecure people. They have never become men in one sense and see love as a form of play. But it is not "play" to break a woman's heart for one's mere vanity. Also, "Players" don't love anybody and they even have an ironic sense of their own "vanity." Their tastes, after all, are not absolute. Often, they just harmonize the status quo in a fucked up way.

Hamlet does break Ophelia's heart, but he does it because her loyalty is her father. Hamlet wants to be loved absolutely. He is right. Everyone else is wrong. This is the stamp of his judgement. Everyone involved in the whole chain that led to the killing of his father must be murdered or righteously killed. He defines this as justice. He is wrong about the chain of causation though. To assume that Ophelia slept with his father for Polonius to assume power is a false assumption. Some deconstructionists will say that they can know the truth through a peripheral analysis of the limits and boundaries of a text, but the truth is much more elusive. The human heart is a labyrinth. The truth will murder you and sacrifice you to Moloch. Hamlet speculates too much.

I think the main difference between a modern player and Hamlet is... is that playboys are inspired by "Eros" and Hamlet is inspired by "Thanatos." Hamlet would make a great tyrant. A playboy is a person who fails as a politician, but excels in the art of making love, of flirtation, of making women feel good about themselves and then squeezing all the juice of life out of them like a vampire. A playboy kills too. As Oscar Wilde once wrote, paraphrased, some kill with a look, some kill with a smile, the coward does it with a kiss, the brave man with a sword.