Within the first 15 minutes of the movie Richard III, I was already interested and confused. I thought it was interesting, just as Bezio said, that Shakespeare chose to focus on Richard and how clear he portrayed his evil tendencies. I also found how heartless and Richard’s inconsideration for others bazar. I could not believe that he would visit the wife of the man he just murdered and ask for her heart so soon. We talked about charisma in class and it was interesting to see how Richard used his charisma to try to win over this woman even while she was in grief.
Bezio compares Richard III to Donald Trump by explaining how toxic charisma affected us 400 years ago and continues to affect us today. Bezio provides numerous examples to show how these two people correlate. I remember talking about this in class as well and someone asked if we could consider Donald Trump a Tyrant but we came to the conclusion that he had tendencies but was not an actual tyrant. However, we also said a tyrant is a toxic charismatic and Bezio argues that Trump is one too, so can we consider him a Tyrant under those terms?
Donald Trump for sure has characteristics of a Tyrant, however for many public figures you can argue that they are a tyrant. I think the severity of Trumps actions do not classify him as a tyrant.
I do not think that we can classify Trump as a tyrant because it is not clear that he is doing anything for personal gain. He may have taken some action while in office for personal gain, but not to the same degree as tyrants do.
I also do not think we can say Trump is a tyrant due to the fact he does not do things specifically for himself as we discussed in class. He may have some of the characteristics of a tyrant leader but does not go to extremes tyrant leaders would do.
I think an interesting way to possibly classify Trump as a tyrant is to consider his motives for running in the first place. Though his staunch supporters would definitely make the claim that he ran to help the working class and promote certain conservative values from an almost non-political perspective, those who do not support him could make the counterargument that he ran as a propaganda of sorts to further his businesses or gain personal attention as a narcissistic celebrity would hope to do.
I really like your beginning point about how it was bizarre that Richard went to his brother’s ex-wife, as she was seeing his corpse no less, to ask for her heart. I think this speaks to the common idea of charisma. To know whether Richard believes she will actually agree to be with him is unclear but the fact that he went to even ask shows he has major confidence and presence which constitutes the common definition of charisma, one that Elizabeth might understand and feel. In this way his charisma is toxic to us but maybe not for him. We will never know whether he believes if he doing the right thing by him, or knowingly being bizarre and inappropriate.