1. Is Shakespeare cool or does he suck? Well, maybe kind of both. Richard Burt has examined a vast number of Shakespearean adaptations and citations in American popular culture (mainly film and video) of the last thirty years with the aim of exposing deep unconscious elements in that culture and of criticizing some of the stock moves made by academic cultural critics. For him, popular culture largely means youth culture and, in its 1990s manifestation, what he calls 'kiddie culture': 'Whereas in the 60s, youth culture was valued for being purer, more advanced, and wiser than the existing, corrupt adult culture, kiddie culture emerges as childish, regressive, immature, and infantile in the 1990s context of diminishing expectations' (9). What is happening, then, when the products of this kiddie culture incessantly allude to or rework Shakespeare plays and what would be the point of an academic investigation of this?

2. One of the common justifications for studying Shakespearean adaptations is that it opens up the many different ways in which the plays can signify and, by sharpening our sense of historical difference, perhaps paradoxically gives us more insight into the meanings they might have carried in 1600. However, many of the films which Burt looks at are too far removed from their Shakespearean originals to yield this kind of understanding and rather than use contemporary culture to get a purchase on Shakespeare, he uses Shakespearean citation to get a purchase on aspects of the contemporary. However, he quite explicitly rejects the 'political' stance taken by most academic cultural critics. In its left-wing form, this would consist of praising some of the irreverent, trashy and pornographic versions of Shakespeare for their 'subversive' qualities. Burt is very sharp when dissecting the academic fantasy of being simultaneously outside popular culture as an intelligent observer with the capacity to frame it theoretically and politically, and inside it as a cool, streetwise fan. The pervasive fantasy is 'that the cultural critic can occupy all the positions, be the virtuoso, the one who can cross over, do it all' (15). However, as he says, there is something deeply uncool about trying to pose as an intelligent participant in a culture wherein it is cool to be stupid, and something rather sad and nerdish about anyone who could claim to have seen and noted every single allusion to Shakespeare on American film and television since 1970. This sort of cultural critic could easily be regarded as a 'loser' in the negative sense, in contrast with the cooler kind of loser, the high school dropout who knows that the pleasures of sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll vastly outweigh those of Shakespeare.

3. Burt is too intelligent not to be aware that the fantasy which he dissects is in some degree the fantasy which sustains his book. Making considerable use of the theories of Fredric Jameson, Jacques Lacan, Slavoj Zizek and Judith Butler, as well as having a strong background in historical Renaissance studies, he is clearly in the position of 'the one who knows'. He is also a person who seems to have spent an inordinate amount of time watching daytime television, repeats of old series, straight-to-video films, and pornographic rentals, acquiring in the process a fan-like knowledge of interesting trivia. I now know, which I certainly did not before, that Romeo and Julian, a pornographic homosexual 'adaptation' of Shakespeare's play, won the Adult Video News 1993 award for best gay musical score and best gay sex scene.

4. In one respect at least, Burt's approach is political. He correctly identifies the ambiguous relation of American popular culture to Shakespeare – sometimes contemptuous, sometimes deferential – as part of a larger postcolonial ambivalence towards Britain and British culture. For all the aggressive cultural imperialism evident in contemporary America, there are still hints of anxious deference towards the mother country, such as the lingering belief that only British actors have the vocal skills to perform Shakespeare properly. On the other hand, when discussing some of the undoubtedly 'queer' ways in which Shakespeare and some of his writing can signify gayness in mainstream films, Burt consciously holds back from a political reading, preferring to raise a series of questions rather than provide answers. He also wonders whether political readings of porn films aren't somehow missing the point. Academic critics seem able to talk about sex only by converting it into something other than sex and their 'interventions' have no effect on what they are analyzing (in comparison with the porn industry's own system of ratings and awards).

5. Although the normal academic fantasy is to see all cultural products as being equally available for serious analysis, Burt is clearly attracted by the notion that there might be an 'unspeakable' residue which resists academic recuperation. Yet his book has surely gone a long way towards recuperating for discussion much that was previously 'unspeakable'. I began reading it with some trepidation but was won over by its combination of esoteric knowledge and ingenious analysis. In foregoing the usual moral and political justifications for discussing such material, Burt explicitly and repeatedly invites Jim Dixon's question 'What, finally, is the practical application of all this?' One obvious answer is that we have, by the end, increased our knowledge and understanding of some ephemeral and poorly archived aspects of American culture and been highly entertained along the way. However, for Burt to insist on the cognitive value of his own project would be uncool and so 'whether the conjunction of "high" theory and "low" culture in this book produces heavy thinking or thinking lite I leave to readers to decide for themselves, if they feel so inclined. Whatever' (28).

ROWLAND WYMER
UNIVERSITY OF HULL