"Tybalt Puts the T in Gangsta"- Romeo and Juliet Essay

"Tybalt Puts the T in Gangsta"- Romeo and Juliet Essay

Tybalt Capulet Puts the "T" in Gangsta
Dillon Coyne
Period 8

For whatever reason, time and space has had a relapse, and people seem to enjoy this book, (or play, as Ms. Maria Marum frequently will hiss at her students from the dark corner of this earth known as "her room."), "Romeo and Juliet," resulting in many attempts to recreate it's glory and splendor. Unfortunately, all of them have failed almost as poorly as Dillon Coyne did in his freshman year of High school. Unlike Dillon, however, the directors do not cry themselves to sleep every night and order diet pills in mass quantities, and instead get better and better at each attempt to molest Shakespeare's once "great" works of "literature."

This play, "Romeo and Juliet," believe it or not, has two characters named Romeo and Juliet. It is indeed surprising. The character Romeo and Juliet have quite the little "love escapade" going on, which is unfortunate, as their families currently are attempting to bust caps in one another. Romeo is the male character. However, this can be disputed, as some brands of birth control have more masculinity than he does. Romeo whines, cries, threatens suicide, makes idiotic decisions, cries, whines, and is generally a complete and utter idiot, and is said by many to have inspired such failures as Richard Nixon and Dillon Coyne. Juliet is submissive, quiet, somewhat socially retarded, and good at cooking and cleaning, or as some call it, a model woman (and what was a joke, so failing Dillon for english would totally be mean). However, like all things, there is an opposite of Romeo, by the name of Tybalt, a Capulet, which means that he is on the opposite faction of Romeo, and is basically Romeo with testosterone.

In the 1990's version of Romeo and Juliet, Tybalt puts the letter T into Gangsta. Tybalt has a cool disposition, with an icy, angry stare. He is hispanic and tall, and where spurs on his shoes. The movie opens with him shooting people for no apparent reason and blowing up a gas station. Tybalt Capulet is quite simply the most over the top, ridiculously masculine, violent character that most people have ever read of. Due to the cinema, people can now also see him.

Tybalt wears pure black with the Virgin Mary on his chest, under his jacket. This follows the repeating images of things involving the Catholic Faith. Tybalt's gun is also embroidered with the Virgin Mary. Surely, Mary herself is sitting up on some cloud, much like that one scene in Star Wars, and is smiling to herself, knowing some wannabe 2-pac is busting caps and dropping B's in her name, with his .45 Mac sending poor misguided ruffians to hell with a a smile on his face, and her face plastered across the handle of the gun he's doing it with. Nevertheless, Tybalt is shown as the modern "gangster." He is over aggressive, and frequently starts fights with other characters. Tybalt is comparable to the Bush administration, which is rather ironic, considering his racial origins. Tybalt is killed by Romeo, but only after Tybalt beats up Mercutio and kills him. Tybalt has small moments of lessened anger, but always comes back fierce and homicidal to the same extent as before his sudden relapse of craziness.

Tybalt's interactions with other characters is also interesting. Unfriendly characters fear him, almost as much as those on his side. They are in constant fear around him. His presence is somewhat like being around a serial killer. He doesn't even need to confront someone to scare them into fits of trembling and wide eyes. There is actually a small man who follows Tybalt simply to fulfill the job of loading his gun. Tybalt's home boys, as the kids call it, are much more like people unfortunate enough to be on his side, and much less like friends.


Romeo's fight with Tybalt is morally ambiguous for Romeo, as he is Tybalt's brother in law, and doesn't want to kill a person. However, Tybalt killed Romeo's best friend. Even to the end, Tybalt does everything he can to stop Romeo. In some ways, Tybalt deserved to die. He only spurred on conflicts, and it was inevitable that he would have died. The movie version of this was well played up, as it showed just how angry and mean spirited that he was. The opening scene itself screamed nothing more than "This guy will totally kill everyone."