Jason Mile
Fools and Ambition
My topic for the visual essay is “fools and ambition” and I will show the different aspects of this topic using five
quotations from the movie “she’s the Man” and the play “Twelfth Night”. One quote from the movie is “I have this huge thing for
his room-mate, Sebastian; I was just using Duke to make jealous” which demonstrates someone using someone else in order to get
what they want, shown in the movie as Olivia using Duke in order to make “Sebastian” jealous and later makes Duke into a fool.
Another quote including foolery is shown when Malcolm says “Prove it!” to Sebastian, “it” being that he is a man, to which
Sebastian promptly drops his pants to reveal that he was, in fact, a man. In doing so, Sebastian made a fool of himself as well as
Malcolm and the principal of Illyria, who thought that Sebastian was Viola in disguise. Another quote from the movie on this topic
is portrayed when Malcolm tells Olivia “I write songs too!” as she is reading Sebastian’s lyrics and then Malcolm proceeds to sing
less-than-adequately, making him look foolish in front of them, which is ironic because he did this in order to not look like a fool
but ended up looking more like a fool than he ever would have had he not said anything. The next quote is from the play and deals
with the aspect of fooling someone unintentionally which is stated by Sebastian to Olivia: “So comes it, lady, you have been
mistook”. In this scenario, Viola disguises herself in order to fool the Duke, but ends up fooling Olivia in the process. Lastly is the
concept of being made a fool because of one’s ambitions, a theme ever so dominant in the character of Malvolio, where his attitude
towards the other servants leads him to be the target of a vicious prank and ends up looking even more foolish when he confronts
Olivia about it.
In additions to the five quotations, I have written five statements regarding the different aspects of the theme, first of
which being “Ambitions can make the wisest man look like a fool” which again relates to Malvolio. He is shown to be an intelligent
person, however when he reads the fake letter and he thought of his ambitions coming true, he proceeded to act like a mad man,
believing that it would help him achieve his goals. On that note, the next statement is “The most ambitious are too often the most
gullible” which shows that if someone is told that by doing something that they will get closer to achieving, that they will most
likely do it, no matter how ridiculous that something it, which can be seen, again, in Malvolio, as he did not even consider that the
letter might have been a trick or that it was too good to be true. The next statement deals with foolish people who become ambitious
as opposed to the ambition itself make them foolish and it is “an ambitious fool is nothing more” which basically says that the goals
of a foolish person will never be accomplished due to their inability to assess situations and do what needs to be done properly. On
the other hand, the next statement, “to realize your dreams, you have to be foolish once in a while,” deals with the fact that you have
to collected about certain things and be willing to do things that are out of your comfort zone in order to get farther ahead or to get
people to like you, which can’t be done if you are always serious, which is proven by Malvolio. The final statement, “The most
foolish ambition is to fool the ambitious,” refers to that fact that if you’re trying to make a fool out of someone else then you will
end up the fool yourself, as shown in “Twelfth Night” by Sir Toby and Maria, who’s making a fool out of Malvolio resulted in them
needing to run away and elope to avoid punishment, serious punishment.
Along with the quotations and statements, I have found five images that reflect the topic of “fools and ambition” as well.
First of all is the picture of General Larry Platt from American Idol. This reflects the aspect of realizing your ambitions by being
foolish. He went on the show to become popular and by having one of the most ridiculous auditions; he became one of the most
memorable of performers and performed at the finale of the show. Second of all, I have a demotivational picture with a screenshot
from a video game that shows a few players riding towards a giant monster. This demonstrates being called a fool because of your
ambitions and the picture shows this be creating a David vs. Goliath scenario, where someone has taken on a seemingly impossible
task where no one believes in the hero, therefore he or she is treated as a fool. Another aspect is shown in the circle that asks
whether or not you are gullible, which plays the one being asked as a fool in exchange for something. In this case that something
would be the answer to whether or not you are gullible. Yet another aspect is shown with the 1rst place trophy claiming that second
place is a loser. This shows how someone, in an attempt to realize their ambition or having already realized it, makes a fool of
others in order to further themselves by eliminating the competition or believing that they are superior. The final aspect of the topic
``fools and ambition`` is the concept of fooling for the sake of fooling, where the ambition itself is to be a fool or fool others for
entertainment. This was represented be the picture of the jester with the ``April Fool`` sign. This kind of fooling can be found the
character of Feste as he makes a fool of himself and others for entertainment.
