In the summer of 2017, the New York Public Theater sponsored a production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. By itself, there is nothing unusual about this event. In fact, the 2017 season of the Central Park Summer Shakespeare Festival marked the 55th anniversary of the program. However, this summer’s program offered a bit of a twist. In the production, the character of Julius Caesar was clearly modeled after President Donald Trump. At first, this might not have been a problem, except for the fact that in this production, the character of Caesar is assassinated in a particularly bloody fashion. The production sparked instant controversy between supporters of the president, who saw it as just one more example of the left’s animosity toward the president, and opponents of the president, who saw it simply as an expression of artistic creativity. What is most interesting for our purposes here is the fact that in reaction to the controversy, several Page 25corporate sponsors, including Delta Airlines and Bank of America, withdrew all or part of their support for the Public Theater’s Free Shakespeare in the Park program. Using our discussion of corporate ethical responsibility, evaluate this move by Delta and Bank of America, and determine whether the decision is in line with or opposed to corporate responsibility. One word of limitation—in the spirit of avoiding nonjudgmentalism, only two answers are acceptable: “yes” or “no.” Of course, you must also explain the reasons behind your yes or no answer. [See: Michael Cooper, “In ‘Julius Caesar,’ an Assassination Echoes Across the Centuries,” The New York Times, June 13, 2017, pp. A-1, A-23; and Michael Paulson and Sopan Deb, “Trump Supporters Drive Effort to Bury the Public Theater,” The New York Times, June 13, 2017, p. A-23.]
In the summer of 2017, the New York Public Theater sponsored a production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. By itself, there is nothing unusual about this event. In fact, the 2017 season of the Central Park Summer Shakespeare Festival marked the 55th anniversary of the program. However, this summer’s program offered a bit of a twist. In the production, the character of Julius Caesar was clearly modeled after President Donald Trump. At first, this might not have been a problem, except for the fact that in this production, the character of Caesar is assassinated in a particularly bloody fashion. The production sparked instant controversy between supporters of the president, who saw it as just one more example of the left’s animosity toward the president, and opponents of the president, who saw it simply as an expression of artistic creativity. What is most interesting for our purposes here is the fact that in reaction to the controversy, several Page 25corporate sponsors, including Delta Airlines and Bank of America, withdrew all or part of their support for the Public Theater’s Free Shakespeare in the Park program.
Using our discussion of corporate ethical responsibility, evaluate this move by Delta and Bank of America, and determine whether the decision is in line with or opposed to corporate responsibility. One word of limitation—in the spirit of avoiding nonjudgmentalism, only two answers are acceptable: “yes” or “no.” Of course, you must also explain the reasons behind your yes or no answer. [See: Michael Cooper, “In ‘Julius Caesar,’ an Assassination Echoes Across the Centuries,” The New York Times, June 13, 2017, pp. A-1, A-23; and Michael Paulson and Sopan Deb, “Trump Supporters Drive Effort to Bury the Public Theater,” The New York Times, June 13, 2017, p. A-23.]
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