“For I born to tame you, Kate, and bring you from a wild Kate to Kate comfortable as household Kates. ” -Petruchio All that Taming Of The Shrew screams to its viewers, is the misogyny of Elizabethan times and the bitter resentment the church had for women. “It’s the story of a ‘shrewish’ woman who is roughly subjected nd forced by her husband, It cannot fail to be controversial, and often disturbing.
The Taming of the Shrew has been considered a view of the trials of marriage, a love story or ‘chick flick’ (Females Movie), a historical act on the treatment of women and a sexist portrayal of these times – the balance between misogyny and love changing with every interpretation. ”I personally find the production a sexist and purely disturbing one. This story is not about love or marriage, it is about a voiceless woman, forced into marriage by an egotistic man obsessed with wealth and power.
Although the original production is riddled with misogyny, many productions came after that were similar or even based off the play, Ten Things I Hate About You being one of the most famous. This exact production is indeed about ‘Love’ It is not sexist or misogynistic as such, but does have some petty traditional views on women that could provoke argument today. Femininity is described as being the quality of being female; womanliness. Branching off this is the feminist movement, one that only became noticed and thoroughly debated in the 1960’s. The plot is set in the Elizabethan era.
In these times, being a woman could be compared as basically being a house slave, or simply a slave to your husband. Knowing this, It’s understandable why Kate was so eager to escape from Petruchio, backed up with the pure fact that she simply doesn’t want anything to do with him, But his crusade to ‘tame’ Kate pushes on, and he basically sexual harrases and sexually assaults her, after some battle, Kate gives in. Or does she? After sometime waiting petruchio finally arrives to his own wedding, Laughing and waving a turkey in the air, symbolizing a clear mockery of kate, Making a fool out of her.
And yet the marriage goes on, Petruchio says the words “I Do” when the priest turns to Kate, To solidify her vows she Begins to say ‘I will not’ But petruchio forcefully kisses her just as she says “I will–” So the priest announces them as husband as wife. Kate has basically no power, and with the church in these times, she can’t divorce him. We can see a massive difference in Ten Things, First of all, the characters are younger and are set in a modern era, They aren’t really sexist at all. Although, Patrick is very pushy with Kat, but comparing this to Taming Of The Shrew, one can be sure that the two fall in love.
We see this when Kat, a girl who seems to hate everyone remarks this to Patrick, “But mostly I hate the way I don’t hate you, not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all. ” (Kat talking to Patrick). This is a massive step for Kat, as she really doesn’t seem to like anyone. Kate on the other hand simply doesn’t like Petruchio and never will. Masculinity and Femininity have a massive part to play in the two productions, as stated before femininity, being the quality of being female, and masculinity the possession of traditional male qualities.
I can see that in Taming Of The Shrew, petruchio thawts Kate with his powerful traditional marriage sense of the elizabethan times, whereas in Then Things, a more liberal modern production, Kat actually gets the chance to challenge patrick because women actually have rights within this time period. But the outcomes are still different. She does end up loving Patrick and they do genuinely want to be together, but the same cannot be said for Kate and Petruchio. The two clearly don’t like each other. Take it all into consideration, at what point do you see Kate lusting or not trying to escape from Petruchio?
Never. The theme of masculinity and femininity has such a strong message in today’s society, Ten Things is a fantastic representation of our reality now, but for Kate, we can see the truth in what came before our times. Both productions clearly outline the difference now with femininity and Masculinity. In conclusion, It’s clear there is a battle of the sexes here, in one time period Men always had the upper hand, and ruled with an iron fist, In another more modern time or now rather, We have achieved near equality. The two productions work well with each other and show the massive difference in today’s times.
There is a lot of people who strongly support the idea that Petruchio and Kate are madly in love, and that it’s a game for them. But this can be dismissed, as the idea is absurd, unless the two were completely insane, which is possible, but highly unlikely. We have much to learn from the two productions, Change is good, and so is sticking for your gender, if we stay on the right track things will get better with equality, and that’s a must for society. I strongly support the idea that the two movies represent the ideologies of their era’s.