Taming Of The Shrew

Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew can be interpreted as a cultural critique of expected female roles (both domestic and maternal) throughout the seventeenth century Elizabethan era—and quite significantly, female subjugation within the framework of marital politics. Modernized adaptations of Shakespeare's play, such as Franco Zeffirelli's 1967 film The Taming of the Shrew, Gil Junger's "10 Thing I Hate About You", and David Richard's, more recent, "Shakespeare Re-Told - The Taming of the Shrew" reinforce the text's central themes of domestication, identity (or loss of) and transformation. These films, however, allow Shakespeare's text to become "a means by which, in Alan Sinfield's words, ‘certain ways of thinking about the world may be promoted

Instead, she is power driven, demanding, and eager to reach her goals as the leader of her party in a male-dominated political sphere. In the initial exchange between (play) Kate and (play) Petruchio, Kate's witty responses to Petruchio demonstrate that she equally educated and sharp. (Play) Kate's intelligence and wit are "recognized" in Re-Told, "in recognition these films fit a Shakespearean lens over the modern world depicted on the screen" (Balizet 123). Arianne Balizet, in her analysis of recognition in "10 Thing I Hate About You" states, "Kat, we quickly learn, is no "shrew." In fact, the audience immediately identifies with her as the sole character of substance in the film." The same claim can be made to Kate's character in Re-Told. The film's adaptation of Taming, depicts Kate's shrewish tendencies as an example of female empowerment. One must then question whether to perceive Kate Minola's deviation from the maternal role as shrewish or indicative of female empowerment. She is independent, witty and her infatuation with work makes her rather intimating. Work can then be consider the patriarchal "absent Baptista" that forces (film) Kate to marry someone so despicable. "This Scenario allows the traces of The Taming Of The Shrew to the surface, and the audience sees the references to Shakespeare's work in both the details of the movie and the structure of Kat's story" Balizet, 129). Not only does she need to marry in order to secure her role as the party leader, but she also understands the possibility of increased status in marrying not just any man, but a man with a title. The recognition of (film) Kate's motive for marriage "deliberately obscure[s] elements of the text" (122) that suggest that Kate has unwavering, motiveless love by end of the play. Though Shakespeare Re-Told surfaces (play) Petruchio's malicious nature, the reason