offended or amused?

I was amused by the musical but I was a little offended by the play. I thought the musical was a little better than the original play because it seemed to me that the musical was actually funny in contrary to the play which seemed to be more cruel than funny.

The musical had more comical sense to me because it showed more funny situations such as with the gangsters and Fred Grahms girlfriend and his girlfriends boyrfriend. That triangle to me seemed to amuse me more than the actual taming of the shrew that they portayed in the theatre. Alao, the adlibing that they did while they were inside the play and everything such as the gangsters coming in and acting in the play seemed to help the comical part of the play.

The play that Shakespear wrote I must admit was good for its time because in that time men dominated mostly everything. Bu tin todays society in the ways I was brought up, I found it not to be funny at all but actualy cruel in the way he mistreated his wife, the person your supposed to care and worship.

Iagoscd

Though I did find the play to be offensive, the musical was amusing and did not offend me at all. Petruchio's treatment of Katherine was very inhumane in the play, and it was a weak attempt to illustrate the dominance of male in society. However, I do not hold Shakespeare in contempt for this, for in many of his plays that preceded and proceded this one female characters were attributed with qualities that magnified the roles associated with their gender. For example, women were never scarier than in the characterization of Lady Macbeth. But I digress.

What amused me in the musical was the intricate web of romance, not just within the play but also the web thjat entangles the lives of the actors and actresses that played roles in such a play. The actress that played Bianca is in hot pursuit of three men, whereas within the play itself she is being courted by three men. The personalities of the characters devised by Shakespeare that were hidden throughout most of the play became pronounced in the actions of the actors and actresses that played the respective roles. Bianca was able to disguise her manipulative nature in the play, but the actress in the musical playing her role gave that away. I let out a chuckle for that one.

The relationship between Fred (the actor that played Petruchio) and Lily (the actress that played Kate) is consistent with the relationship between the characters they play. I love the fact that even though the play isn't running, as Fred and Lily they are able to continue the ongoing disputes from where they left off with Kate and Petruchio. It's a nifty way to tie in everything in the musical for a satisfying resolution, not just a mere and disappointing submission speech that seemed to have dehumanized Katherine in the play.

I found certain scenes in the play to be omeewhat offensive or at least harsh, but not in the movie. I feel that the movie created a very humorous and light mood. It is hard to feel offended when the characters are singing and dancing.

I found the secene when Petruchio grabs Katherine's arm and says you will be my wife offensive. I felt that he was making Katherine a normally bold character seem powerless and even threatened. I suppose in the movie the equivelent would be the scene with mobsters pulling out the gun. It didn't seem offensive. It was clear that he wasn't going to let the mobsters hurt her becuase he loved her.
In the play we are never really truely sure if Petruchio and Katherine are in love. But, in the musical it is mad quite clear that there are strong feelings of love there. So it is not offensive the way Kate is treated. Also the musical focuses more on the fact that they are putting on a play and those are actors. So it takes away from the offensivness bcause we don't have to deal with the Elizabethan role for women.

(alright! i'm on number two! i must be butter cuz i'm
on a roll!! [2nd personality: oh yeah, you can take
that roll and shove it in the oven! i like it toasty...]
hmmm....must be the medicine talking.)


The play, i didn't really like... [GREAT NOW I SPEAKIN
SHAKESPEARE...backwards] I was a little bit offended,
y'know being female and all, because, as i've already
stated, thriced removed (LOL), Katherine wasn't even
action for me. Seeing her with no physical strength or
attempts to at least show SOMEthing, made me fell ashamed
as if all females were weak and had no power. I can safely
for me, that i would definately fight back.

In the movie, i liked it. (hehehe) I felt that Lilli was
the ideal woman! SHe was aggressive. And when she wanted
something she determined to get it and strong willed to
stick to it. She did what she lvoed and most importantly
she followed her heart after playing hard to get which is
what most women do. :)

****************** It made me proud to be a female to see
a woman fighting back.

DINA!! NIGHTY NIGHT!!!!!! Hasta mañana! or lunes....whichever! lol

Such a splendid assemblege of dancing and singing, it feels unsporting to be contrary. But the sexist moments of spanking and other forms of wife submission grated against Kiss Me Kate's otherwise great charm. And it seemed the characters in the musical were almost equally puzzled about the disconnect -- here we have a spirited love story between two spirited personities, then the woman suddenly turns gooey and submissive and makes this flabbergasting speech because she's been starved and thwacked. Some sort of weird sexist doublethink -- I love you so much and I'm of such strong character that I'll subdue my character, dignity and sense of justice just to be with you. (Eyelashes flutter.)

All this doesn't mean I can't enjoy it, but it also doesn't mean I don't notice and comment on it. Saying it is a product of its era is no excuse. ("Oh you have to understand about lynchings, it was after all the South back in the 20s" or whatever.) Wrong is wrong, even if it is from another time. My younger cousin said he has trouble watching any of those old movies because they're so filled with crappy attitudes about women. I thought, you know, you're right. We get all aflush about them being classic movies and cut them all sorts of excuses. But that was some s--t going on!

But that doesn't mean I don't replay Too Darn Hot over and over, or love Howard Keel, or get totally agog myself over that steamy sublime breakaway moment when Bob Fosse and his partner have their turn in From This Moment On.

I wasn't offended by either the play or the musical simply because of this.

The point of the plot in "taming of the shrew" wasn't for the husband to dominate his wife- it was for the husband to woo her. Katherine was tempestuous, out of control, and- most of all- unhappy- in the end ,she becomes the wife her husband intended her to be, yes, but her also ends up clearly in love with her husband. I truly enjoy Kiss me Kate, because there is a chase involved- the man trying to woo his fiesty wife , first with argument, and then with clever deception- and the consequences and rewards of these approaches, in both the outside and inside plots.

Bear in mind, the play is a play-within-a-play (as it is in the musical): it's what Christopher Sly is watching. In one quarto there is a final scene (omitted from the folio) in which Sly is returned to his life as a beggar, and thinks he has been dreaming, but comments "My profit on it is, I know now how to tame a shrew": he's going off to try Petruchio's methods on the hostess who kicked him out at the beginning of the play, and you just know he's going to get nowhere. Even if the main story were played without irony, this scene (which was probably included in Shakespeare's lifetime) would completely undermine it.

Also see John Fletcher's sequel "The Tamer Tamed", in which Petruchio himself is tamed by his second wife Maria. Shakespeare obviously liked it: he entered a professional partnership with Fletcher soon after it appeared, and they wrote "Henry VIII", "The Two Noble Kinsmen" and the lost play "Cardenio" together.

I think the musical is a little easier to take because just in the sense of being a musical, its themes are going to be softened in order to make the musical interludes more acceptable.