Prince Scheme? or Akeem

Malachi Johnson

English 3

Visual Essay

Prince Scheme? Or Akeem?

Comparing The Taming of the Shrew  to Coming to America

In “The Taming of the shrew” characters prove that sometimes in order to successfully win over a lover one may sometimes have to undergo sly tactics, before eventually settling down. In fact during Act 1 of the play Lucentio and Tranio make a plan to roleplay identities in order to win over Bianca. Which is what also happens to occur in the 1988 Romantic comedy “Coming to America” in which, Prince Akeem and Semmi, ditch their status from their wealthy country in Africa, in order to pursue the likes of Lisa a girl a works at a fast food place in Brooklyn.

“Tranio: Nay then tis’ time to stir him from his trance.- I pray, awake, sir! If you love the maid, Bend thoughts and wits to achieve her thus it stands.”

Act 1  Scene 1 Page 43.

In this scene suggests that Luciento takes a different route in order to pursue Bianca. Luciento describes to him his feelings for Bianca from a first glimpse and for what the most part the feelings were pretty passionate, or better yet, “Love at first sight”. Yet Tranio feels as if since he feels so strong, taking the normal way wouldn’t be nearly as successful.

Prince Akeem has already settled down in America, after a searching for the “most beautiful” women in Brooklyn he stumbles across a girl named Lisa at his new job as a janitor at a McDowells.

In the movie Prince Akeem is from a extremely wealthy country called Zamunda that is ran by his royal family. Akeem has literally never had to work a day in his life, and it’s evident when the McDowells manager literally has to explain to him what a mop is. On top of this he even has bills with his face printed on them, meaning that by no means necessary is there a reason for him to be holding broom sweeping floors at a fast food restaurant, in the rough part of Brooklyn. Now originally his purpose for working at the McDowells was too get accustomed to the Brooklyn lifestyle. However his reason changed once he laid eyes on another employee named Lisa which he would describe as “Love at first sight”. Which he then decides to continue working at the job throughout the movie. This goes to show the lengths to how far Akeem is willing to go in order to pursue this idea of romantic love. To be able to drop your royal status, living in a palace and being treated by servants daily, to having to dress in a burger place uniform and sweep floors is a sacrifice that only someone in love would take try to take the risk. Not to mention the fact the Lisa is already seeing another man, which adds to the complications of the relationship with Akeem due to the fact that he’s never has to chase a girl in his life.

“ Hortensio: Petruchio, shall I then come roundly to thee and wish thee to a shrewd ill-favored wife? Thou’dst thank me but a little for my counsel and yet I’ll promise thee she shall be rich and very rich. But thou’rt too much my friend and I’ll not wish thee to her.”

Act 1 Scene 2 Page 53

In this scene Hortensio is discussing the reasonings to Petruchio as to why marrying Kathrine isn’t exactly the best idea, outside of the money. Petruchio being the only person in the story actually interested in getting Kathrine almost argues that the reason to why that is not a problem is because of the fact that there’s real love involved.

During this scene in Coming to America, Prince Akeem and Lisa have dinner over their bosses house Cleo McDowell at which Akeem finally decides to propose to Lisa. However she rejects him, and in comes Sweets bearing flowers.  Lisa finally realizes that he was not a lunatic in a sense that he was not lying about being a Prince in Zamunda, after he reveals a bill with his face on it and makes his exit back to Zamunda, in order for him to marry the woman his father has originally arranged for him.  

Akeem spends months in Brooklyn before making his final choice to propose. However before this heartbreaking scene there was multiple tactics he has to get the outcome he wanted. The first, and most common one was his usage of Semmi. Throughout the whole movie, who is supposed to be Akeem’s advisor is forced to also drop his status and undergo role playing as well in order to assist Akeem. The event that ends up triggering Semmi the worst is when Akeem forces Semmi to pretend to be amazed be Akeem’s royal presence in the movie line in order to convince Lisa of his greatness. Throughout the whole movie Semmi is against the idea of Prince having to go through such a process so different from his royal routine, not just for the his sake But because of the fact that it was the task given to him by the King himself Akeem’s father, meaning that if things were to fail Semmi would be the one to blame. Well Not only does he get in some trouble when the King decides to make an appearance in Brooklyn and is immediately disgusted by the lifestyle to two of them live. Akeem doesn’t even manage to get the outcome that he wants which for a moment puts the two in an awkward situation. Until the final scene of the movie during the wedding arranged for Akeem and his unwanted wife,he lifts the veil to kiss her, to find out that it’s Lisa instead of his arranged partner. The movie ends on a positive happy ending. Yet, the process to get there proves to be not as reliable as one would think.

Act 2

Lastly, there is a clear difference in what comes into play between Prince Akeem’s and Lucentio’s chase for love. However both share the same struggle of defying their father’s expectations. Lucentio’s having the expectation of going into a new city in order to study, yet instead he attempts to find love. On the other side Prince Akeem was born into a royal family so finding a wife shouldn’t exactly by the most difficult. However he’s forced to marry the women within his country who are all pretty much handed to him since birth. These women all clearly gorgeous, don’t interest him simply because it’s not the romantic love he’s looking for so he flees the country in search for love. Which clearly upsets the kings because he’s set everything up for him.

The fact that they both end up having to go against their father’s expectations, which is from the very start already schemish tactic. However looking at this through a deeper meaning of Love and romance. Both characters eventually become successful in their “love chases”  while also deceiving their lovers in order to win them over. Which is interesting because ideally honesty and trust fall under romantic love. Yet there’s something about hiding all the bad or unattractive qualities that doesn’t technically qualify is breaking trust.