Taming Of The Wedding Crashers

In the Shakespeare play “The Taming of the Shrew,” Lucentio and Hortensio and Tranio all dress up and pretend to be tutors so they can sneak into the Home of the fair Bianca and attempt to woo her, making the claim that there is need for deception on the male’s part in order to win the heart of a female. In the movie “Wedding Crashers” Two guys every year during wedding season, sneak into multiple weddings under false identities in order to get with the women at the weddings. Although they are different because these stories take place many centuries apart from one another. Plus Shakespeare’s story has the characters dress up so that they have a chance at marrying the girl, and Wedding crashers has the guys impersonate people just so they can have one night stands. However in one of the guys when he crashes a wedding, he falls in love with the maid of honor and complicates things. The movie makes the case that nothing has changed much since the time of Shakespeare and that deception is still a part that the male character has to play. In both eras, the woman has more power than the man and therefore the man has to use trickery to level the playing field.

Now shall my friend Petruchio do me grace,

And offer me disguised in sober robes

To old Baptista as a schoolmaster

Well seen in music, to instruct Bianca,

That so I may, by this device at least,

Have leave and leisure to make love to her

And, unsuspected, court her by herself.

(Act 1 Scene 2 Lines 103 - 109)

This quote from the book is when Hortensio decides to dress up as a schoolmaster so that he can get close enough to Bianca to court her and win her heart. This quote makes the statement that the male character has to play a bit of deception into the game in order to win the female. And in this book, this quote makes the statement that in the book the female has more power than the man because the female is being sought after and the man has to use trickery and deception in order to get her to notice him.

This type of behavior is shown in Wedding crashers too, because the two main characters have to impersonate people that they are not in order to get into weddings to meet girls. And since the weddings have a lot of people, the other people at the wedding assume that they are just members of the family. Such as when one person at a wedding thought that one of the crashers was “Sid’s kid Leonard, the diabetic.”

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In this shot, the two main characters have walked up to the entrance and are now telling the people at the gate their false names, after that they let them in. This relates back to the taming of the shrew scene when the two people dressing up as schoolmasters are getting permission to teach Bianca under their false identities.

Why, gentlemen, you do me double wrong

To strive for that which resteth in my choice.

I am no breeching scholar in the schools.

I’ll not be tied to hours nor 'pointed times

But learn my lessons as I please myself.

And, to cut off all strife, here sit we down.

Act 3, Scene 1, Lines 16 - 21

This quote is from when the two suitors are disguised as school teachers and Bianca is telling them that she decides when they teach her and how. This quote is here to show that Bianca, the woman, is the one that retains the power in the courtship.

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In this image one of the main characters that crashes weddings is seen here putting tears into his eyes so that he can cry on command when the girl he is after can see it. This is a technique that he uses to cheat, or level the playing field by playing with the girls emotions so she thinks that he is a great guy because he is crying at a wedding.

The conclusion that can be drawn from analysing both of these movies is the statement that attitudes of honesty and deception in relationships have not changed in the sense of the fact that people still tell stories about it. Stories still tell of guys who impersonate or take on false identities so that they can get close enough to women to try to court them. And in both cases where Lucentio and Hortensio try for Katherina, and in Wedding Crashers where the two guys crash weddings to meet girls, the women have the power in the first place. More than the men. And the men have to resort to trickery to get what they want. And they want it enough to be able to do take it to the extremes to get it.