Who's In Control?

Comparing The Taming of the Shrew to Clueless

The movie “Clueless” is about the life of a rich highschool girl named Cher who is trying to find the right guy in a school full of people who don’t seem to meet her criteria. In the end, she realizes that the guy she overlooked in the beginning is the right person for her.  In “The Taming of the Shrew”, a drunken man is lied to by a nobleman and is told that he is a nobleman as well. The drunken man believes this story and the real nobleman puts on a play for him. In the play, Petruchio marries Katherine and “tames” her because she is known to be a “loud-mouth”. In both the movie and the play, the characters have an idea of what they want their partners to be. They also have ideas on how each gender should act in the relationship. In “Clueless” and in “The Taming of the Shrew”, there are examples of male/female ideas of symbols and possession.

“For I am born to tame you, Kate,

And bring you from a wild Kate to a Kate

Comfortable as other household Kates.”

(Act 2, Scene 1, 291-293)

During this part of the play, Petruchio is telling his wife, Kate, that he is going to make her into the wife that he and society wants her to, a “comfortable” Kate. Petruchio sees Kate as someone he’s “born to tame”, like she’s some kind of animal. Wives back then were looked to as servants for their husbands, which means that the husband was in control or possession of the wife. Petruchio is making that happen by making Kate into the woman that she’s "supposed” to be.

During the movie, a new student comes to Cher’s school, named Christian. In Cher’s eyes, her is the perfect guy for her and tries everything in her power to try and get him to like her. Unlike the “The Taming of the Shrew”, Cher doesn’t feel the need to change Christian into the man she wants him to be like Petruchio did with Katherine. Even though Cher wanted Christian to be more romantic with her, she never expressed that to him or made him change in any way like Petruchio did.

“Say she rail; why, I'll tell her plain

She sings as sweetly as a nightingale.

Say that she frown; I'll say she looks as clear

As morning roses newly wash'd with dew.

Say she be mute and will not speak a word;

Then I'll commend her volubility,

and say she uttereth piercing eloquence.”

(Act 2, Scene 1, 164-170)

Before Petruchio entered Katherine’s room to win her over, he practiced what he was going to say outside her room. Looking at how their relationship was in the end and seeing what his only intentions were for marrying her, it’s safe to say that what he said wasn’t genuine. In society and even more back then, a man is supposed to ask a woman to marry them and a man is expected to be the “romantic” one to win over the woman. In this case, Petruchio didn’t really win over Kate, even though they got married. However, he did do what men were expected to do back then, which is a symbol of how much they love the woman. On the other hand, the woman is supposed to fall head over heels in love with the man, which clearly didn’t happen in this case either.

To win Christian over, Cher did everything she could to make him like her. In this scene, she invited him over her house for a “romantic” night. She did everything from changing her outfit multiple times, choosing the right lighting, trying to make cookies, and many other things to impress him. She expected him to be romantic with her as well, cuddling with her as they watched a movie and giving her his coat when she got cold. Unfortunately, he didn’t do any of these things because he was gay, but Cher did all of this because she really liked him. This is similar to “The Taming of the Shrew” because both Petruchio and Katherine tried to win over the people they wanted to be with. The roles were switched in the movie and the play, the woman being the one to impress the man, but there were still symbols that each gender was supposed to portray in both productions.

“The Taming of the Shrew” and “Clueless” both have examples of how men and women should act in a relationship. Both still have the underlying idea that men should be the provider and protector and women should be soft and listen to the men. In “Clueless”, this idea isn’t as prevalent as it is in “The Taming of the Shrew”. In both productions, the characters want their partners to be a certain way so they can play the roles that they are all supposed to follow. In “The Taming of the Shrew”, this was taken in a different direction with Petruchio trying to win over Kate but also seeing her a someone he owned and needed to train. In “Clueless”, Cher also tried to win over her crush Christian but didn’t expect him to change himself in any way. Both productions show how men and women should act in relationships in the past and in the present.