Incredibly Sexist

As an old English male I am fascinated by the venom of some other posters.

From the way the opening post is written, I assume by a young United States woman aged between about 14 and 21(I am not sufficiently erudite to know the normal age for attendance at a High School).

I welcome it that she is sufficiently interested in Films/Movies to want to share her reaction with others.

I am not aided by Posters who tag their messages with little epithets, which attempt to make some meaningful statement about their approach to life in general - I prefer to discern a person’s general attitude, where such discernment might be relevant, by an assessment of their words used - rather like we need to do with playwrights such as William Shakespeare. However I will not dismiss her for that, so many folk add such tags many of which are trite and repetitive and I find normally irritate rather than inform or entertain.

I do wonder whether she chose to view 'Taming' or did so as part of a curriculum study. I wish she had shared a little more of her experience - perhaps even over a year on, she may yet do so.

As with many young people, she offers a certitude reminiscent of mine half a century ago.

What most fascinates is the aggression and dismissal of responders, some who rather than celebrate a young person, beginning to engage with the writings of a historically great playwright - ridicule and dismiss, her and perhaps each other as they do not make it apparent to whom their remarks are directed.
I am not well learnèd or possessed of a good memory and have just seen this version for the first time. I thought it was fun and enjoyable and a skilful adaption, a great way to show that although there are great things that can be learnt from Shakespeare's plays, there is also great enjoyment available. I was imagining how the ordinary folk of London would have enjoyed the comedic parts and colour, when the play was first performed on stage.

Having, recently - 18 months ago - visited Warwick Castle and seen a presentation about the possibility of Shakespeare's works being scripted by De Vere; I am tending to think that may have been likely (or someone else). I needed to look to my atlas to discover the location of Padua and Verona, a facility that would not have been available to most play goers, yet the playwright chose to write about such distant and for 17th century Englanders exotic places. It seems - from what I know about Will Shakespeare's upbringing, he is very unlikely to have toured such places yet he writes about their customs.

What he would have known about was relationships between men and women, and all that is shown here could have been gained by experience in Stratford and London, without going further.

To our young feminist; the misogynist views in vogue - it would seem in the 16th century persisted until at least the 1960's and for some until today - I celebrate that equality is now the order of the day to the extent that the British Parliament has just indicated its intention to permit - in some circumstances same sex marriage for most UK residents, something unimaginable at the time this film was made in 1967.

I shall be interested whether these comments aid the discussion or produce dismissive comments that write me off as someone whose opinions are wrong and therefore not worth answering in any detail.

It's not considered one of Shakespeare's better plays....and of course it is offensive. It's strange that it's one of his best-known plays when it isn't terribly special.


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It's not just sexist it's misogynistic.

This is a wife-beating movie filled with abuse. I hated it. It was also shown in my high school English class and I find it to be so offensive that I think it shouldn't be taught in schools anymore. Very dated and one of Shakespeare's worst plays.