Kiss Me Kate review

1953

Directed by George Sidney

Starring Kathryn Grayson, Howard Keel and Ann Miller

This is a classic movie/musical about people who are producing a musical. The story itself is based on the Shakespearian play The Taming of the Shrew (which coincidentally is the play they are performing), and I think there's the first of my problems with this movie.

It was made in a time when women's freedom had yet to be fully given, and must women were still viewed as housewives. Now, The Taming of the Shrew is about two daughters. One is ideal wife material, and the other is stubborn and no one wants to marry her. However, she is the first born and so her father says she must be married off before her sister. Oh dear.

The actor playing Kate (the sister who must get married first) is strikingly similar to her, and she must be "tamed" just like Kate.
I hate this.
Really.
See, whenever I read/see The Taming of the Shrew performed, I like to see it where at the end Kate is still strong, she hasn't really been tamed, and has only let them think that she'll be submissive. Maybe it's because I hate the thought of a headstrong girl having her spirits broken.
Well, obviously this is not what happens here. She becomes submissive, just like Kate, and after that we're lead to believe she lived happily ever after.

I bet she hated it.
/ [Akayume]

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