The Taming Of The Shrew And Gil Junger s Film, Nineteen...

William Shakespeare’s play, The Taming of the Shrew, and Gil Junger’s film, Ten Things I Hate About You, contain many elements that reflect the time period and society in which they were composed. The Taming of The Shrew strongly reflects on the idea of marriage being an economic agreement as well as the structured roles played by men and women that were prevalent in the 16th century and how gender affected the way a person can be viewed and courted in the same time period. This is contrasted by Gil Junger’s 1999 appropriation, Ten Things I Hate About You, in which modern teenage life and relationships are explored, touching on these same issues in relation to gender roles in a modern context. In this essay I will compare the roles of men and women in each text, as well as considering the difference in the two societies in terms of money, relationships and social status. The obvious difference between the two texts is the use different mediums of production. The play is performed on stage in real time and the adaption is a modern teen film using a classic teen format. Both are comedies and belong to the popular culture of their time. The difference in the two mediums is that one is predominately language based, with the visuals as an extra and the film is mostly visual, enhanced by good dialogue, music, sound effects and cinematography. Obviously the language has evolved over 450 years, yet both are colloquial and specific to the characters. Taming is set in Padua,