(no subject)
Is a punk rock girl just a shrew?
Double back: Is a “shrew”, in her pro-active defiance of social expectations and aggressive, abrasively persistent push against the walls of her social confines actually depended on by punk rock?
Is your child Punk Rock? Are any of your colleagues? Your mother? You?
The answer might depend on what you’ve been told about yourself to indulge you as such. Never mind the bollocks; here’s the reality: internet pop-ups and Women’s magazine covers are never without the proclamation; “TAKE THIS QUIZ!” or “Are you all heart, or a tart?” and “Is your man… a flan?” as might be seen in perhaps Girlfriend or Cosmopolitan.
The target audience of Ten things I hate about you may not speculate that these bright headings in the background pop-up window or along the bottom of the magazine cover serve as sort of a (usually male) shepherds (corporate) crook; one last baited hook cast out for those who may not want Julia Stiles’ perfect skin or to gamble at the “casino-on-net” but surely do find themselves in an identity crisis in any case - and thereby visit the site or purchase the magazine, or even just maybe end up watching Ten Things I Hate About You, starring Julia Stiles herself.
Julia plays Kat Stratford. Kat’s a bad girl. She is introduced on screen to the music of Joan Jett’s Bad reputation. It should be bore in mind that this movie is marketed for girls aged 11 to 16, at such an age where everybody gives a damn about their reputation!
Like in Zeffirelli’s Shrew, the element of fantasy intended by the bard is lost entirely but at least in the teenpic the best possible light is shed on Kats assertive character.
However, Directors in many teenpics lend a ‘Dawson High revisited’ quality to their pictures in that ‘bitchy’ girls hang around with obnoxious, large-muscled boys and are picky and relentless on ‘nice’ girls (i.e. ugly ducklings) - and never as vulnerable creatures who make mistakes and get confused and suffer from acting against their conscience, as is often the case with these girls as they are known in high schools today.
In Ten things I hate about you, Bianca is a ‘bitchy’ girl and Kat is an Ugly Duckling. Patrick is the only other character to challenge the notion of the indestructible ‘bitchy’ character when his vulnerability is also revealed when he discovers he really wants Kat- which is a plus in getting over this Dawson High construct of the 50s!
Is this not Punk Rock?
Well - Characters need to be articulated quickly in the space of 90 minutes and Kate’s image has to move to be more about impression and not about understanding of what she stands for, to save time. This is a shortfall of all teen pics and is hard to avoid.
We as the audience judge her as we see her, with her Joan Jett and her indie girl music and messy room and sharp tongue, so much so that it is almost ironic given that part of the moral of the play is that a shrew is not all that she seems.
Of course, we then do not have time to appreciate her true, lasting subversiveness! The audience values Kat not for being subversive, but looking it. One has to keep their wits truly about them to appreciate, for example, the ‘Viva Zapata!’ poster on her bedroom wall, in celebration of the self-determining, co-operative community of impoverished Chiapas in central America.
A viewer might say; “Oh. A poster. Viva…… Viva rebels!”
Germaine Greer might say that, too. She would also suggest Kates character as delightfully uncompromising and punk rock in this (unintentional?) Dawson spectre of characters.
In Zeffirelis shrew as in Ten things I hate about you, the element of Slys fantasy is replaced by the idea that Kate would remain with some ‘upper hand’ in her relationship with Petruchio, whether it be mischeviously getting chased by him until after the end or receiving a reconciliatory Fender from Patrick.
Although this might compensate for the politically incorrect “taming” of her in both cases, looking at the loss of a sense of fantasy through Punk Rock eyes, one would find it is ill-compensated!
The other ignored element of fantasy is that of the high society depicted. The presentation in both Zefirellis shrew and Ten things of high society remains pretty much the same in these appropriations of the play; only changed by the fact that some time has passed between appropriations. The conventions of wealthy society remain unchallenged, for various reasons: Zefirellis shrew was produced around a time when housewives wanted to feel good about themselves in that role, and Ten things, as has been mentioned; does not really have the time to challenge every convention of the play so