History WMG / TheTamingOfTheShrew

[[WMG: Women only find this play offensive because it exposes the UnfortunateImplications of [[AllGirlsWantBadBoys the most popular female romantic fantasy]] by {{Gender Flip}}ping it.]]
What does Petruchio find sexy? Not a humble, submissive, quiet, obedient ProperLady but ''a project'' -- someone he can "tame," change, fix, and cure of her evil habits! Sure, she acts like a bossy, hot-tempered shrew to everyone else, but she treats ''him'' completely differently, and that means he's special and better than other men! What, ladies, how could you find this offensive? AllGirlsWantBadBoys because it's gratifying to change them, and Petruchio's and Kate's victory as the happiest/best couple at the close of the play teaches the moral: "All men should want shrews because it's fun to tame them."
* But Kate ''doesn't'' treat Petruchio any differently from other people. She yells at him, fights him, and attempts to dominate him. The only edge he has over her is that, thanks to an agreement with her father, he's married to her!

This is a relatively recent theory, or at least recent to be spoken in public, since being pro-shrew back when this play was written meant GettingCrapPastTheRadar. In the final scene, Kate the zealous shrew is portrayed as a superior wife to the docile Bianca and widow.

* Back in the days of the Hayes Code, you could do a lot of GettingCrapPastTheRadar, if only you had your story end the "right" way. You could talk about crime, or homosexuality, or drugs, as long as the gays were either "[[CureYourGays cured]]" or "[[BuryYourGays dead]]", [[CantGetAwayWithNuthin the crime did not pay]] and [[DrugsAreBad the drugs were evil]]. Maybe this was the same, either the MoralGuardians or [[ExecutiveMeddling his financiers]] said to Shakespeare "You cannot write a story where the shrew wins", so he made a memorable story of a shrew and tacked on an ending about which he felt the same way most modern audiences feel today: Like it's been tacked onto a story that has a totally different tone in the rest.

** Any LGBT person, straight women and cross dressing fan who wouldn’t normally want to see this kind of play. Shakespeare knew they deserved something to enjoy as well. So he got the two teenage boys who played the sisters to do some (PG-13) Yaoi related stuff for their entertainment.

** Any LGBT person, straight women and cross dressing fan that didn’t want to see this play deserved to have something to enjoy. Shakespeare knew this so they got two boys dressed as girls fighting. AKA Yaoi, Shakespeare style

** Lots of people would be, LGBT people (of all ages), straight women and as cross dressing lovers went to see this play too. Shakespeare likely know parts of his audience wouldn’t want to see a play like this unless they got something out of it as well. So the two teenage boys playing the sisters likely gave them a show little bit of a show.
** "Never let a good crossdressing joke go to waste" could well have been Shakespeare's live motto...

** Not to mention lots of secretly gay teenage boys/young men, women and girls were taken to see this play and Shakespeare likely wanted to give his audience of the day who might not want to see the play “something“ to enjoy about it.

Her shrewishness was an act all along. She put on a disagreeable JerkassFacade because any man who couldn't deal with an assertive wife wasn't worthy of her. Once Petruchio proved he was man enough to take it and respond in kind, she dropped the mask and became the perfect wife.

[[WMG: The scene with Katarina tying up Bianca was intentional {{Fanservice}}[=/=]FetishFuel.]]

Her shrewishness was an act all along. She put on a disagreeable façade because any man who couldn't deal with an assertive wife wasn't worthy of her. Once Petruchio proved he was man enough to take it and respond in kind, she dropped the mask and became the perfect wife.

[[WMG: An alternate moral: First impressions can be deceiving.]]
Kate, the "shrew" whom no one likes ends up lecturing the sweet and "perfect" Bianca on what it means to be a good wife after Bianca turns out to be surprisingly disobedient and assertive toward her husband.

* That is actually what happened. Shakespeare snipped out the original ending, in which Sly, confident that he knows 'How to Tame a Shrew', goes to practice Petruchio's method on his wife and gets sorely beaten for it. This was probably cut because Shakespeare's creditors doubted there was a market for a women-sympathetic ending.

* Back in the days of the Hayes Code, you could get a lot of crap past the radar, if only you had your story end the "right" way. You could talk about crime, or homosexuality, or drugs, as long as the gays were either "cured" or "dead", the crime did not pay and the drugs were evil. Maybe this was the same, either the MoralGuardians or his financiers said to Shakespeare "You cannot write a story where the shrew wins", so he made a memorable story of a shrew and tacked on an ending about which he felt the same way most modern audiences feel today: Like it's been tacked onto a story that has a totally different tone in the rest.

[[WMG: The scene with Katarina tying up Bianca was intentional {{Fanservice}}.]]

[[WMG: The scene with Katarina tying up Bianca was intentional PlayingToTheFetishes.]]

This is a relatively recent theory, or at least recent to be spoken in public, since being pro-shrew back when this play was written meant GettingCrapPastTheRadar.

She's only pretending to be docile in the end. There's been plenty of scholarly debate on this one.

She's only pretending to be docile in the end.
* There's been plenty of scholarly debate on this one.

[[WMG: The scene with Katarina tying up Bianca was intentional PlayingToTheFetishes]]

* There's been plenty of scholarly debate on this one, so YourMilageMayVary as to whether or not it's canon.