Ooooohhhhh my gosh. I just read Taming of the Shrew. You wanna know why I've never read it before? Because I knew I would have this reaction. I knew I would HATE it. Yes. I used all caps. I used all caps because my rage cannot be contained. And why should it? There is nothing about this play that is sexy or romantic. Let's break down the action shall we?

Our romantic leads:
Woman who is a complete and utter bitch for seemingly no reason.
Man who is a complete and utter douche-bag because he wants said woman's dowry.

(We're off to a great start already. I know these are the makings of my ideal romance.)

The "Courtship:"
Man starves, freezes, sleep-deprives, and imprisons woman until she agrees to obey him without question.
Man instigates a "cat-fight" to show off how much more awesome his woman is than his fellows.
Man parades woman around room like prized animal.

The Ending:
Man and woman live happily ever after...wait, what?

And really, none of this would be worth mentioning because it's all been said and done except then I read one of the scholarly excerpts from the back of my Signet edition. An excerpt by Germaine Greer who says:

Kate courts ruin in a different way, but she has the uncommon good fortune to find Petruchio, who is man enough to know what he wants and how to get it. He wants her spirit and her energy because he wants a wife worth keeping. He tames her as he might a hawk or a high-mettled horse, and she rewards him with strong sexual love and fierce loyalty. Lucentio finds himself saddled with a cold, disloyal woman, who has no objection to humiliating him in public (145-6).

I would like to say maybe it's the editors fault and he excerpted badly. I would like to say maybe the argument is misrepresented. But that final sentence is so wholly unsupportable (we have no idea what Bianca is like in the bedroom, nor any real proof that she is cold or disloyal) that I am led to believe the previous part is intended seriously as well. Kate has the "uncommon good fortune" and Petruchio is "man enough to know what he wants and how to get it"?!?!?! Is this 1955? I can barely control my punctuation I'm so irate!

And I think this is what has me so upset. We can all agree this is a "problem play" in that the gender roles represented are difficult to interpret. We can make movies reimagining the play and its outcome that make this story more politically correct and we can even (though after reading the play I really don't understand how people swing this one) argue that Kate is being ironic and isn't actually broken. But deep down inside where no one else can see--the place where feminists that say they hate Twilight are actually just angry because they love it, but don't want to admit it--a lot of women secretly wish for a Petruchio. A lot of women secretly want a man who is "man enough to know what he wants and how to get it" and they want him to want them. They want him to push past their "resistance" and dominate them in his awesome manly way. Why? Because it's really sweet to be broken like a horse? Because it's so much fun to have a husband that treats you simultaneously like a child and a sex slave? In what universe is that romantic?!

I have heartburn I'm so upset. At least in McClintok there's enough else going on right that a person can just close her eyes during the spanking scene and still love the movie. Honestly I think this play should only ever be taught in conjunction with one of the better re-tellings like Shakespeare Retold or 10 Things I Hate About You. This is written proof of why Shakespeare is not a man for all time.

And that right there is why Harold Bloom will never hire me. Oh my blood pressure can't take this abuse.