Not How It Seems: ‘Kiss Me Kate’ (1953)
Remember a while back when we talked about how My Fair Lady had pretty much no redeeming qualities from a feminist perspective? Enter Kiss Me Kate, an adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew which is a lot less female-friendly than its ’90s adaptation, 10 Things I Hate About You.
Much like The Band Wagon and Singin’ in the Rain, it’s a film about show business (what was with the early ’50s?). Also like those films, it features parts of the show and backstage drama inside the larger film. Unlike the other films, however, Kiss Me Kate does not shed a very progressive light on women.
Fred Graham and Lilli Vanessi have been divorced for awhile when Vanessi agrees to meet at Graham’s apartment to go over a new Cole Porter musical, an adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew. Porter worries that things will be awkward considering Graham will be directing and starring in the play opposite his ex-wife if she accepts the part. Graham waves this idea aside, and it’s clear that he wants it to be awkward, at least in the sense that he wants to attempt to seduce her again. Vanessi considers the part after Graham attempts to rope her in with a love song.
Shortly after Graham and Vanessi get close for “So In Love,” Graham’s new love interest, Lois Lane (yes, really) flounces in wearing a skimpy costume. She makes it obvious that she’s familiar with the apartment and performs a sexualized number that serves to remind the 2D viewer that this film was shot in 3D.
Vanessi already had obvious reservations, but after meeting Lane and seeing the number, and seeing Lane behave childishly, she makes the decision to keep with her plans to be married and go on her honeymoon. Graham manipulates her by telling Lane she’ll get the part, and of course, Vanessi accepts the part simply so that Lane won’t.
Lane secures the part of Katherine’s younger sister and continues to make jabs at Vanessi whenever possible. During dress rehearsals, Vanessi grows increasingly annoyed with both Lane’s flirtatious nature and having Graham as a director. Lane’s boyfriend Bill Calhoun (notably not Graham) is also a member of the cast but disappears to play craps, where he loses $2,000. Gambling is a regular problem with Calhoun, but this time, he’s not in danger as he’s signed Graham’s name to the IOU he wrote. While Lane is obviously playing Graham (for reasons unclear to Calhoun), she also laments the fact that Calhoun can’t stop gambling.
“Won’t you turn that new leaf over/So your baby can be your slave.” That’s a line that the Lane character actually sings. She wants to settle down with him, but his constant gambling doesn’t provide them with a stable life. Oh yeah, and she’s got some kind of thing going on with the director — but that’s besides the point.
On opening night, Graham visits Vanessi in her dressing room. Although they fight to begin with, Vanessi announces that it is the one-year anniversary of their divorce, and the pair begins to reminisce, proving Vanessi has bothered to remember things about their lives together, and in fact, that she has better memory of it than Graham. They end up kissing and wondering why it was they split up. He blames her disposition and she his ego.
Graham returns to his dressing room to find two mobsters there. They’re there to collect on the IOU Calhoun wrote. They exit the dressing room, but promise to return.
Graham sends Lane flowers, but they’re delivered to Vanessi by mistake, and she’s head over heels. Graham had demanded previously that she not eat before the performance, and she had argued that she be able to. After the flowers though, Vanessi says, “He wants me to go hungry, I’ll go hungry.” There is a card in the flowers, addressed to Lane, but Vanessi doesn’t read it. Instead, she puts it in her costume to read later, and the show begins.
The story of The Taming of the Shrew is that of a wealthy merchant and his two daughters. He has vowed not to allow the younger daughter to marry until the eldest daughter has been wooed. The older daughter, Katherine, or Kate, is a “shrew,” thus meaning she’s not very interested in men, as well as being somewhat unappealing to them. The younger, Bianca, is gentle and lives to serve her father. She is also willing to marry any Tom, Dick, or Harry.
Obviously, Bianca has many suitors, but only when Petruchio comes to town is there a possibility of someone wooing her older sister.
He’s got his work cut out for him though, because Katherine hates men.
Nonetheless, Petruchio strikes a deal with the father.
Back in the real world, Vanessi takes time during Graham’s bows to read the note and discovers that the flowers were really for Lane. She goes wild with anger in the middle of the show, forcing the players to act out their fight while also acting out the play. She gets violent with Graham and he uses force back, ending the first act by bending her over his knee and spanking her on stage.
After the curtains close, they continue their argument and physical fight, over-dramatizing their wounds. Vanessi calls her wealthy fiance and requests that they marry that night. She quits the show and plans to leave during the intermission.
Meanwhile, Lane demands that Calhoun own up to his forgery of Graham’s signature on the IOU ticket. He does so while Graham is distracted and is told that it’s fine. Obviously, Graham wasn’t really listening, but once he realizes what has happened, he decides to use it to his advantage by convincing the mobsters to force Vanessi to finish the show. She continues to fight through the second act, in which Kate marries Petruchio.
Much as Graham is depriving Vanessi of food, the character of Petruchio deprives Kate of food and fineries, pretending they aren’t good enough for her. Vanessi’s fiance, Tex, shows up, and she tells him about the gangsters and the fact that Graham spanked her. He is a simpleton and doesn’t really understand what’s going on. Graham acts calm and collected, making Vanessi appear to be more immature than she really was with Graham egging her on. Vanessi attempts once again to leave with Tex.
Lane recognizes Tex from a date, and although he pretends not to remember her, Calhoun is upset with the way Lane is always fooling with other men.
The gangsters attempt to call their boss and find out he has been offed, meaning they no longer need to collect money from Graham. In saying goodbye to Vanessi, Graham admits he should have been a bigger man during their marriage and perhaps it would have worked out. Vanessi rides away with Tex and Graham attempts to finish the show.
Lane (as Bianca) sings with Calhoun (as Lucentio) that they shall be true to one another “From This Moment On.”
The ending of The Taming of the Shrew involves a bet between three newlywed men about whose wife is more obedient. Kate surprisingly wins and gives the other wives a speech on why they should be obedient to their husbands. In the final scene of the play, Vanessi returns and plays the part with sincerity, indicating that she has forgiven Graham and is willing to give their relationship another try.
The Taming of the Shrew is seen by many as a very anti-feminist piece that assumes women are intended to be obedient objects for their husbands to own. But many scholars have interpreted it as one of Shakespeare’s more progressive works, suggesting that it is a condemnation of the idea of patriarchal oppression. Such scholars suggest that the play is intended to show people how ridiculous and cruel the idea of “taming” a woman is. This theory is totally understandable. It’s obvious to the audience how manipulative, self-serving, and cruel Petruchio is, and anyone rooting for him has to be something of a sociopath. In Kiss Me Kate, however, the line is more blurred and we’re expected to root for a man who is equally manipulative and self-serving, supposedly making the ending romantic.
Number one, Vanessi is a very self-possessed woman, yet right from the start, Graham manipulates her into doing as he wishes based on prior experiences with her. She doesn’t even want to do the play to begin with, but he knows her pride will win if she thinks his new lover will get the part. He uses his position as director to assert power over her, including telling her she is disallowed from eating before the show. He continues to manipulate her right up to the moment when he “apologizes” to her after all other plans have failed. She’s a grown woman who attempted a relationship with him, only to have it fail, and now, even though she’s about to elope with another man, it only takes an apology to bring her back.
Two, Lois Lane enjoys the finer things, but is stuck with the ever-gambling Calhoun. Despite every character trait she could be given, she is lumped in with the much more developed Adelaide (from Guys and Dolls) as one of those women who deep down just wants to settle down. She’s flighty and a little bit promiscuous, which brings me to point three.
There’s a very obvious Madonna/whore dichotomy between Lane and Vanessi. Vanessi is presented as being pure and upstanding, only romancing her ex-husband and her future husband. Any references to sexual situations are met with either a comment about their marriage or her future marriage to Tex. When she offers to show Tex the bruises from being spanked onstage, Graham insists that she can’t. Not yet.
At the same time, Lane is presented from the fore as incredibly sexual. She enters the film in a skimpy costume, flirts with all the men in the film, and has multiple suitors both on and offstage. Any innuendo made about her is acceptable, whether married or not. Yet still, we’re told she just wants to settle down. So according to this film, if a woman is strong, deep down she wants a man to marry. And if she is flirtatious and flighty, deep down she wants a man to settle down with.
In the final scenes of The Taming of the Shrew, Kate shows how obedient she can be. Her fight is gone, she is meek and lives only to serve her husband. In the final scene of Kiss Me Kate, Vanessi returns to Graham despite the threats and manipulation and even physical abuse the pair have inflicted upon each other and appears meek toward her ex-husband and the crowd, showing that he has triumphed. The difference between the two pieces, however, is that The Taming of the Shrew may have been a satire, whereas Kiss Me Kate is presented as a romance between this divorced couple who obviously shouldn’t have worked out, as they are both too strong-headed. Unless of course, the woman learns to submit to the will of the man, which is what happens.
“Not How It Seems” takes a look at the underlying messages in classic movie musicals.
