Hey guys! In my English class, I’ve been given the task of creating a blog post about Shakespeare with the question, “Is Shakespeare still relevant to modern society?” At first, I thought that researching some dead guy who spoke funnily was going to suck, but after bit of research I’ve really come to love this Shakespearean topic!

When people think of shakespeare, they think of a boring play with people who speak with twisted words (which is true) but when you put a little bit of thought into it, many films are based on these brilliant plays. So many of my favourite movies are based on this topic and if it wasn’t for him, these movies wouldn’t exist. Some of our modern language (which is very different from his 18th Century colloquialism) which is used today and certain types of themes would be rather different!

We are quite lucky that shakespeare wrote all of his plays because of the fact thats some of my most favourite movies are based on this topic. two of these are:

The Lion King – Hamlet

10 Things I Hate About You – The Taming of the Shrew

Lion King                                                                                                         Seeing that The Lion King and Hamlet are very similar, each or most characters have a character whom is similar to each other.

The Lion King is a film based in the African Savannah which follows the journey of a prince, lion cub named Simba (Hamlet) and his family and friends. Simba’s father, Mufasa (Old King Hamlet) is Attacked and killed by his own brother, Scar (Claudius) who is the antagonist. Simba, meets many new friends along the way – Timon and Pumba (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern) and marries his lifelong friend, Nala (Ophelia) who helps Simba face the challenge of avenging his fathers death and killing his uncle, Scar. I know many of you’s enjoy The Lion King a lot, but  aside from the boring and old fashioned names in Hamlet, It is a quite interesting play to enjoy.

“I Killed Mufasa!”

 Act I Scene V

Ghost: “The serpent that did sting thy father’s life Now wears his crown.”

10 Things I Hate About You and The Taming of the Shrew                                    More like 10 Things I Hate About Shrew! Am I right or am I right!?!?!?!?!         The first thing that I noticed about these two films is that these titles rhyme with each other! (FUN FACT: I once drilled a hole in a mattress) These two plays/films share a lot in common with each other! Lets start with the names…

In comparison, both Katherine (TOTS) & Kat (Ten Things) are both very abusive but Kat is verbally abusive and cruel towards others and uses her voice to get her way whereas Katherine is more physically abusive and punches people to get her own way.

one of the differences that I noticed in 10 Things was that Kat uses her voice quite a lot to act “Shrewish”, one example would be when she would always make rude remarks  back to Joey who she sat next to in her English class when they were discussing about a book

This is a very large significance because it changes the way the viewer sees the character or Kat or Katherine and lets them decide if they prefer modern or old school shakespeare plays.  Although they are both seen as Shrews,  Kat is a young woman who lets her opinions run free whereas Katherine is unable to use her voice affectively because she isn’t taken seriously.  This is why she results to braun over brains.

Some of the main themes in TOTS/ Ten Things are:

Social Rules/Individual Happiness:                                                                   Kats sister Bianca was not aloud to date unless Kat was dating a boy (which everyone thought was impossible, until she found tough boy – Patrick Verona which enabled Bianca to be happy and date boys!

Love and Money                                                                                               When Baptista informs Bianca’s suitors that they will have to wait until his elder daughter is married. Her suitors wish to marry Katherine because of her wealthy family.                                                                                                                 In Ten Things, Patrick dates Kat because he is getting payed by Bianca’s suitor (Cameron) to date her so he can date Bianca

10 Things TOTS
Patrick Petruchio
Bianca Bianca
Kat Katherine
Walter Stratford (Dad) Baptista
Joey Hortensio and Gremio
Cameron Lucentino

In summary, the creation of William Shakespeare’s plays are extremely relevant to the creation of modern day films because most of our ideas actually come from these brilliant plays with silly words that some old guy created many years ago. These plays have been adapted into some of our most favourite movies, and for that, we should be grateful for!