A Shakespearean comedy that isn't remotely sexist. I don't know what made you say that...

 Over the past three weeks we have seen a Jazz Othello, a Zombie Jane Eyre, and The Tempest in space. 

On balance, I think it's about time to show a comedy.

The Taming of the Shrew is Shakespeare's simply hilarious tale of sexism, misogyny and male oppression. On the surface, the message of the story seems to be that women who are assertive, who don't meekly submit to the authority of their husbands, who have minds and personalities of their own - are obviously bad, bad women who need to be punished. This, by the way, from the writer who gave us Beatrice, Viola and Lady Macbeth, so feel free to draw your own conclusions about that. No, really, please do; everyone else does (and everyone else has, for the last four hundred years).

The basic premise of the story is very simple: Katherina and Bianca are the daughters of Baptista Minola, a gentleman of Padua. Everyone is in love with Bianca (the younger daughter) who is obviously beautiful, kind, meek and obedient: the perfect woman (according to some). 

Unfortunately, their father has decreed that no one is to marry Bianca until someone agrees to marry Katherina, the older daughter, who is angry, disobedient and sharp-tongued. Naturally, all the heterosexual men decide to pursue the only course open to them: they pay someone to court Katherina, clearing their path to Bianca, and allowing them to, well, marry her brains out.

For some mysterious reason, this story (if not handled very carefully) can come across as horribly sexist, nasty and oppressive; an example of the worst kind of macho, male privileged, toxically masculine culture that gives gender identity a bad name.

So of course it works perfectly in an American high school.

It's actually a little disturbing to consider just how many classic works of literature translate so effectively into an American high school setting. It's almost as if high school is a perfect metaphor for the oppression, misery, social injustice and class warfare that inspired so many of the great masterpieces of Western literature. Crazy, right?

Of course for some people, high school was the very best part of their lives. The football stars, the cheerleaders, the Prom Queens all remember their High School days as a time of eternal love, popularity and fun; a time when they were successful and beautiful and invincible. 

On balance, however, it wasn't the football stars and cheerleaders and Prom Queens who grew up to be writers and film-makers. Films tend to be made by the other kids; the ones who were mercilessly bullied by the cheerleaders and football stars; the ones for whom high school was unendurably awful, and who counted the days - the hours - until they were set free. It probably isn't surprising that so many writers and directors looked back on their high school experiences and saw Dangerous Liaisons, or The Crucible, or Othello. Or (in this instance) The Taming of the Shrew.

10 Things I Hate About You is now remembered as one of the iconic high school comedies of the 1990s, and also as a career-defining moment for many of its young stars. Julia Stiles practically cornered the market in re-imagined Shakespeare around this time; not only did she play Katherina (or Kat, as they call her) in this film, she also played Desdemona and Ophelia within the space of a couple of years.

(At least in this film she gets to survive to the end...)

Australian Heath Ledger makes his American debut here and achieved instant star-status (unfortunately truncated when he died, prematurely and stupidly, less than ten years later). Joseph Gordon-Levitt and David Krumholtz had both already made memorable appearances elsewhere, but this was the film that really gave them a chance to shine.

We will be screening 10 Things I Hate About You at 7.30pm on Thursday, the 3rd of February, at the Victoria Park Baptist Church. Come along and see what The Taming of the Shrew looks like when it isn't sexist!