We’re back for one last year! This year started off with everyone’s favourite thing: summer reading. Over the summer, I read The Great Gatsby, and had to write a paragraph on why it was a classic. The gist of it was that the Great Gatsby is a classic because it has themes that reflect on the modern times.

Speaking of a classic, I was very excited to hear that we would also be studying Shakespear. A bit less excited when I found out it was Taming Of The Shrew, but still excited. Don’t get me wrong, I like Shakespear’s works. But Taming of the Shrew is sexist, not very funny, and none of the characters are likeable. Which is why it was perfect to study. See, we were studying gender roles in different places in history.

Taming of the Shrew, for a quick recap, is the story of Kathrine, a ‘shrew’, also known in as a woman who wanted a bit of free will. She refuses to get married, but her younger sister really wants to get married. Nobody knows who to, because there are three different men after her and she seems to both like them and not like them at the same time. Anyways, Bianca and Kate’s dad says that Bianca can’t get married until Kate does. This leads to two of Bianca’s suitors making a guy called Petruchio get married to Kate, and he makes a big display of proving that he can own Kate. There is a side plot about fake identities and threatening a strangers life but that isn’t relevant to our gender roles topic.

Our group, which consisted of Willa, Hannah and Calum, was told to make an animated short with a chosen time period and one act of the play. We wound up making a 50’s themed version of Act III, were Kate gets married and Bianca gets lessons.

Our way of showing gender roles was quite easy, as the 50’s was a rough time for women. As you can see in the video, Bianca is being taught cooking and music, as in the 50’s most education for women was aimed at them being housewives. The example of gender roles in the second scene could stay the same, as it’s Petruchio treating Kate like an object, which was how the 50’s was.

Over all, this project was a really great way to learn about different gender roles in different time periods, and going in depth about Shakespear.

Read ya later

Sincerely, Parker