Like a horse and a carriage

When I was at University, I was told that any movie or book that "reinforces family values" is fundamentally conservative - and, of course, in an Arts degree at the University of Melbourne, "conservative" was well and truly a pejorative term. At the time, it just annoyed me that family values were immediately equated with Conservatism, meaning that anyone who adhered to them might as well just join the Liberal party and start supporting the war in Iraq. Those kinds of terms - conservative vs. progressive - like Left and Right, are unnecessarily reductive, and I was becoming aware of that at the time.

Since finishing my Arts degree, though, I've been struck more than before with how progressive "family values" can sometimes be in this day and age. Now, this may sound a little unusual, but just bear with me and I'll explain where I'm coming from.

Last week a colleague of mine lent me her copy of the BBC's recent modernisation of "The Taming of the Shrew", starring the above-pictured Shirley Henderson and Rufus Sewell. I wasn't exactly sure what to make of it at first when I watched it this afternoon. The gender roles seemed to leave a little to be desired, and Shirley Henderson, funny as she was, did seem just that little, teensy bit over the top, as she sometimes does.

What amazed me, and won me over, though, was the ending, in which Katherine and her new husband are talking to Bianca (Katherine's sister) about the "perfectly sensible" prenuptial agreement that she has asked her 19-year-old Italian toy-boy fiance to sign, on their wedding day. Toy-boy is none too pleased by the prenup, and Bianca can't understand why. We live, she and her mother argue, in an "age of divorce". A pre-nup doesn't mean you're assuming things will go wrong; you're just prepared for the possibility. Knowing how "shrewish" Katherine has been in the past, Bianca calls on her support, and is quite horrified by how Katherine responds. Instead of supporting Bianca, Katherine tells her that her husband should be her lord, and that she should either submit to him completely, placing her hands under his feet, or not marry him at all. Bianca, appalled, asks Katherine if she is willing to "place her hands under her husband's feet". Katherine's reply is the emotional climax of the movie - she would, she says, if he asked her to, but he feels as much respect for her as she feels for him, so he would never require her to do that.

This adaptation never shows what happens to Bianca, nor should it. Perhaps it wants the viewer to make a decision along with Bianca, and it's a decision that, I must admit, I feel like most people should put a bit more thought into they usually do. Why bother vowing to spend your lives together, if you're also preparing for the possibility that that life-long commitment may only last a few years, or, if you're Britney Spears, hours? It's life-long commitment - and total commitment at that - or none at all.

Some of my University lecturers would call this adaptation "conservative", but it's nothing of the sort. In a day and age when divorce and selfishness are the status quo, anything which argues radically against that has got to be progressive, or the terms mean nothing any more. And it's not as if standard gender roles are being reinforced by this adaptation either. The couple remain assertive, unique people. (As well as this, Rufus Sewell's Petruchio has a particular quirk that I'll keep a secret to avoid spoiling it, but it's hard to call the film conservative once you find out what it is.) Perhaps Katherine's arguments about lordship are a little extreme for some tastes - but sometimes extremity is needed to make people think. Marriage is an absolute commitment. That means submission - from both sides. And, much to my (pleasant) surprise, this adaptation of "The Taming of the Shrew" showed mutual submission in quite an admirably progressive light. It really wasn't just the "shrew" who was tamed, because marriage only works when both are willing to sacrifice - to be "tamed", if you will. You leave Katherine and Petruchio at the end confident that their marriage will be one of give and take. And you only want Bianca to marry if you can say the same for hers.