The Taming of the Shrew on screen been reworked numerous times for both cinema and television. Some of the better known adaptations include "Kiss Me Kate", a 1953 filmic adaptation of Cole Porter's 1948 musical based on the play, "McLintock!" (1963), "Il Bisbetico Domato" (1980), "10 Things I Hate About You" (1999), "Deliver Us from Eva" (2003) and "Isi Life Mein...!" (2010). The earliest cinematic adaptation of the play is D.W. Griffith's eleven-minute "The Taming of the Shrew", made for Biograph in 1908, starring Florence Lawrence as Katherina and Arthur V. Johnson as Petruchio. The blurb for the film stated "if we could see ourselves as others
The Taming of the Shrew it is not taken seriously by Sly. As such, questions of the seriousness of what happens within it are rendered irrelevant. Language itself is a major theme in the play, especially in the taming process, where mastery of language becomes paramount. Katherina is initially described as a shrew because of her harsh language to those around her. Brown University Professor Karen Newman points out, "from the outset of the play, Katherine's threat to male authority is posed through language: it is perceived by others as such and is linked to a claim larger than shrewishness – witchcraft – through the