Shakespeare is the man!!

Hey guys, I would like you to ask you if you

 have seen the movie She's the man, played

 by Amanda Bynes and the handsome Channing

 Tatum? Well, I hope you have otherwise you

 should see it right now. Well, in this post 

I would like to write about the connections

 that are between this movie and the book 

Twelfth Night by Shakespeare.

To begin with, as a matter of background, in Twelfth Night, the plot, in outline, records faithfully the comedic confusions of a girl, Terry (Viola), who disguises herself as a guy to pursue a desirable journalism internship. Caught between her attraction to Rick (Orsino) whose romantic aspirations she promotes and her resistance to the advances of Sandy (Olivia), Terry grapples with the lewd naiveté of her brother Buddy's (Sebastian's) pursuit of sex and indulges in over-the-top efforts to preserve her secret. Just One of the Guys embraces the crude sexual humor and minimal cinematic palate that characterize most teen sex comedies of the 1980s. This version of the Twelfth Night scenario in this movie initially offered little to the study of Shakespearean adaptation.

That is why, to my mind, this teenager movie

She's the man claims on the Shakespeare book 

Twelfth Night or maybe it can take advantage

 of his work in high school curricula. Indeed, 

the name of the characters, the plot, and the self-presentation coincide with its reliance on allusions to other teen films in ways that create new relationships and insights. One of this example could be the movie 10 things I hate about you (also co-written and produced by Kirsten Smith and Karen Mc-Cullough Lutz), She's the Man invites comparison with other films. In particular, its echoes of Twelfth Night's plot (female cross-dressing and the resulting gender/romance confusions) and discussions with social structures (brother-sister relationships and status changes through erotic alliance) link it powerfully. The former is the teen film most often cited in reviews of Man after 10 Things and the latter is a little-known Disney TV film, identified as a remake of Guys and more recently also associated with Man. The resulting associations reveal how historically arrayed teen films provocatively relate not only to each other but also to Shakespeare's comedy.

So Shakespeare, sorry to say this, but I prefer watch Channing Tatum performing Orsino instead of reading your difficult way of writing. But hey, don not get me wrong, Shake, you are still the man.

References:

Doherty, Thomas. (1998) Teenagers and Teenpics: The Juvenalization of American Movies

in the 1950s. Boston: Unwyn.

Shakespeare, W. (1768-1821). Twelfth Night. The Norton Shakespeare. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt et. al. New York: Norton.

She's the Man. Dir. Andy Fickman. Written by Ewan Leslie, Karen McCullah Lutz, and Kirsten Smith. Paramount Pictures, 2006.