thesis statement for 10 things i hate about you

10 Things I Hate About You Movie Analysis

10 Things I Hate About You is a romantic comedy that portrays teenage love through an engaging story about two sisters and the boys’ attempts to impress them. The movie is based on the play The Taming of the Shrew written by Shakespeare in the sixteenth century, yet adapted to the reality of the American high school in the 1990s (Jackson 173). This paper aims to analyze 10 Things I Hate About You and discuss its dramatic compositions, characters, and themes.

10 Things I Hate About You is a romantic comedy about the student Cameron James who was in love with a popular girl Bianca Stratford, whose father prohibited dating unless her older sister, Kat, started going out with someone as well. Considering Aristotle’s elements of drama, I liked that the story has strong spectacle and melody as the overall setting fits the characters’ feelings and experiences (Jackson 159). Although the movie’s plot was engaging, I disliked the diction and thought that were frequently unclear as it was challenging to understand the motives implied by the writers and the director.

The movie’s protagonist is Cameron who has to fight external obstacles to win Bianca’s heart and start dating her. The antagonist is Joey Donner, the bully of the school, and a significant challenge for Cameron to overcome, because of their mutual intention to impress Bianca (Junger). The unusual aspect of how the protagonist is portrayed is that there are few direct details, and the audience gets to know him via the reactions to others’ actions and events around the conflict.

The major dramatic question, based on the protagonist’s intentions in 10 Things I Hate About You, is ‘Will Cameron start dating Bianca?’. Indeed, the plot is built around Kat and Bianca’s father’s prohibition to have relationships before the elder sister does, and the school boys’ attempts to change Kat’s unwillingness to involve in romances (Junger). There are two instances of Chekhov’s Gun in the movie: the money paid by Joey to another boy to date Kat, and the guitar Kat held in the music store.

The major complications in 10 Things I Hate About You were Bianca’s father’s prohibition of date before Kat, and when the latter found out that Patrick was paid by Joey to date her. Consequently, the climax of the movie is the moment when the elder sister stops dating, and Cameron understands that more action must be taken to win Bianca’s affection (Junger). Cameron wins Bianca’s heart in the denouement after their kiss, and Kat forgives Patrick and stays with him, while Joey, the antagonist, does not get any benefit from the situation.

The movie’s creators attempted to demonstrate what challenges teenagers face when first love and affection occur in their lives. Indeed, the influence on parents, siblings, teachers, and schoolmates is displayed through the behaviors and reactions of the main characters on them (Junger). However, 10 Things I Hate About You also emphasizes that even complicated situations are worth resolving when people have feelings for each other. The director included many details, such as students’ poetry writing, singing, and dialogues about affection to show that it is an important part of a human being. In my opinion, the creators succeeded in portraying teenage love, and the movie was worth filming. The main themes of 10 Things I Hate About You are relationships in the family and between men and women, school life, and first affection. It was worth filming because these topics are relevant to many teenagers who may be taught a lot about life by watching this movie.

The movie contains parallels from Shakespeare’s play The Taming of the Shrew, and I was not aware of it because the setting is not related to the sixteenth century the English playwright described. However, such details as characters’ names, the unconditionally powerful figure of the father, music, poetry, and a contest between boys to win a girl’s heart refer to the plot and characters of the play (Jackson 176). The Taming of the Shrew might be described as sexist as women’s feelings and decisions are belittled for men’s benefit; however, the movie does not contain such motives. The relationship between teenagers and the actions they take to attract each other are common for their age, and no humiliation based on one’s gender is present.

Works Cited

10 Things I Hate about You. Directed by Gil Junger, Buena Vista Pictures, 1999.

Jackson, Russell. The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Screen. Cambridge University Press, 2020.

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Ten Things I Hate About You

By andrew lazar , jeffrey chernov, ten things i hate about you essay questions.

Who is the protagonist of the film?

What is notable about the film is that there are multiple protagonists, due in large part to the fact that the film is based on a Shakespearean comedy. Audiences will likely root for Kat, Bianca, Patrick, and Cameron at different points in the film. However, the central protagonist – and here the film departs from its source material – is Kat, who is both entertaining and admirable in her convictions throughout the movie.

What role does feminism play in the narrative?

Feminism is important to the film in two major ways: first, it helps shape Kat's character, as she is a proud and vocal feminist whose intensity is often mocked by her peers. Second, the film itself is a rather feminist take on the Shakespearean original: whereas Katherina in The Taming of the Shrew transforms into an obedient wife, Kat transforms into a more complex character who can be critical of teenaged sociality at the same time she takes part in it.

How does the film acknowledge itself as an adaptation?

For those unfamiliar with Shakespeare's play, it may difficult to discern that 10 Things I Hate About You is an adaptation, given how thoroughly it subscribes to the genre of teen romantic comedy. However, certain elements of the film nod toward the original play, including direct quotations lifted from The Taming of the Shrew script and a subplot in which Mandella attends prom with William Shakespeare (Michael in 16th-century garb). Finally, the assignment given by Mr. Morgan in which students must write their own sonnet is part of the class's lesson on Shakespeare's poetry .

Why is Mr. Stratford so overprotective of his daughters?

While there is no direct explanation given as to why Walter Stratford enforces such rigid rules with his daughters' social lives, the film does explain that he is an obstetrician, meaning his patients are pregnant women. At one point in the film he describes having delivered twins to a 15-year-old girl. Though his daughters ultimately prove to him that they are both responsible enough to have new experiences, the movie suggests that Mr. Stratford's work has made him anxious about how his daughters' futures might be affected if they start dating.

How does Kat and Bianca's relationship evolve over the course of the film?

Though the film is primarily about romantic love between Kat and Patrick, the relationship between sisters Kat and Bianca also changes significantly over the course of the narrative. Once the sisters both start dating, they come to understand each other more: Kat explains to Bianca what happened to make her so antisocial, and Bianca defends her sister by beating up Joey at the prom. At the beginning of the movie, Kat and Bianca are polar opposites who constantly express their distaste for one another. At the end of the film, Bianca has taken on some of Kat's traits while Kat has also taken on some of Bianca's.

Ten Things I Hate About You Questions and Answers

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Study Guide for Ten Things I Hate About You

Ten Things I Hate About You study guide contains a biography of Andrew Lazar, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

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Exploring the Rich Themes in '10 Things I Hate About You'

Table of contents, introduction, theme 1: authenticity and self-expression, theme 2: feminism and gender roles, theme 3: love and vulnerability, theme 4: family dynamics, theme 5: social hierarchy and peer pressure, theme 6: transformation and growth, theme 7: deception and reality, theme 8: rebellion and conformity, theme 9: tradition and modernity, theme 10: the complexities of adolescence.

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I'm trying to remember the last movie I saw that didn't end with a high school prom. "Ravenous,'' maybe. Even the next film I saw, "Never Been Kissed,'' ends with a prom. The high school romance genre has become so popular that it's running out of new ideas and has taken to recycling classic literature.

My colleague James Berardinelli made a list recently: "Clueless'' was based on Emma, "She's All That'' was inspired by "Pygmalion'' and "Cruel Intentions'' was recycled from "Les Liaisons Dangereuses'' (prompting Stanley Kauffmann to observe that it was better back in the days when high school students were allowed to take over city government for a day, instead of remaking French novels). To this list we might also add the film update of " Great Expectations " (1998), Cinderella's true story in "Ever After'' and "Romeo + Juliet,'' which was anything but. There's even "The Rage: Carrie 2''--a retread of "Carrie,'' a work that in my opinion ranks right up there with the best of Austen, Shaw and Shakespeare.

"10 Things I Hate About You'' is inspired, in a sortuva kinduva way, by Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew,'' in the same sense that "Starship Troopers'' was inspired by "Titus Andronicus.'' It doesn't remake Shakespeare so much as evoke him as a talisman, by setting its story at Padua High School, naming its characters Stratford and Verona, making one of the heroines a shrew, etc. There is even a scene where the shrew is assigned to rewrite a Shakespeare sonnet.

And yet ... gee, the movie is charming, despite its exhausted wheeze of an ancient recycled plot idea (boy takes bribe to ask girl to prom, then discovers that he really likes her--but then she finds out about the bribe and hates him). I haven't seen that idea in almost two months, since "She's All That'' (boy makes bet he can turn plain wallflower into prom queen, and does, but falls in love with her, after which she discovers, etc., etc.).

The story this time involves two Seattle sisters. Bianca Stratford ( Larisa Oleynik ) is popular and wears a lot of red dresses. Her shrewish older sister Katarina ( Julia Stiles ) is unpopular, never dates and is the class brain. (When the English teacher asks his class for reactions to a Hemingway novel, she snaps, "Hemingway was an alcoholic who hung around Picasso, hoping to nail his leftovers.'') Two guys want to take Bianca to the prom. One is shy and likable. The other is a blowhard. But Katarina's father ( Larry Miller ) has forbidden her to date until her older sister Kat starts going out. So they hatch a plot to persuade Patrick ( Heath Ledger ), the school outlaw, to ask her to the prom. He takes a $300 bribe, but then realizes that Kat is actually quite lovely, etc., and really falls in love with her, after which, etc.

I think we simply have to dump the entire plot and appreciate the performances and some of the jolliest scenes. I liked the spirit of the high school teachers. Allison Janney is the sex-mad counselor, and Daryl "Chill'' Mitchell is the English teacher who performs Shakespeare's sonnets as if they were rap lyrics. (I've got news for you: They work pretty well as rap, and I expect the album any day.) I also liked the sweet, tentative feeling between Ledger and Stiles. He has a scene that brings the whole movie to an enjoyable halt. Trying to win her heart, he waits until she's on the athletic field, and then sings "I love you baby'' over the P.A. system, having bribed the school's marching band to accompany him. Those scenes are worth the price of admission--almost. But then other scenes are a drag.

All teenage movies have at least one boring and endless party scene, in which everyone is wildly dressed, drunk and relentlessly colorful (in "Never Been Kissed,'' some of the kids come as the Village People). These scenes inevitably involve (a) a fight, (b) barfing, and (c) a tearful romantic breakup in front of everybody. That scene was tedious, and so was a scene where the would-be lovers throw paint balloons at each other. I know there has to be a scene of carefree, colorful frolic, but as I watched them rubbing paint in each other's hair, I began to yearn for that old standby, the obligatory Tilt-a-Whirl ride.

I liked the movie's spirit, the actors and some of the scenes. The music, much of it by the band Letters to Cleo, is subtle and inventive while still cheerful. The movie almost but not quite achieves liftoff against the gravitational pull of the tired story formula. Sometimes it's a mistake to have acting this charming; the characters become so engaging and spontaneous, we notice how they're trapped in the plot.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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10 Things I Hate About You (1999)

Rated PG-13 For Crude Sex-Related Humor and Dialogue, Alcohol and Drug-Related Scenes

David Krumholtz as Michael Eckman

Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Cameron James

Larisa Oleynik as Bianca Stratford

Julia Stiles as Katarina Stratford

Heath Ledger as Patrick Verona

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Why 10 Things I Hate About You is the Greatest Shakespeare Adaptation

Twenty years ago Heath Ledger danced his way down some bleachers and into film legend with an enthusiastic rendition of ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’. Its lack of vocal finesse coupled with a total commitment to the ridiculousness of unabashed romance perfectly sums up 10 Things I Hate About You . The top-tier teenage romcom remains just as sharp, funny, and joyous as it was in 1999 through a combination of the silly and heartfelt: the aforementioned Frankie Valli homage, Allison Janney’s foul-mouthed guidance counsellor, and the unparalleled “That must be Nigel with the brie” are all iconic. However, its highest achievement may be taking an outdated, unpleasant Shakespeare play and bringing out the clever, comic heart that still feels relevant and genuine. This feat marks 10 Things as a uniquely excellent adaptation and arguably the best screen reworking of Shakespeare.

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Simply put, films like West Side Story , She’s the Man , and The Lion King had much better source material ( Romeo and Juliet , Twelfth Night , and Hamlet respectively) so did not have quite as far to go; 10 Things took a B-rate and highly problematic Shakespeare play and turned it into pure gold. The Taming of the Shrew features some fun slapstick moments and the playwright’s trademark bawdy wit but replaces his better plays’ timeless introspection with chauvinistic sexual politics and broad generalisations. There is no question that Taming was a comedy in its time but making it funny today is impossible without substantial revisions, omissions, and/or reinterpretations. The easiest way to achieve this is to establish a subtextual spark between Katherina and Petruchio upon their first encounter, which is absent in the pun-filled but verbally abusive dialogue (the 1967 Franco Zeffirelli version, starring the then-married Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, takes this route). However, the words still take a fair amount of tongue-in-cheek delivery not to horrify – possibly this battle of wills was best suited for a modern high school and a moderate helping of feminist thought all along.

The climactic moment of truth – when the tempestuous heroine reveals her love/Stockholm Syndrome for her lover/master – is cringeworthy in both Shakespeare’s and screenwriters Karen McCullah and Kristen Smith’s hands. The effect, however, is massively different in each. The original is irredeemable, disturbing, and – when played straight as the Globe did in 2016 – downright tragic. 10 Things does not break Kat’s spirit; she is justly disillusioned by Patrick beginning their relationship with a bet, but genuine affection – and her reluctant awareness of Patrick’s sincere intentions – underlies her change of heart. Her ‘sonnet’ (which is not actually a sonnet, but she did not seem to be aiming for a high grade with this one) is absolute cornballs, but it is delivered with an aching sincerity that sells the hell out of the contrivance.

The gusto with which 10 Things pays homage to its source material prevents an abundance of over-the-top literalisms from feeling awkward. When Padua becomes the name of the high school instead of the city, Verona becomes Patrick’s last name and not his hometown, and Cameron’s “I burn, I pine, I perish” coexists with his later “And I’m back in the game!”, suspension of disbelief is no longer the goal. The knowing winks throughout could have been prime examples of so-bad-it’s-good but the silliness is met with such entire commitment that it is just plain good.

A less literal update is seen in the treatment of 10 Things ’ characters, all of whom (save the philandering Joey) are treated with far more heart and sympathy than Shakespeare’s originals. Yes, their high school woes may not be world-ending, but there is nothing but love in this story. Patrick is a classic bad boy whose willingness to sacrifice his dignity for the sake of his beloved subverts this trope while also possibly making him a perfect man – a far cry from the source material. Cameron, played by a baby-faced Joseph Gordon-Levitt, carries enough self-absorption without self-awareness to make his naivete endearing rather than bland. Larisa Oleynik’s Bianca gets the best makeover; while materialistic and lacking her sister’s academic drive, vacuity and subservience are replaced by forthrightness and autonomy. This character treatment does as much to strengthen the film’s feminist credentials as its revision of the central romance and heroine; allowing both Kat and Bianca complete dignity (well, except where ‘The Belly’ is concerned) and freedom to subvert the rebel/conformist dichotomy they seem to embody at the start.

However, the film’s greatest achievement is giving the titular shrew her voice. Kat is difficult, rude, and imperfect, but infinitely recognisable to all teenagers fighting a system that they feel is stacked against them. In Shakespeare, Katherina throws her barbs to her father and his friends in the opening scene, but her reputation is largely built by the words of the men around her. Much of her physical and verbal rebellions take place offstage. In 10 Things , Kat is introduced on her own terms as she drives up alongside a carful of popular kids, blaring ‘Bad Reputation’ and living up to its lyrics. She arrives like a whirlwind to Padua High School, tearing down prom posters and terrorising unskilled drivers. The script’s constant allegiance to Kat ensures that she does not need to be likeable at all times in order to be entirely lovable – a service afforded far too few female leads in film.

Perhaps 10 Things ’ only dramatic flaw is that it peaks too early: the first classroom scene not only establishes Kat’s personality and reputation in Padua High School but becomes a cutting, hilarious, and still-relevant discussion of intersection and privilege. Kat’s initial snap at Joey’s taunting – “I guess in this society, being male and an asshole makes you worthy of our time” – could have been written in 2019, and while her English teacher Mr Morgan is sympathetic to her cause (and her desire for some Sylvia Plath or Simone de Beauvoir on the curriculum) his exhaustion with this all-too-common occurrence is immediately established. The maddening situation takes on added humour when the teacher brutally calls Kat and her classmates out for their teenage myopia:

Mr. Morgan: And Kat, I want to thank you for your view. I know how difficult it must be for you to overcome all those years of upper middle-class suburban oppression. Must be tough. But the next time you storm the PTA crusading for better… lunch meat, or whatever it is you white girls complain about, ask them why they can’t buy a book written by a black man!

White Rastas: That’s right man!

Mr Morgan: Don’t even get me started on you two!

In about a minute of comedy gold, Kat’s crusade is both supported and picked to pieces – instead of an ideal, idealistic heroine, viewers are treated to a teenager with rough edges and limited life experiences whose heart is in the right place.

Ultimately, Kat is the one sent to Ms Perky’s office for causing a disruption while Joey gets off scot-free – under the laugh-out-lough humour of the classroom and the justified unrepentance that follows (“I still maintain that he kicked himself in the balls”), this injustice still stings. Her righteous anger does not have an outlet accepted by society or supported by the institutions she finds herself in. While one hopes that this situation becomes as outdated as Taming ’s wife-beating has, the compassionate, incisive commentary remains honest.

As with The Taming of the Shrew , not everything in 10 Things I Hate About You has aged gracefully (‘the plan’ comes to mind, not to mention some lamentable late-’90s fashion choices); however, its joyousness, hilarity, and wicked one-liners cement its status as a classic. The love it exudes for its characters – even at their most ridiculous teenage phases – elevates the high school romcom to a masterpiece of comic timing and genuine warmth. Ultimately, turning a fundamentally misogynistic text into a feminist narrative that respects and loves its characters, even at their most ridiculous teenage phases, remains a phenomenal feat of adaptation and reimagination.

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9 Unforgettable Life Lessons From "10 Things I Hate About You"

By De Elizabeth and Lauren Rearick

To say that 10 Things I Hate About You achieved icon status nearly instantaneously would not be an exaggeration.

The film, which hit theaters in 1999, posed a modern-day retelling of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew : popular high schooler Bianca Stratford (Larisa Oleynik) wasn’t allowed to date until her older outcast of a sister, Kat (Julia Stiles), accepted a date of her own. Mix together two of Bianca’s would-be suiters, a bribe gone wrong, a dramatic house party, and a climatic prom night, and you pretty much have all the necessary ingredients for a classic ‘90s teen rom-com .

But 10 Things was more than that. It was special, and continues to be special, in a way that is hard to define with one singular explanation. Perhaps it was the hilarious one-liners, many of which are still quotable today (“Can you ever just be whelmed?”). Or maybe it was the soundtrack, filled with nostalgic songs that have the ability to transport you back in time whenever you revisit them. Or maybe it was simply because of Heath Ledger , who stole our hearts the second he stepped into Ms. Perky’s office, joking: “Should I, uh, get the lights?”

Regardless of the whys and the hows, 10 Things I Hate About You wasn't just a movie; it taught us some serious life lessons — even ones we never knew we needed. (I haven’t, for example, had to bust someone out of detention, but at least I know how to do it if the occasion arises.) Ahead, here are some of the things we’ve learned from Kat, Bianca, Patrick, Cameron, and the rest of the 10 Things crew.

Don’t feel pressured to follow the crowd.

If there’s one thing that’s made clear right off the bat, it’s that Kat Stratford doesn’t play by the rules. We first meet Julia Stiles’s iconic character as she drives through town, blasting “ I don’t give a damn ‘bout my bad reputation ” in her convertible, glaring at the popular girls who dare pull up alongside her. While it can be easy to get caught up in the trends and pressures of high school, Kat serves as a reminder that it’s perfectly fine to march to the beat of your own drum without giving "a damn” about what anyone else thinks.

At the same time, it’s OK to let others see the real you.

Throughout the film, Kat puts up a front of being fearless. Her character is meant to be strong, resilient, and independent, and she was a role model for anyone aspiring to be all three. However, in one particularly moving scene , she reads a poem directed at Patrick (I can still recite it by heart). For a character who spent much of the film hiding how she truly felt, Kat breaks down, crying as she reveals how deeply she cares about Patrick. The scene served as a much-needed reminder of how important it is to let others see the real me. It’s OK to cry, even in public, and it’s definitely OK to admit “mostly, I hate the way I don't hate you, not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all."

There's no problem that music can't solve.

We all have our methods of coping with the daily stresses of life, and for Kat, her release was attending her favorite bands' concerts. Anytime I've ever felt overwhelmed, I've thought back to Kat, and how for one brief moment, the sounds of someone yelling alleviated just a tiny bit of her worries. Whether you choose to rock out to some seriously loud punk or you prefer something a lot softer on the ears, 10 Things taught me that music can always turn any bad day right around.

Life can be magical when you find someone as delightfully weird as you are.

Can we pause and talk about Kat's BFF Mandella for a second? Remember that whole subplot where she thinks she’s heading to prom with the William Shakespeare, despite the fact that, you know, he's been dead for centuries? Casual. Of course, it turns out that her Shakespeare is actually Michael, Cameron’s friend and mentor, and TBQH, I’ve never seen a more perfect match with fictional characters. Those two lovable weirdos are definitely still together in some universe!

Never underestimate the power of simply being kind.

Joey may have been the popular dude with the modeling contract, but at the end of the day, it was Cameron who captured Bianca’s heart. Sure, he wasn’t perfect (he did literally bribe Patrick to date her sister, after all), but it was clear that kindness was one of his best qualities, and he even taught Bianca a thing or two about being nice.

Our parents and guardians are often just trying their best.

Let's get one thing clear first: Kat's dad definitely had some undeniably sexist perspectives (yikes). But at the same time, he was clearly just giving parenting his all. Walter’s attempts at father-daughter talks may have been misguided, and even a little embarrassing ( no dating, until you graduate ), but at the end of the day, he loved his daughters. I may never understand why my parents banned MTV for a time, but like Walter, they were trying their best.

Appreciate your siblings.

Throughout the movie, Kat and Bianca are often arguing or avoiding each other in the hallways at school. As the story goes on, they both realize the importance of one another and their history. Their endearing, and sometimes rocky, relationship taught me that I can always count on my siblings to have my back. I don't know that my own brother and sister would necessarily be willing to throw a few punches for me at the school dance, but they are there anytime I need them.

Heath Ledger was a gem and should be cherished forever.

The moment that Heath performed " Can't Take My Eyes Off You " (complete with incredible dance moves and savvy hand-held microphone skills) pretty much cemented him as one of Hollywood's greatest. And while he went on to showcase his acting chops in other notable films, it’s hard to ever forget his complex and enigmatic portrayal of Patrick Verona. There’s no doubt that Heath was a legend taken from the world of Hollywood — and our hearts — way too soon, and he’s missed all the time.

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By Ashleigh Carter

By Sara Delgado

Last, but certainly not least, there’s a difference between “like” and “love.”

Say it with me now: “I like my Sketchers, but I love my Prada backpack.” Wiser words have never been spoken.

Let us slide into your DMs. Sign up for the Teen Vogue daily email .

Want more from Teen Vogue ? Check this out: The House From 10 Things I Hate About You Is on the Market

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Collider Movie Club Explores How '10 Things I Hate About You' Adapts Shakespeare for the Better

The Collider Movie Club team revisits '10 Things I Hate About You' and discusses why it's held up so well over the years.

Welcome to your second installment of Collider Movie Club ! Hosted by Coy Jandreau and Perri Nemiroff , Movie Club offers an in-depth exploration of the key themes, execution and impact of some of our favorite films. This week, Coy and Perri welcome Variety's  Angelique Jackson  to Movie Club to dig into the legacy of the 90s teen romantic comedy classic,  10 Thing I Hate About You .

The movie is largely credited with skyrocketing  Julie Stiles and  Heath Ledger to stardom for their work as Kat Stratford and Patrick Verona, respectively. The  Karen McCullah and  Kirsten Smith penned script successfully modernizes  William Shakespeare 's late-16th-century comedy, The Taming of the Shrew , setting their story in the 90s at a Seattle high school and using familiar teen dynamics to break down gender politics and stereotypes.  10 Things also features a rock solid supporting ensemble of many very familiar faces including  Joseph Gordon-Levitt ,  Larisa Oleyni k ,  Andrew Keegan ,  David Krumholtz and  Gabrielle Union .  You can check out the 10 Things I Hate About You  edition of Movie Club at the top of this article!

This episode of the show is brought to you by Movies Anywhere , a service designed for movie collectors that brings all of your favorite films together in one spot, even if they were purchased in different places. 10 Things I Hate About You  comes with the added bonus of being a Screen Pass title on Movies Anywhere. Screen Pass allows you to give someone access to your favorite movies, without them ever leaving your collection. So that means if you own 10 Things I Hate About You  and have a friend that never got around to watching it, you can send them a ScreenPass so they can catch up!

After you check out this 10 Things I Hate About You  edition of Collider Movie Club, stay tuned because we’ll be talking Mallrats  with writer-director  Kevin Smith  on next week’s installment.

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10 Things I Hate About You is as fresh as ever, even 20 years later

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On March 31, 1999, the teen comedy 10 Things I Hate About You hit theaters, and the world has never quite been the same. It boasts a cast on the cusp of stardom — Julia Stiles , Joseph Gordon-Levitt , and Heath Ledger among them, plus Allison Janney as the erotica-writing guidance counselor, just months before The West Wing debuted.

The film is remembered for more than serving as a breeding ground for a new generation of stars. It’s a pitch-perfect comedy, too. Based loosely on Shakespeare’s play The Taming of the Shrew , the movie told the story of two sisters in Seattle, Kat (Stiles) and Bianca (Larissa Oleynik), whose overbearing doctor father forbade them from dating in the fear that they’d come home knocked up. With her best friend Chastity (Gabrielle Union), Bianca is the school’s queen bee and the locus of attention for the guys, and she desperately wants to date; both greasy-haired hot rod Joey Donner (Andrew Keegan) and sweet new guy Cameron James (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) want to be the lucky guy.

But Bianca isn’t allowed to date till Kat does. So Cameron and his nerdy new friend Michael (David Krumholtz) hatch a plan to get Joey to hire Patrick Verona (Ledger) to take Kat out. The trouble is that Patrick is the kind of guy who smokes cigarettes in class and is rumored to have eaten a duck alive, beak to tail. And Kat is an angry feminist who would rather do anything than go out with him.

The film holds up wonderfully, 20 years after its debut, not least because it managed to subvert some of the seamier, culture-bound aspects of The Taming of the Shrew — a story about a man badgering his high-spirited wife into submission — and turn them into something contemporary and sharp, without losing the romance.

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of one of the greatest teen comedies ever made, Vox’s culture staff decided to talk through what makes it endure so well. Joining the conversation are associate culture editor Allegra Frank and culture reporters Aja Romano, Constance Grady, and Alissa Wilkinson.

Kat, the teenaged feminist

Alissa Wilkinson: For whatever reason, this is one of the few films I distinctly remember watching in college — probably via a pirated file, R.I.P. turn of the century easy file-sharing networks — and yet I think it took me years to realize it’s a Shakespeare adaptation, even though Taming of the Shrew was of course a play I’d read in high school.

Rewatching it recently, I was struck by how odd that is. It’s not like it’s hiding it in any way, or even that it’s very subtle (even Clueless , I think, tips its hand less about its source material, Jane Austen’s Emma ). I could write it off by blaming my own inattention to obvious detail, of course.

But I think part of what made me miss the archetype was that 10 Things I Hate About You feels so much like a movie of its moment, of 1999. I suppose you could say that of any movie, but the quips, the clothing, and especially the music make it feel extremely of that year, when I was in high school.

Not only that, but I think that, rhythm-wise, this one’s hard to beat. Sometimes it’s fast-paced; sometimes it’s slow and reflective; sometimes it’s outright sappy. But it hits every beat in a way that feels perfectly tuned for a teen romantic comedy. I won’t say it’s Shakespearean, obviously. But it lands its jokes and repartee, as well as its more tender moments, in ways that feel a tad reminiscent of the Bard.

It’s quite a movie to rewatch. It’s been a few years. And now the movie is turning 20. So when you look back on it, what do you think about?

Aja Romano: I have a lot of thoughts about Julia Stiles, but before I get to them, I’d like to touch on your point about 10 Things as an adaptation, because I think one of the most remarkable things about this film — which is honestly remarkable in so may ways — is the way in which it deftly balances a deep awareness of its source material with an energetic rejection of that source. The comparison to Clueless is significant here not just because of how contemporary both films feel ( Clueless almost feels like an alternate reality), but because of the ways they grapple with their contentious forebearers. The Taming of the Shrew and Emma both crucially pivot around their heroine’s absolute mortification at the hands of her romantic foil, A Man Who Teaches Her A Lesson About Herself — but where Clueless chooses to embrace and massage this moral by making everyone involved ridiculous, 10 Things decides to turn the anger of Shakespeare’s heroine inward in order to grapple with his misogyny head-on.

The most amazing thing about Kat to me is that she’s not just a ’90s feminist who’s ready to personally combat all the injustices women have been battling for centuries; she is herself an updated version of a character who’s personally born that injustice. Kate the Curst is the quintessential example — the trope-namer, if you will — of a female character who’s managed to overcome a misogynistic framing as the Shrill Woman, by enduring through the centuries as a stealth symbol of women’s independence and unconquerable fire.

And even knowing this, nothing prepared me, the first time I saw 10 Things 20 years ago, for how electrifying I found Julia Stiles’s Kat viciously asserting her right to be a bitch in a world that was prepared to demonize her no matter what. That she was still just a teenager made it even more radical to me at the time that she was both so fully conscious of the social rules she operated within and so fully prepared to reject them. The ease with which she repudiated both centuries of Shakespearean dogma and decades of high school rom-com tropes continues to feel like something of a miracle. There’s just no other heroine like her.

Constance Grady: 10 Things is one of the only successful adaptations of Taming of the Shrew that I know of, and plenty of people have tried to adapt it . It’s an impossible play. It’s brutally misogynistic: In Shakespeare’s original, Petrucchio deprives Katherine of food, sleep, and clothing until she agrees with whatever he says, essentially brainwashing her with abuse. But it also has so much force and fire, and the courtship battle between Katherine and Petrucchio seems so sexy at the beginning, that you understand exactly why so many directors and adaptors have tried to keep this play around. Isn’t there some way, you can hear them thinking, to make this story fun? After all, a heroine as fierce and funny as Katherine deserves nothing less.

Katherine wants so ferociously, and as a result puns so viciously, that she became one of Shakespeare’s most indelible heroines apparently against Shakespeare’s will. If his later heroines Rosalind and Beatrice and Viola are Katherine’s descendants — and there’s a solid argument to be made that they are — then in the long run, Katherine was the one who tamed her male author, not the other way around.

What makes 10 Things work is that it starts from the premise that Kat is correct to be angry. Her world is gross and misogynistic, and Kat has the tragic Joey “Eat Me” Donner backstory to prove it. Her anger is more than justified, and what makes Patrick worthy of her is that he respects her for her rage instead of trying to tame it out of her.

The only case in which Kat is shown to be wrong, in fact, is when she treats Bianca with disdain rather than sympathy, and lies to her rather than tell her the truth about the world. Their eventual rapprochement becomes one of the movie’s loveliest grace notes, and it’s part of what makes the movie’s feminism hold up. As far as 10 Things is concerned, Kat is right about everything except for the internalized misogyny that makes her despise her girly-girl little sister. Feminists are right to be angry, is the idea, but also girls should support other girls. We could do way worse with our teen movie lessons in 2019.

Allegra Frank: Constance, your read on Kat — that she is angry, and rightfully so, and not denigrated for it — is something that’s only resonated with me as I’ve grown up and out of my own angry young person phase.

When I was much younger, watching 10 Things I Hate About You all chopped up on cable TV, Kat’s relentless pessimism felt like a parody of the emotion that I felt so intensely. And I came into the story without that Shakespearean context, aside from a meager understanding that this was one of those modern, Shakespearean riffs common in the 1990s. So instead, I took 10 Things I Hate About You as another sardonic, untruthful teen movie: where the teen girls are just SO, SO MAD, and HATE BOYS, and then FALL FOR THE BOYS THEY HATE. It rang hollow.

But now that I can better see the forest for the trees, I find her discomfort, her frustration, her distrust of basic high school society to be, if not completely relatable, empathetic. Now that I am a woman who can maturely support other women instead of sneering at their lack of bratty bona fides, relationships like Kat’s with Bianca and with, well, most people in general is something that I appreciate, not judge.

But the one thing I instantly loved and always will? That scene where Heath Ledger sings and dances to “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You.” Please tell me I’m not alone in thinking this is the best part of the movie.

A cast on the cusp of stardom

Alissa: I do think you’re right, Allegra, that there’s at least a hint of the parody of Kat’s anger lurking around in the movie. There’s that scene where her black English teacher, Mr. Morgan (played by Daryl Mitchell) sardonically rags on her for her rich white girl problems, while he can’t get anyone to teach a novel by a black author. (The presence of the white kids who want to be Rastafarians sort of underlines the point.) She’s very angry, but also privileged and wealthy and not totally aware of it, being, you know, a teenager. But that doesn’t really undercut what she’s angry about , and I think that’s why it works so well.

I am with you on the “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You” scene from the film, especially since my understanding is that Heath Ledger basically improvised a bunch of it (which may explain how genuinely Julia Stiles seems to be laughing). I’ve also always been personally fond of the party scene where she dances on the table; it is shot and blocked very well, and also, it’s the first time you get to see what a decent guy Patrick actually is, when he takes care of her when she’s drunk. Someone noted on Twitter recently that it cuts through some of the BS about teenaged guys not understanding consent; she’s drunk, he’s not, and so he doesn’t kiss her. And in the last century !

I think we all have a lot of thoughts about Julia Stiles. What are yours?

Aja: On one level, Kat is very obviously meant to subvert the rom-com trope of the “serious” girl who learns to let her hair down and reveal a wild side that only her romantic paramour gets to see. In this story, Kat has a very good reason for keeping herself and her emotions tightly under wraps. But Julia Stiles is so fully embodied as Kat that she almost entirely subverts the whole trope long before we find out that there’s a plot reason for Kat’s uptight persona. She does such a tremendous job balancing Kat’s complicated personality, all her spirit and fire, with her charm and wit and abrasive likability, and above all her insistence on her own autonomy.

In every scene, she exudes complexity and a range of nuanced emotion that make her impossible to pigeonhole into any of those typical rom-com tropes: she’s not the shy wallflower turned bold party girl, she’s not the frigid bitch turned unexpectedly relaxed and mellow, she’s not the serious student who takes off her glasses to reveal a surprise hottie. She’s a fully realized teenage girl, and she’s not here to be the subject of a male-gaze-based fantasy; she completely undoes the shaky logic of all these tropes with a single shoulder shrug.

Julia Stiles’s independence as Kat also largely undermines the wager Patrick makes about her, because the movie makes it clear that she’s so conscious about her own choices that she’s well past the life stage of being manipulated by the ruse of a dumb bet. Heath Ledger’s Patrick clearly realizes this early on, and every scene in which she chooses to let him past her emotional walls reads like a victory, not for him, but for her , because she’s so consciously choosing to be vulnerable with him. That’s why the scene when she reads the poem is, in my opinion, so powerful — because Julia Stiles manages to make Kat fully in command of even her rawest emotions. Even when she learns about the bet, she’s never ashamed of having fallen for Patrick; instead she turns her emotional honesty into a final Hail Mary move to get what she wants.

(I feel really unqualified to talk about Kat as a fashion icon, but also I just really want to mention that as a genderqueer person, Kat’s wardrobe made entirely of dressed-down solid colors and subtly androgynous styles felt like a revelation to me at the time, and even though she finds her way into a shirt that has a subtle pattern in the final moments because she’s learned to get in touch with her feelings, she still lives for me as the no-bullshit ponytailed girl in the army fatigues, and I’m deeply grateful for her.)

Constance: Julia Stiles has a beautiful deadpan rage in this role, and she gives Kat an incredible sense of ambition: You really get the sense that this girl can’t wait to get the hell out of high school and move on somewhere that matters. Stiles made the role her own, so much so that I found myself offended by the very idea when I read recently that the director wanted to cast Katie Holmes as Kat instead. (I mean. Can you even imagine???)

But if we’re going to talk about the acting in 10 Things , we have to talk about the Heath Ledger of it all. Right? This movie was Ledger’s first major American role, his star-making turn, and he just exudes charisma in every frame. Julia Stiles, who I adore, has a tendency to go a little wooden at times, but Ledger’s presence is so loose-limbed and easy that he lets the audience skate right over any awkwardness that might have ensued.

He is so charismatic, in fact, that it took me many many years to realize that Patrick agreeing to try to manipulate a girl for money is objectively a kind of shitty thing to do. Who’s going to care about such petty concerns when Heath Ledger is doing that crinkly-jawed smile?

For me, it’s the combination of Kat’s take-no-bullshit personality and Ledger’s charisma, and the way they combine to preserve the playful eroticism of the source material while excising the misogyny, that makes 10 Things a classic. Well, that and the impeccable soundtrack. What about you?

Allegra: For me, this film is 100 percent Heath Ledger’s. I will concede to all of your points that Julia Stiles is maybe not the one-note, infuriating presence I found her to be in my own teen years, now that I am grown-ish enough to remove my own blinders.

But Australian man Heath Ledger somehow managed to completely assume the role of American teen dreamboat. Ledger is the embodiment of charm here, in ways that feel hard-won and not born of privilege or ulterior motives. That “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You” scene is still one of my favorites in history because of how it locks in amber the raw, rare talent that Ledger had — to be as silly as he was suave, as moving as he was able to move. It’s a gorgeously funny, vulnerable performance that is the stuff of lifelong crushes. And that never feels forced, or wrong, or frustrating; instead, I wish I could point to more teen movies of the era that had such an easy pair for us to root for.

“Can you ever just be whelmed ?”

Alissa: We’ve mentioned some of the most memorable scenes and quotes — this movie is endlessly quotable. (Much, I daresay, like the Bard.) To wrap things up, then: What do you think makes this film so quotable? And which quote do you return to as your favorite?

Aja: This is a really interesting question because obviously film magic is often down to the power of a good screenplay, and this one has a great screenplay by frequent collaborators Karen McCullah and Kirsten Smith, who went on to adapt Legally Blonde and contribute to She’s the Man . They clearly had their fingertips on the pulse of ’90s pop feminism — and on the intrinsically hilarious, poignant nature of teen girlhood. (McCullah based the film title on a diary she kept about her own high school boyfriend. Awwww.)

But they’re also helped out tremendously by the power of a great ensemble cast. Every line Allison Janney utters as the oversexed, over-her-job guidance counselor is pure gold, and we’ve already discussed Daryl Mitchell’s exasperated English teacher. Larisa Oleynik and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are adorably over-earnest as the B romance in a sea of teen actors all playing their parts to the hilt. (Shoutout to Joey’s model poses.) And even with all that, the line that gets me every time is David Leisure as Mr. Chapin stealing detention Cheetos for himself with a simple, “This too.” His line delivery here is perfection.

Constance: I have to give a shoutout to the oft-overlooked pop philosopher Bianca, as well as the immortal Gabrielle Union as her best friend Chastity. Michael sneers at their philosophical discussions (Bianca: “There’s a difference between like and love. Like, I like my Sketchers, but I love my Prada backpack”), but Michael’s the dude who thinks you should wear a tie to a house party so what does he know? My personal favorite is their discussion of English’s endlessly confusing etymology: “I know you can be overwhelmed, and you can be underwhelmed,” Chastity muses, “but can you ever just be whelmed?” “I think you can be in Europe!” Bianca chirps.

Incidentally, Bianca is right. You can be whelmed in Europe, or at least you could a few decades ago. (“Whelmed” used to mean exactly the same thing as “overwhelmed,” but it fell out of favor around the 1950s when the antonym “underwhelmed” started to pop up.)

Allegra: I’m going to be a sap here and throw out what may be the most memorable speech in a film full of so many great turns of phrase. I always failed to connect with Kat — until her big, emotional moment, where she reads the poem that lists off the 10 things she hates about Patrick. And that 10th thing gets me sniffling every time. Ah, to be young and in love and only slightly ashamed to admit it.

Alissa: I’ve always chuckled over the scene where Bianca tells Cameron that Kat’s black lingerie means she wants to have sex someday, and wondered how many teenagers scribbled mental notes about it.

But I’m the tiniest bit of a romantic, and so I also love that exchange between Patrick and Kat on the steps, where she tells him that she doesn’t like to live up to other people’s expectations instead of her own. “So you disappoint them from the start and then you’re covered, right?” he asks, and she agrees. “Then you screwed up,” he says. “You never disappointed me.” Awwwwwww. That’s the whole movie, right there.

10 Things I Hate About You turns 20 on Sunday, March 31. It’s available to digitally rent or purchase on iTunes , Amazon , YouTube , Vudu , and Google Play .

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10 Things I Hate About You

A high-school boy, Cameron, cannot date Bianca until her anti-social older sister, Kat, has a boyfriend. So, Cameron pays a mysterious boy, Patrick, to charm Kat. A high-school boy, Cameron, cannot date Bianca until her anti-social older sister, Kat, has a boyfriend. So, Cameron pays a mysterious boy, Patrick, to charm Kat. A high-school boy, Cameron, cannot date Bianca until her anti-social older sister, Kat, has a boyfriend. So, Cameron pays a mysterious boy, Patrick, to charm Kat.

• Karen McCullah
• Kirsten Smith
• William Shakespeare
• Heath Ledger
• Julia Stiles
• Joseph Gordon-Levitt
• 730 User reviews
• 121 Critic reviews
• 70 Metascore
• 2 wins & 13 nominations

• Patrick Verona

• Kat Stratford

• Cameron James
• (as Joseph-Gordon Levitt)

• Bianca Stratford

• Michael Eckman

• Joey Donner

• Walter Stratford

• (as Daryl 'Chill' Mitchell)

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• Trivia The entire film was shot using real locations. No sets were used.
• Goofs When Patrick and Kat are in the pedal boat, though they are pedaling, they do not move.

Mr. Morgan : All right... I assume everyone's found time to complete their poem... except... for Mr. Donner.

[starts laughing]

Mr. Morgan : Who has an excuse

[laughs even harder, then stops]

Mr. Morgan : . Shaft! Lose the glasses.

[Joey removes his sunglasses, revealing his bruised nose from his earlier confrontation with Bianca]

Mr. Morgan : All right... anyone brave enough to read theirs aloud?

[Everyone looks at each other, waiting to see who goes first, Kat finally raises her hand]

Kat Stratford : I will.

Mr. Morgan : [rolls his eyes and sighs] Lord, here we go.

Kat Stratford : I hate the way you talk to me, and the way you cut your hair. I hate the way you drive my car. I hate it when you stare. I hate your big dumb combat boots, and the way you read my mind. I hate you so much it makes me sick; it even makes me rhyme.

Kat Stratford : I hate it, I hate the way you're always right. I hate it when you lie. I hate it when you make me laugh, even worse when you make me cry.

[Kat's voice breaks and she looks at Patrick]

Kat Stratford : I hate it when you're not around, and the fact that you didn't call.

[starts to cry]

Kat Stratford : But mostly I hate the way I don't hate you. Not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all.

[Kat walks out the classroom]

• Crazy credits During the credits there are practical jokes made by cast and crew and also goofs - including scenes that didn't make the final cut.
• Alternate versions The first UK releases were cut by 1 second to achieve a "12" rating and removed a brief shot of a butterfly knife being flipped open. The cut was waived for the 2010 DVD.
• Connections Featured in Siskel & Ebert: The Matrix/10 Things I Hate About You/Cookie's Fortune/The Out-of-Towners/The Dreamlife of Angels (1999)
• Soundtracks One Week (Rock Remix) Written by Ed Robertson Performed by Barenaked Ladies Courtesy of Reprise Records By arrangement with Warner Special Products

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• March 31, 1999 (United States)
• United States
• 10 Điều Em Ghét Anh
• Stadium High School - 111 N. E Street, Tacoma, Washington, USA (Padua High School)
• Touchstone Pictures
• Jaret Entertainment
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $30,000,000 (estimated)
• $38,178,166
• Apr 4, 1999
• $53,685,286

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 37 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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Acknowledging the film’s creative license with regard to its source play ( The Taming of the Shrew ), this entry focuses on 10 Things I Hate About You ’s reception history and argues that the film’s popularity encourages some to search for its universally appealing elements, which echoes a trope about Shakespeare’s works (see Global Shakespeares: A Critical Introduction). In addition, fans of this film adaptation adopt an attitude towards 10 Things that the film itself promotes in relation to Shakespeare. Via the comically blunt English teacher, Mr. Morgan, the film directs its audience to revere Shakespeare even though he is “a dead white guy,” because his exceptional artistry bridges all historical and cultural contexts. 10 Thing ’s huge commercial success at the time of its 1999 release and its more recent social media tributes suggest that such reverence is likewise bestowed upon the film itself. Practically 20 years after the film’s release, fans appear to remain largely...

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Bertucci, Christopher. 2014. “Rethinking Binaries by Recovering Bianca in ‘10 Things I Hate About You’ and Zeffirelli’s ‘The Taming of the Shrew.’” Literature/Film Quarterly 42, (2): 414–26. https://www-jstor-org.proxygw.wrlc.org/stable/43798976 .

Cochran, Peter. 2013. Small-Screen Shakespeare . Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ProQuest Ebook Central.

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Hulbert, Jennifer, Wetmore, Jr., Kevin J., and Robert L. York. 2006. Shakespeare and Youth Culture . New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ProQuest Ebook Central.

Junger, Gil, director. 1999. 10 Things I Hate About You . Touchstone Pictures.

Union, Gabrielle (@gabunion). 2017. “Just a bunch of kids having the time of our lives up in Tacoma/Seattle…” Instagram photo, July 6, 2017, https://www.instagram.com/p/BWOGwkygq-s/?utm_source=ig_embed .

York, Robert L. 2006. “’Smells Like Teen Shakespirit’ Or, the Shakespearean Films of Julia Stiles.” In Shakespeare and Youth Culture , ed. Jennifer Hulbert, Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr., and Robert L. York, 57–115. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ProQuest Ebook Central.

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Falk, J. (2021). 10 Things I Hate About You (Dir. Gil Junger, USA, 1999). In: The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Global Shakespeare. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99378-2_2-2

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"10 Things I Hate About You" turns 25: How Kat Stratford inspired a generation of angry girls

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Let’s face it, we all wanted to be Julia Stiles ' Kat from “10 Things I Hate About You ," the '90s teen movie based on Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew." Like the play, the story centers on two sisters, Kat and Bianca Stratford (Larisa Oleynik).

The eldest, Kat is abrasive, rude and has one friend  — unlike Bianca, who is seemingly popular, obsessed with her Prada bag and yearns to start dating. There's just one problem: The girls' strict doctor father (Larry Miller) forbids Bianca from dating until Kat dates, too. This kicks off a variety of string-pulling scenarios that ultimately end up pushing Kat into the path of local Australian bad boy Patrick Verona ( Heath Ledger ), while Bianca debates between empty-headed Joey Donner (Andrew Keegan) or nerdy new kid, Cameron James ( Joseph Gordon-Levitt ).

Outside of the fluttering romance plot and teen hijinks, Kat’s anarchist vibe was bitingly cool, self-assured and unyielding in her feminism and beliefs. As such, she was labeled as her high school’s resident freak, and while her interests in “feminist prose and angry girl music of the indie rock persuasion” were too jarring for the movie’s Seattle high school suburbanites, they resonated with teen girls in real life — and have continued to do so for decades.

As "10 Things I Hate about You" turns 25, it's worth looking back at how the 1999 film never domesticated its 18-year-old protagonist and instead, through Kat's character and the movie's overall riot grrrl sensibilities, laid the groundwork for Kat and other angry girls to be just that — angry.

Before the film’s inception, in the early '90s, an underground punk feminist movement was born in Olympia, Washington that helped launch third-wave feminism into the stratosphere. As the birthplace of '90s punk, Seattle was a hub for male-centered rock and grunge and the riot grrrl movement — which was centered on a bedrock of feminism, punk music and radical politics — was founded as a response to the hypermasculine music scene. Essentially, women and girls wanted to use music to express their unbridled anger, rage and frustration.

It opened the door for women to air out their grievances, just like male rockers (and often, these grievances were born from the patriarchal system).

Riot grrrl bands ranged from Raincoats to Bikini Kill and Bratmobile. They sang songs about empowerment, rape culture and supporting and uplifting women. As a decentralized movement, the musicians and activists made art and zines; they organized protests and performances; and they did it while also sitting around and talking, elevating their listeners' consciousness of the issues about which they sang, the New York Times reported.

These punks also revolted against what it meant to be a stereotypical girl, rejecting the push of hyper-consumerist, capitalistic ideals projected onto women. This included throwing a middle finger at the dominant culture’s standards of beauty. Riot grrrls didn’t care much about fashion for its aesthetics or seemingly superficial purposes. They cared about fashion because it could mean they could make a statement with their bodies and clothes.

In many ways, Kat is the perfect example of what it meant to be involved in the riot grrrl movement in the late ‘90s. She is the school’s outcast because of her politics and sheer rage at the system. She doesn’t date boys because she detests them, only reads feminist literature and truly loves female-centered punk music. In class when her male English teacher, Mr. Morgan (Daryl Mitchell) suggests reading Ernest Hemingway, she questions why they don’t read any women. These are the “oppressive patriarchal values that dictate our education,” she said. “[Hemmingway] was an abusive, alcoholic misogynist who squandered half of his life hanging around Picasso trying to nail his leftovers.”

Instead, she suggested they should read Sylvia Plath, Simone de Beauvoir or Charlotte Bronte. After getting sent to the office for disrupting class, she tells the guidance counselor Ms. Perky ( Allison Janney ), “Expressing my opinion is not a terrorist action."

Outside of class, Kat's riot grrrl tendencies can be observed in her extracurriculars and her fashion sense. While attending a Letters to Cleo concert, she lets her emotional steel armor fall as she slips into a crowd filled with other women punk fans who understand her.

Kat's fashion, which leans more masculine with feminine statement pieces, looks particularly personal and lived-in. By the end of the film, she ditches her oversized cargos and baby tees for a delicate blue prom dress with a matching shawl after Patrick pleads with her to attend the dance. As her character further breaks free from her emotional armor, she pulls her hair back in a wispy French braid and adorns a flowy, feminine white top – the first time she wears white in the movie.

However, this makeover isn't indicative of Kat losing her principles, as is sometimes the case in films in which love changes a woman; it's indicative of her coming into herself.

This version of Kat never wavers in “10 Things” because of its clever writing duo, Karen McCullah and Kirsten Smith. They did not allow Kat to be turned into a submissive girl because she fell in love. They cut off the misogynistic trope of “taming the shrew” by its ankles before it could walk. Instead, they choose to transform the hedonistic and chauvinist Patrick. Before Patrick is propositioned to take Kat out, he is portrayed as scary, lonely and unapproachable. Sounds a bit like Kat.

The character’s deviance from all authority and especially male authority lives in her feminism, her clothes and her music taste. She knows that “in this society, being male and an a*****e makes you worthy of our time.” So in turn Kat fights back. She fights back by not being “what people expect. Why should I live up to other people's expectations instead of my own?” She even defies her father when he tries and fails to guilt trip her into not going to Sarah Lawrence. She tells him, “I want you to trust me to make my own choices and I want you to stop trying to control my life just because you can't control yours!”

When Kat finds out about Patrick's whole gimmick around dating her, he then buys her a guitar. While Kat says he can’t buy a guitar every time he messes up, he jokes and tells her he can buy her drums, a tambourine and other band instruments. Earlier in the film, Patrick also publicly humiliates himself for Kat by singing Frankie Valli's song, "Can't Take My Eyes off You" in front of the whole school. He softens for Kat and it's precisely because of her sincerity in her values and strength in personhood.

Ultimately, he's the shrew who gets tamed — I mean, c'mon, he even gives up smoking cigarettes for her.

In "10 Things," Kat proved to the world and media that women should never be tamed. The importance of autonomy and choosing to be angry can be a fruitful and healthy emotion for women. The shrew label never worked on her because her unabashed confidence and conviction were always painted as her strengths.

While the character learns how to soften herself and allow space for vulnerability, it never takes away from who she is at her core – it just adds to her greatness. In this depiction, Kat paved the way for characters like PJ (Rachel Sennott) and Josie ( Ayo Edebiri ) from “ Bottoms ” or even the leads in the Showtime drama “ Yellowjackets .” Like writers McCullah and Smith said in an interview with Decider, “a lot of teenage girls saw themselves [in Kat] for the first time—or a version of themselves they wanted to be: Someone who’s unafraid to say what she thinks and do what she wants.”

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10 Things I Hate About You Ending, Explained

A s a '90s romantic comedy, 10 Things I Hate About You had some serious competition. There was She’s All That and Notting Hill released the same year, and Clueless just a few years prior. The film, however, was a standout and did exceptionally at creating two teenage love stories that every girl is bound to experience throughout her life. Whether you are popular or an outcast, the relatability in 10 Things I Hate About You is portrayed with ease and believability by all the roles involved.

The film grossed $60.4 million at the box office and received positive reviews, scoring 71% on Rotten Tomatoes and an average B from CinemaScore. Actors like Heath Ledger, Julia Stiles, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt enliven the film by bringing laughter to the engaging dialogue. And the director, Gil Junger, who worked to correlate the film to William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew , went above and beyond to make the idea of a comedy made in the 1590s be as modernized as possible while still paralleling its main concept.

Bianca’s Crushes Make a Plan

When Kat who is an independent, intelligent, and introverted high school senior is her sister, Bianca’s, only way to date a guy, Bianca devises a plan with her classmate Cameron. When Cameron asks Bianca out, she informs him that her father demands that Bianca can only start dating if her older sister does. However, Kat isn’t so easily pleased. She'd rather keep to herself while reading books instead of facing the mortality of humanity.

Related: 10 Facts You Didn't Know About 10 Things I Hate About You

Cameron then bands together with his friend, Micheal, who proposes that Cameron hire someone to date Kat so that he can go out with Bianca. Cameron is apprehensive at first, but his longing for Bianca has him seeing stars. Bianca’s longtime crush, Joey, then finds out the same information and decides to recruit one of the school’s “bad boys” to start dating the dismissive Kat so that he may also take Bianca out on a date. Now it would fall on “bay boy” Patrick’s shoulders for both Cameron and Joey to ever get a chance with Bianca.

Patrick Tries to Woo Kat

After a $50 pledge to date Kat, Patrick takes the bargain and makes his way toward the scornful Kat. She instantly denies his interest. He then tries to relate to her through car talk — that doesn’t work either. However, there was a little window that opened when he put on the comedic charm . He then begins to enter Kay’s mind and heart, despite her not knowing about the bet he took to date her. Eventually, Patrick makes Joey pay him $100 per date, making the inevitable fall of the truth a hard pill to swallow for Kat.

Since Patrick was having a difficult time wooing Kat, Cameron and Micheal decide to teach him how to go about convincing her that she should date him. They propose that he meet her at the party happening that weekend, but through what measure would it take to convince Kat to actually go to the party?

Kat and Bianca Attend the Party Together

After seeing Kat dance at a local music show, Patrick finally knew how to relate to her. He begins to grow smitten, as does she. He asks her to go to the party, but she says no, again. Eventually, Kat decides to attend the party, meaning her sister also gets the ok to go, per the deal her father made with both daughters. Though it would be one of their father’s hardest days, the two girls would finally begin to see the high school experience for what it was.

At the party, Kat overdrinks, causing Patrick to drive her home. The two almost kiss, but Kat gets sick. Finally, their love story had some momentum. Bianca also enjoys herself while at the party, spending time with Joey as much as possible. Unfortunately, for Cameron, that meant his part of the deal was the shortest end as he watched Bianca walk away with Joey hand in hand. Patrick then gives Cameron a pep talk to continue pursuing Bianca, and to his surprise, it ends up working. Both Kat and Bianca just might have happy endings after all.

Patrick Backs Out of the Bet

After both Kat and Bianca are driven home from the party by Patrick and Cameron, things start to get more serious between each couple. Bianca kisses Cameron, giving him hope for their continued spark and Kat just can’t help but continue to fall for the one guy who is finally trying to understand her.

Having remorse about the bet, Patrick decides to break it, asking Joey to stop paying him, as his feelings for Kat are getting stronger. He then serenades Kat singing Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You while she is at her soccer practice. Embarrassing? No. Epic? Yes. He may have gotten chased down by security, but his grand gesture didn’t go unnoticed by Kat. She then breaks him out of the detention he got for doing so, and they begin to get closer, as their carefree personalities truly made a good pair. They go on dates, share kisses, and rest in the arms of each other, making for a relationship that any girl would be lucky to have.

Kat Finds Out About the Deal

Finally, the night of the prom arrives. First, Kat leaves to meet Patrick at the dance. Then, her sister Bianca is met at her door by Cameron. With some quick convincing, her father allows the pair to head off together. At first, the dance is everything it should be — compliments, roses, and dancing. However, it wouldn’t be long until Kat hears about the deal Patrick made with Joey and Cameron.

Related: 10 Things I Hate About You: Where the Cast Is Today

Displeased, Kat runs away, vowing to stay away from Patrick. He tries to tell her that he quit the deal, having denied the money just a few dates before the prom. But Kat wants nothing to do with the lies and deception. As for Bianca, her love story continues. It would take a little effort before Kat could have hers.

Kat and Patrick Reconcile

Though Kat is due to attend a college on the other side of the coast from her overbearing father, who only cares about her and Bianca’s best interests, she still has a place in her heart for Patrick — as does he for her. After Kat recites her 10 Things I Hate About You poetry piece aimed towards the pain she felt from Patrick, their story begins to heal. Not to mention, he also bought her a stellar guitar with all the money he was given to date her. Having apologized again, Kat forgives him and the two begin a serious relationship, making both Kat and Bianca some of the happiest girls with two great guys by their sides.

Codes in “10 Things I Hate About You” Movie Essay

Introduction.

Codes and conventions refer to the symbolic, written, audio and visual techniques used to pass a given message in artwork (Fenich, 2008). In the movie, “10 Things I hate about you”, it is fundamental to note that the characters, Bianca and Cameron have been used to show how codes and conventions can be used to define the character and role of movie characters in a movie.

Bianca is a charming, pretty young girl in college and a sister to Kate. She is used in scene development in the movie as she appears in most of the scenes in the movie. If not, she is being talked about in the different scenes. She plays a big role in the plot development because she contributes so much in the “10 Things I hate about you” as she acts as the hunted girl.

In the scene acted at the courtyard, it is fair to assert that Bianca is admirable. “What is there is a snotty little princess wearing a strategically planned sundress to make guys like us realizes we can never touch her,” Michael says this in a close-up camera shot. The close-up shot is meant to show the facial expressions that Michael puts to show how pretty and admirable Bianca is. The costume that she wears in this scene is also meant to show how admirable she is. (Elliot, 1834).

Bianca expresses innocence and honesty in the classroom scene during her French tuition by Cameron. The extreme close-up that zooms in Bianca and Cameron in the study room shows the innocence and honesty that is displayed on Bianca’s face when she says, “My dad just came up with a new rule. I can date when my sister does”. She says this innocently to Cameron when he puts to her that he knows that her dad does not allow his daughters to date.

In this scene, the facial expressions are exposed vividly with the support of music sound effects that play alongside to show how honest and innocent she is. She is also dressed in simple attire that shows how much she does not know about dating (Bryant, 1996). Her facial expressions and tonal voice reveal her desire to start dating if only her sister dates. Bianca is also depicted as protective and supportive, this is in the fighting scene where Joey punches Cameron, Bianca helps in the fight and they beat him up with Cameron leaving him in pain.

The full camera shots on them are meant to show the support and efforts that she puts in order to assist Cameron beat Joey for punching Cameron, for hurting her sister Kate and for paying Patrick to woo her sister. The aggressive sound effects in this scene are meant to show the efforts put to overpower an enemy by Bianca (Gross & ward, 2000).

Cameron can be said to be keen. This is evident in the Courtyard scene where he keenly looks at Bianca. He stares at her and says, “Look…look at the way she smiles, and look at her eyes, man. She’s totally pure. I mean you are missing what’s there”. He says this to Michael as the camera takes a close-up view of him and Bianca to show how he is keen on admiring Bianca’s beauty (Bangash, 2000). The sound effects in this scene also show the keenness in the facial expressions worn by Cameron (Fenich, 2008). Cameron is also depicted as being patient in the study hall scene with Bianca. Bianca says in French, “Let me ask you a question, Cameron.

When are you going to ask me out?” This is a clear indication of Cameron’s patience in asking Bianca out. The camera shots on Bianca and Cameron show how Bianca’s patience has accredited to his dream. The burst shot focused on him alone shows how happy he is and the long shot focused on Bianca as she walks away from him shows how she is tired of his patience (Mcmillin, 2006).

In conclusion, it is fair to conclude that the codes and conventions used in this movie are fundamental in defining the character traits of the characters and in the revelation of their roles in the movie. It depicts the character of each actor in the real self and it gives him individuality in the movie.

Bangash, M. Y. H. (2000). Structural detailing in steel: a comparative study of British, European and American codes and practices . London, Thomas Telford.

Bryant, J. M. (1996). Moral codes and social structure in ancient Greece: a sociology of Greek ethics from Homer to the Epicureans and Stoics . Albany, N.Y., State University of New York Press.

Elliot, J. (1834). The American diplomatic code embracing a collection of treaties and conventions between the United States and foreign powers: from 1778 to 1834 . Washington, Printed by J. Elliot, jun.

Fenich, G. G. (2008). Meetings, expositions, events, and conventions: an introduction to the industry . Upper Saddle River, N.J., Pearson/Prentice Hall.

Gross, L. S., & Ward, L. W. (2000). Electronic moviemaking . Australia, Wadsworth.

Mcmillin, S. (2006). The musical as drama: a study of the principles and conventions behind musical shows from Kern to Sondheim . Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press.

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"Codes in “10 Things I Hate About You” Movie." IvyPanda , 18 May 2021, ivypanda.com/essays/codes-in-10-things-i-hate-about-you-movie/.

IvyPanda . (2021) 'Codes in “10 Things I Hate About You” Movie'. 18 May.

IvyPanda . 2021. "Codes in “10 Things I Hate About You” Movie." May 18, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/codes-in-10-things-i-hate-about-you-movie/.

1. IvyPanda . "Codes in “10 Things I Hate About You” Movie." May 18, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/codes-in-10-things-i-hate-about-you-movie/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Codes in “10 Things I Hate About You” Movie." May 18, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/codes-in-10-things-i-hate-about-you-movie/.

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10 Things I Hate About You Is Just as Delightful—And Stylish—25 Years Later

By Hannah Jackson

Everyone grab your Prada backpacks and lace up your Sketchers, because 10 Things I Hate About You turns 25 today!

The 1999 film, which stars Julia Stiles , Larisa Oleynik, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Gabrielle Union , and the late Heath Ledger, is one of the many noughties films that gave one of the Bard’s classics a more modern revamp . (Or, to quote Mr. Morgan, “Now, I know Shakespeare’s a dead white guy, but he knows his shit, so we can overlook that.”) The Taming of the Shrew adaptation was equal parts imaginative and faithful—including its lively, of-the-times fashion.

10 Things ’ costuming helps to illustrate the divide between the central sisters: Stiles’s mercurial Kat and Oleynik’s bubbly Bianca Stratford. While Bianca is totally in line with the ’90s aesthetics, from her butterfly baby tee to her floral spaghetti strap dress, she’s also not afraid to take a fashion risk. Her two-piece prom dress—a pink taffeta boatneck top with a balletic pink tulle skirt—was daring, even by 1999’s standards.

But that doesn’t preclude Kat from having some eye-catching costumes. The elder sister’s dark wardrobe underscores her doom-and-gloom personality, from her camo-printed tank top, to her leather biker jacket. Even though Kat spends most of the movie a cynic, the costuming still managed to break through her tough exterior and show off her soft spot with her classic prom dress: an indigo number with a matching shawl and a string of pearls.

Even though the sisters were the focal point of the film, the costume department wasn’t slacking anywhere. The girls’ best friends, Chastity (Union) and Mandella (Susan May Pratt) also provided some impressive looks: Chastity reps Jean Paul Gaultier, while Mandella dons some stunning crocheted pieces and lace-up boots. And, of course, one of the best parts of revisiting our favorite films of yore is finding the cultural artifacts that have long since left the zeitgeist. Rewatching it and coming face to face with Kat’s black wedge flip flops and Bianca’s Doc Marten Mary-Janes is a shock to the system.

So, whether you’re in it for the fabulous ’90s fashions or the literary merit, 10 Things I Hate About You proves itself a worthy classic even after all these years.

By Hayley Maitland

By Deanna Pai

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10 Things I Hate About You Worksheet

Subject: English

Age range: 11-14

Resource type: Worksheet/Activity

Last updated

14 May 2024

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Description A simple question-answer worksheet designed to accompany watching of the film ‘10 Things I Hate About You’. This worksheet insists that students consider the basic principles of the film and of film making. Moreover, it encourages them to analysis and interpret the characters and themes presented through the film.

This activity is designed for film lessons in the English classroom. It is suitable for a range of age levels and abilities. Advised to be used for 11 years - 17 years.

Explanation : The worksheet is designed to be printed out. Throughout viewings of the film ‘10 Things I Hate About You’ students will be instructed to answer the questions on the worksheet. This is advised to be conducted during breaks in between watching of the film. This sheet can then be saved and used as revision in the future so that students have an easily accessible summary of the key points of the film. The questions encourage students to consider the basic points of film such as theme, characters, and behind the scene elements. But also insist that they expand on their answers and give full sentences to explain each of these elements.

Differentiation :

• Questions vary in difficulty.
• The questions get progressively more difficult so that students are not deterred, and they are eased into the work thus finding it more accessible.
• The worksheet is made using Comic Sans font.
• There is plenty of space dedicated for the students to write.
• Answers can be scaffolded by the teacher

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