The Taming of the Shrew is not exactly the first Shakespeare play that would come to mind if you wanted to make a modern-day rom-com romp aimed at (let’s face it) teenage girls. And yet, somehow, director Gil Junger managed to make it work with 10 Things I Hate about You; a loosey-goosey adaption of the play. While you may not have known it is an adaptation of Shakespeare, you most certainly would have known it as the movie that first introduced us to the late Heath Ledger’s dreamy smile.
Why so serious, indeed.
Oh, and there were other people in it too.
The Taming of the Shrew is a notoriously misogynistic play. I mean, the rampant sexism is left unmasked even in its title. Critics and directors have taken different stances when it comes to Kate’s final speech, some reading it as a literal proclamation of submission to the husband, others reading it with an air of mischievousness and controlled rebellion. How you read it is up to you, but presumably the writers saw a glimmer of hope in Kate and were inspired to revive the play and transform it for an audience with more modern sensibilities.
Within the first few minutes of the film we are given the obligatory teen movie walk through their high school campus and all its clique-dom. This scene is an almost carbon copy of a scene from Clueless (1995) which is, interestingly enough, an adaption of Jane Austen’s Emma. Modern sensibilities, my butt! These tongue-in-cheek tours around the campus work to reinforce the established social hierarchies in the same way that Shakespeare’s introduction with Christopher Sly immediately brings them into the foreground in The Taming of the Shrew.
The teens in Clueless and 10 Things I Hate About You are reminded, as people have been reminded for centuries, that there are just some people who you cannot touch.
In this case, those people are Bianca Stratford (Larisa Oleynik) and Kat Stratford (Julia Stiles). They are reminded for two very different reasons; Bianca in that she is beautiful and fills out her floral sun dress nicely and Kat because, in short, flowers wilt when she walks by. We are first introduced to Kat with Joan Jett’s “I don’t give a damn about my reputation” blasting from her car radio. Apropos? Yes. Heavy-handed? Perhaps. But we get the point. She is not to be trifled with.
The shrew has balls. The shrew is also beautiful and indiscriminately bares her navel. The Joan Jett song, while effective, is actually misleading; Kat’s reputation, albeit as a “muling, rampalian wench” has been carefully cultivated over the years.
Ms. Perky: People perceive you as somewhat…
Kat Stratford: Tempestuous?
Ms. Perky: “Heinous bitch” is the term used most often.
For good reason, as it turns out. We are offered an explanation for her “tempestuous” attitude. And therein lies the inherent difference between The Taming of the Shrew and 10 Things I Hate about You – you respect Kat. You like her. And, by the end of the film, you understand her anger. I mean, sixteen year old me wanted to be her; to sit on my couch wearing a crop-top reading “The Bell Jar” or to be so waifish that I could balance (comfortably!) on a balcony railing doing something awesome like sketching or reading “The Feminine Mystique.”
Unfortunately, the feminist angle doesn’t stand up to the test of time. Watching it this time around I had to ask myself why, to show that she is letting her guard down, did she have to be seductively dancing on a table. I mean, how many strip clubs has this feminist high school student been to? And did she really have to cry in front of the whole class when she read her version of sonnet 141? In The Taming of the Shrew even Kate’s final speech is delivered sometimes defiantly, sometimes stoically, always confidently; never snivelling. Especially since Patrick Verona was no Petruchio.
Patrick (Heath Ledger) takes on the role of Petruchio rendering the violent misogynist into a tough-on-the-outside-tender-on-the-inside kind of scone (with Vegemite on it, of course). His bad boy persona quickly falls to the wayside as he undertakes the impossible feat of dating Kat Stratford. Cue Hollywood formula – he ends up kinda, sorta, didn’t-know-he-was-gonna, falling for her. A huge divergence from the play is that he is trying to relate to her, not break her. This is what ultimately softens her; there is a mutual respect.
While I love the movie, it is ultimately unbalanced in its love of all things Shakespeare. The colloquial/valley girl/teen lingo is punctuated with well placed quotes from Shakespeare such as, “I burn, I pine, I perish” (Act I, i). This works. The high school English teacher rapping Sonnet 141 – amazing. The song “Cruel to be Kind” by Letters to Cleo as a reference to a line from Hamlet, I can dig it. But then, it is revealed late in the movie that Kat’s best friend (who up to that point has barely been in the movie, by the way) is a Shakespeare devotee claiming that she is not simply a fan but that they are “involved.” This reference to the bard feels a little heavy-handed and I personally would have been happier if it had been left as simply a poster of Shakespeare in her locker where Jonathan Taylor Thomas should have been. Sometimes less is more.
I wonder if he ever got my letters.
And now is the time that I devolve into the obligatory “Things I hate” segment of the analysis (sorry, folks, I had to).
10 things I hate about this movie (even though I love this movie):
I hate that Patrick does not hold Kate’s hair back when she is hurling. She had a lot of hair.
I hate that Kate goes in to kiss him after hurling; it doesn’t seem to bother him. Gross.
I hate that Bianca and Cameron kiss tenderly despite the fact that his nose is bleeding.
I hate Kate’s version of sonnet 141 (and the poem the movie is named after) essentially sucks right up until the last couplet. And it makes her sound like a flake.
I hate that we don’t see the porno-writing-guidance counsellor with her “quivering bratwursts” nearly often enough.
I hate that we don’t see Larry Miller as the overbearing OB/GYN father nearly enough “Kissing isn’t what keeps me up to my elbows in placenta all day long.” Brilliant.
I hate that this is yet another teen movie that perpetuated the myth of the grand gesture (picture John Cusack standing in the rain with ghetto blaster over his head – now think back on your own life).
I hate that there are too many navels in this movie. Too many.
I hate that I couldn’t make this rhyme.
But mostly I hate the way I don’t hate this movie. Not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all.
Why not watch the whole thing?
Laura still plays for the Bard Brawl farm team and studied English Literature and Playwriting at Concordia University.
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