Ten Things I Hate About You Essay (Article)

Inspired by “The Taming of the Shrew” play by William Shakespeare, the “10 Things I hate About You” movie commences with the main character, Cameron, Padua High new student, in the office of a quirky counselor Perky who is the guidance mistress. Michael procedure on to walk Cameron around the school compound and later, they become close friends clique.

When Michael is passing him through the orientation process, Cameron quickly notices a very beautiful blonde called Bianca Stratford from sophomore. Unfortunately, the only impediment towards getting to know her better is that she has no permission to date whatsoever just like Katrina, her ‘shrew’ sister.

Interestingly, Katrina is the opposite of Bianca in that she has fallen for feminist prose, indie rock, and totally despises conformity. Along the way, their father allows them to date on condition that Katrina had to have a date for Bianca to do so.

Thus, the dilemma to Cameron, who is interested in Bianca, is to fix a friend to date Katrina in order to be with Bianca. Fortunately, Michael comes to his rescue by tricking the pretty model collage mate called Joey Donner in believing that his only chance to get to Bianca would be paying someone to date Katrina.

Written in the Elizabethan Era, the play “The Taming of the Shrew” reflected upon the assumption of this era when men were perceived as superior to women. The theme of patriarchy as a status determination facet has been addressed by William Shakespeare.

This orientation was applied in status determination, and defining traditional values to be imposed on the womenfolk. Reflectively, modern appropriation seems to embrace the same trend though hidden in ‘parental protection’ assumption as presented in the movie, the “Ten Things I Hate About You” produced by Gill Junger.

In the Shakespeare’s era, the society had sophisticated speech as compared to the rugged informal one characters use in the movie. Though Shakespeare’s language was refined, the movie used colloquial dialect characterized by slangs such as ‘heinous bitch’ in reference to Katrina. In the Shakespearean text, ‘wild beast’ and ‘shrew’ was used to define Katharina’s character.

Generally, in the Renaissance era, men dominated and exercised authority quite regularly. Shakespeare’s Katharina is defined by Lucentio and Gremio in the first interaction as hell irrespective of her feelings. In comparison, Kat has enough freedom at the expense of her sister Bianca. As a form of rebellion form male dominance, the character Kat is independent and free to exert her feelings irrespective of the consequences.

Fathers in both writings reflect on society and culture across the generational transition. In the “Ten Things I Hate About You play”, Bianca’s father is over protective due to fears of alcohol and drugs influence on his daughters. He is not ready to allow the two teenagers to go into early sexual relations.

In contrast, Batista, Katharina’s father in the Shakespearean era, is eager to let go of his daughter into marriage due to fear of eroded family reputation. From this analysis, it is apparent that drug abuse and alcoholism was absent in the renaissance era.

Conclusively, it is clear that the “Ten Things I Hate About You” and “The Taming of the Shrew” share many themes which reflect on the nature of societal orientations in different span of time. Factually, the social, cultural, and historical context of Shakespeare’s play influenced the plot and themes in the film “Ten Things I hate About You”, especially on teen culture in the 20^th century.