10 Things I Hate About You
United States
1999
97 Min
Color
1.85:1
English
Synopsis
Updated version of William Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew, set at the fictional Padua High School in Tacoma where a new transfer student, Cameron, is interested in the popular sophomore Bianca Stratford. But Bianca’s overprotective and domineering father forbids Bianca to date unless her older sister Katerina, an unpopular and hostile senior, does. In a bid to get Katerina a boyfriend, Cameron sets up a plan to have the school stud, Joey Donnar, bribe Patrick Verona, an outcast senior with a rumor-filled past, to take the volatile Katerina out on dates so he can go to the school’s homecoming dance with Bianca. However, neither Pat or Kat expect their ‘going steady’ to lead where nobody expects it too. –IMDb
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McSmith
26Feb12
Saw this so many times in my childhood I somehow didn't realize how terrible and sexist it is. Funniest joke I never got before: Joey Donner's catchphrase is "eat me."
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McSmith
28Feb12
(Can't tell if your tone is sarcastic so going to respond as though it is not.) (I would like to write more, but going to post this now because I have finals this week and don't have time to write a fully-developed critique.) "Sexist" is perhaps a generalizing way to categorize it, but 10 Things has very troubling depictions of women. I know it's based on Taming of the Shrew, but I'm not going to get into that and judge this modern adaptation as its own text. Kat is the female character with whom I take the most offense. The other named female characters in the film—Bianca, Chastity, Mandella, and Ms. Perky—are presented as vapid or airheaded and so outside of the male characters, Kat is the personage with whom the viewer is guided to identify. She is presented as an "enlightened" young woman, who doesn't agree with the materialistic, patriarchal ideologies perpetuated in her school environment. Setting up Kat in this way provides a wonderful opportunity for a "bad ass" (but intelligent, motivated) female role model. Yet then in her conversation with Bianca, Kat reveals that she only became "enlightened" and stopped "caring what people think" after Joey forced her to have sex too soon—thus, the film strips its one enlightened female character of her power; it posits that a woman can only become liberated once she is wronged by a man; that a man is necessary for a woman to become self-actualized or mature intellectually. Kat's troubling path to female enlightenment is mirrored by her sister's—Bianca is presented as insipid, materialistic, and selfish, and she only gains some "backbone" and "personality" once she is wronged by Joey Donner (she learns he was trying to sleep with her on a bet) and punches him. She does beforehand decide to go to the dance with Cameron instead of Joey, but though we see Bianca becoming bored with Joey at Bogie Lowenstien's party, she is never shown discussing anything with Cameron besides their plans to set up Kat, and so her choice to go to prom with him over Joey does not make her appear to be any less shallow. Bianca's defining moment of "character growth" beyond her initial portrayal as a vacant, sun dress-wearing, Prada backpack-loving pinhead is only able to occur after the abuse of a man. The other female characters in the film offer no other paths to female empowerment. Chastity remains the vacuous Sketchers-fan from the beginning of the film, and her only development is to reveal herself as actually being manipulative and cold, not at all valuing her friendship with Bianca, and concerned only with her singular goal of finding a "man." Mandella, the only other "alternative" female in the film, is not exactly an empowering character as she is presented as bat-shit crazy, and besides she reveals that she only became an "outcast" because she was rejected by the others (she wants to go to prom, but no one's asked her). Ms. Perky is a female character in a "powerful" position as the school guidance character, but she also is crazy, and obsessed with male genitalia. These secondary female roles are so little developed that a viewer is essentially forced to identify with Kat or Bianca (who is so irritating that this would be unlikely, and who is really given no goals or objectives beyond being able to date), these male-created feminists, or the male characters. In terms of male characters, there are quite a variety presented—Cameron, Patrick, Michael, Joey, Mr. Stratford, and Mr. Morgan, as well as peripheral characters like Bogey Lowenstien, Nigel (with the brie!), and Mr. Chapin the gym teacher. Though Joey and Bogey are presented as jerks somewhat, these are all independent, self-sufficient characters, and none of their autonomy is presented as predicated upon any female act in the past. The narrative simplistically centers on these male protagonists' goals to sleep with female characters they know very little about, but these male characters are also presented as having other ambitions, for which they need no one else's help or permission—Joey with his modeling career, Michael and Bogey with their future MBAs, Mr. Stratford with his job as a doctor. Patrick is a character lacking much life ambition, but he is characterized much beyond Bianca, Chastity or Mandella—people view him as a one-dimensional stereotype, but really he defies expectations by being sweet, caring, smart and funny, unlike those female characters who have nothing beyond their surfaces. Cameron is a bit of a bland character, but he is at least able to set goals for himself (date Bianca) and has the skills to accomplish them. Kat, whose emancipation has already been discussed, is not even an independent character as she still needs her father's permission in terms of advancing her education (Sarah Lawrence) or expressing herself sexually (no dating till she graduates). Also notable is the fact that Michael and Cameron, and later Patrick, are also the only characters in the film presented with a "healthy" friendship. Though it is simplistically based around their "spank bank" goals, they are shown as trying to genuinely help each other, without the manipulative undertones of Bianca and Chastity's friendship. They also treat each other as equals, unlike Kat and Mandella's friendship, in which Kat, who is not shown hanging out with her friend beyond the school parking lot, says patronizing things to/about her ("Oh, Mandella"), and seems to consider herself better than this friend who is just her current only option inside the repressive confines of high school (she notably rants a about prom, but does not consider Mandella's opinion about this nor discuss with her any of the political/cultural sectors she is shown to be interested in). Not to say that any of the friendships presented in this film are particularly realistic or progressive, with no scenes depicting characters having particularly intellectual or stimulating conversations. And then of course there is the disturbing center of this film's narrative web of deception: a man paying another man to date a woman. Blah blah blah he ends up liking her, but this film suggests that Patrick never would have even considered a "scary," "independent" woman like Kat as a potential romantic partner were he not receiving some other (monetary) compensation. Cameron even compares dating a non-shallow person like Kat with jumping out of a plane. (To recap: the only "smart" females in the film (not counting any bandmembers because those are more cameos than characters): Kat, Mandella (crazy), Ms. Perky (crazy), that girl in English class (she thinks Hemingway is dreamy).) But even more than suggesting that someone would have to be paid to want to date a non-conformist lik Kat Stratford, at the conclusion to this film, she conforms! It is troubling the way in which she came to have her "enlightened" views, but even more troubling is even after she spends the film ranting about the consumer-driven philosophies to which she does not subscribe, it ends up working on her! Patrick betrays her, and he buys back her trust by purchasing her a guitar! She's been bought out! She's sold herself to the patriarchal, consumerist order! When Kat initially confesses to Patrick that she harbors secret musician-desires, it seems an extension of her rebelliousness, and Patrick is understandably surprised when Kat laments that she would not be able to succeed at this without her father's permission. Having Patrick buy Kat a guitar undermines any of the independence her musical freedom would represent; once again, a woman is shown able to pursue an alternative path only after a man has pushed her onto it (and in this instance, like with Sarah Lawrence, after giving his consent and monetary assistance). 10 Things I Hate About You is offensive towards women for its one-dimensional, unlikable female characters and distressing narrative that centers on men pursuing women purely as disposable sex objects. But most distressing of all is the characterization of its female protagonist: an "independent" woman paradoxically made so only because of and with the continuing help and permission of men, who by the end of the film abandons her progressive values once she meets "Mr. Right."
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Gabriel
12Dec11
I just have a really hard time not giving 5 stars to a '90s teen movie with a riot grrrl lead.
Lady Spiggott likes this
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