10 Things I Hate Bout U

I have heard this comparison many times, and, because I had such a wonderful English teacher in high school, years ago, after reading Shakespeare's Taming Of The Shrew, we watched 10 Things I Hate About You (1999).

Firstly, the character lists deserve mention: in Shakespeare's Taming Of The Shrew, "the shrew" refers to Katherine, and, in the film, "the shrew" corresponds to Katarina (or 'Kat'); in the play, the "tamer of the shrew" refers to Petruccio, while the "tamer" in the film corresponds to Patrick (or 'Pat'). Obviously, this seems no coincidence - from their names to their nicknames rhyming. Katherine's and Katarina's sister in both the play and film have the same name, Bianca.

In terms of the plot of Taming Of The Shrew, Baptista (the very wealthy father of Katherine and Bianca) desires to find husbands for both his daughters, offering a fine dowry; Bianca, the younger and fairer, gets more offers for marriage, but Baptista, for some reason, desires his eldest, Katherine, the "shrew," to marry first, restricting Bianca. From there, the character who desires Bianca, Lucentio, finds Petruccio, who only wants to marry, to "tame" Katherine, so Lucentio accordingly can marry Bianca.

10 Things I Hate About You works in an entirely modernized similar plot; Walter (the father of Kat and Bianca), of course, desires the best for his daugters, as fathers ought. To Bianca's demise, their father restricts her dating without Kat dating as well; Bianca, the more popular, extraverted, and absent-minded of the two, for her reasons, gets frustrated at her sister, Kat, who seems incapable of any positive human interaction. For an upcoming dance, Bianca has a choice between two dates, Joey and Cameron, but her two rivalling dates find Pat, a rebellious teenager who plays the "shrew," and, who they think, may attract Kat, since, of course, Bianca cannot date without Kat. Through Pat's often ridiculous and hilarious attempts, he wins Kat's heart, "taming" her anti-social ways.

Hopefully this has helped, anyway, and I wish you luck. For references, which you may find helpful, I referred all of this material from these two websites: SparkNote's commentary on Taming Of The Shrew by William Shakespeare and IMDB's information and reviews on 10 Things I Hate About You.