Poetic tears

Monologues and voiceover narration series – article III: In 10 Things I Hate About You (1999) which is loosely based on William Shakespeare’s comedy The Taming of the Shrew, the central character Katarina Stratford (played by Julia Styles) expresses her feeling for her love with this poem.

⚫THE POEM

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

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

I hate it when you’re not around
and the fact that you didn’t call

But mostly, I hate the way
I don’t hate you, not even close
not even a little bit, not even at all…
•••

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From the start, screenplay writers build up the literary context of the film. Throughout the narrative various elements works to get us to hold and merge us organically in the literary contexts. Some of those are for buildup the character’s personality; like Katarina and her bestie Mandella, and some elements are used as jokes, making fun of others, and cracking laughter on the screen. Those elements are:

Katarina’s character setup:

1. Katarina’s argument in the classroom: In the first high school scene, they established an art college and literature students, and Katarina’s character is proud, antisocial, a bookaholic, and a girl with her own thoughts. a non-conformist feminine girl by opposing to girl from the classroom on her thought on Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises is so romantic novel by saying Hemingway was abusive and alcoholic who waste half his life hanging around Picasso trying to nail his leftovers.
   This establishes Katarina as different from other girls.
   
   Romantic! Hemingway?
   
   
   
2. In her own time: At home, she reads Sylvia Plath’s novel The Bell Jar.
   
   
   

Comic elements:

1. Camron tries to impress Bianca by teaching her French.
   
   
   
2. Patrick drilled Camron’s French book when he approaches him with Michael for a fake dating proposal, and Michel looking for the next view from that hole. (What should we gonna take the next step?)
   
   
   
3. Camron continues to teach her with the same book.
   
   
   

Shakespeare’s sonnet in their own version:

Before heading to the climax scene where Katarina expressed her feeling in poetry, Classteacher Mr. Morgan gives the task to students to write their version of poetry inspired by Shakespeare’s sonnet and perform in their own way. At this point, one paternal change happens, this time Kat is absolutely impressed and she thinks it is a good idea which surprised Mr. Morgan that Kat doesn’t argue this time.



Developing Mandella’s character a big Shakespeare fan:

Before Katarina’s poem at the climax, the creators start to build Shakespere’s world more profoundly with Mandella’s character. Mandell, Kat’s best friend, a big fan of William Shakespeare.

More than a fan… We’re involved!



Before going to the prom night party, where Patrick’s setup was gonna reveal, they used Mandell and Michel, a new couple in 16th-century Shakespearean getup to make an aura before the performance of Katarina’s sonnet. And using this as a foreground before the climax.

^{O fair one,
Join me at the prom.
I will be waiting.
Love.
William S.}

And we reached at the point:

After the prom night party, again Kat had a bad experience of the prom night that she experience before and hated that culture for a long time. This situation adds emotional value to her sonnet and the climax poem scene.

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