Back to the Future

10 Things I Hate About You, a film directed by Gil Junger, is a great movie that people still watch even though it is almost 15 years old. The film is based on Shakespeare’s romantic comedy, The Taming of the Shrew, but has been made to be understood by people in the 90's. America has made some huge technological advances since the 17th century. Technology plays a huge part in our life from the internet to even the movies. The film explores the ideas of dating, individualism and trust. In contrast to The Taming of the Shrew, 10 Things I Hate About You was created to encourage female independence and control, a huge event in American history that effected the way both of them were written. Even though , the film still results to traditional views on dating and the archetypal “knight in shining armour” that every girl should find. With previous sexist views aside, and further use of the five elements of fiction writing; plot, characters, setting, theme and style, The Taming of the Shrew has been transformed into a teenage classic, in the form of 10 Things I Hate About You.

Dating; an unavoidable element of teenage life, often something teenagers feel pressured into doing. This is no different in 10 Things I Hate About You. The film is set in a 1990's American high school, Padua Stadium High School. The use of setting by the writers of the film, Karen McCullah Lutz and Kristen Smith, are effective in expressing the obsessions 90’s teenage American’s had with labelling their relationships. In The Taming of the Shrew (created in the 1500’s), marriage is a union of relationship that the contextual society obsessed over. In 10 Things I Hate About You (released in the late 1990’s), this has been appropriated, and dating has become a form of relationship that everyone obsesses over, especially in high school. Dating is shown as a result of peer pressure, Bianca constantly states, “I’m the only girl in school that doesn’t date”. She feels pressured by her