To Count as a Girl

Misdirection in 10 Things I Hate About You

Authors

  • Rachael McLennan University of East Anglia

Keywords:

10 Things I Hate About You, Taming of the Shrew, Film Studies, Feminism

Abstract

Critical readings of 10 Things I Hate About You have primarily focused on whether, and to what extent, Kat has relinquished the feminist values she displays prior to her "taming" and usually claim that the film is conservative in its treatment of gender. This article complicates such readings. It focuses on the poem Kat reads and performs at the film's conclusion in order to argue that the strategy of misdirection is vital for understanding that ambiguity is key to the film's foregrounding and treatment of 1990s adolescent girlhood.

Author Biography

Rachael McLennan, University of East Anglia

Dr. Rachael McLennan is Senior Lecturer in American Literature and Culture in the Department of American Studies, University of East Anglia. Her research interests focus on adolescence and ageing in American literature, and American Autobiography. She is the author of American Autobiography (Edinburgh University Press, 2013), Developing Figures: Adolescence, America and Postwar Fiction (Palgrave, 2009), and several articles. She is currently working on a monograph on representations of Anne Frank in American literature.

Issue Cover text: B&L, Vol. 9, No. 1, 204. Image: Two actresses in an adaptation of the Tempest wade together on a shoreline, hands clasped.

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Published

2014-05-01

Issue

Vol. 9 No. 1 (2014): Girls and Girlhood in Adaptations of Shakespeare

Section

Articles