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When I first paired William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew with Gil Junger's film adaptation 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), my students' responses to the juxtaposed works of art revealed a number of fascinating and deeply rooted ideological conflicts. While more than willing to dissect the gender trouble readily observable in Shakespeare's sixteenth-century play, my students steadily resisted any serious critique of the recent film version. In fact, one young pre-med/biology major blurted out with a touch of good-natured resentment, "I just like the movie, okay?" Other students valiantly rose to defend 10 Things and launched a number of arguments stressing the enlightened perspective on gender espoused by the film. Typical comments included: "The females in the movie were given more freedom to choose and decide for themselves," or "In this movie girls are given more power of choice . . . The film tries to even out the balance of power between men and women." And most comments of this kind ended with an evaluative statement much like the following: "I really enjoy the movie and feel they did a good job."
The students' enthusiastic responses to the film also voiced a number of striking contradictions. Although acknowledging the film's exploration of peer pressure and high school cliques, my students continually asserted for the main characters a basic level of independent subjectivity (characterized by volition or agency) entirely in contrast with the social context created by the film. The students who did recognize the film's treatment of peer pressure and socially formed identity were still at great pains to balance the peer pressure theme with the possibility of independent choice and identity. One young man wrote in a response activity:
In 10 Things I Hate About You the genders each still are bound to roles such as in the Shakespeare version. However, they are bound to those roles with different circumstances. In the movie they are bound to their roles because the high school social order causes them to want to be "cool." In my opinion, the movie shows the relationships as "people" instead of "control." . . . The roles may still be a bit uneven [between the genders] but the relationships I believe equal this out because in the...