Taming of the Shrew Vs. Ten Things I Hate About You

             The movie "Ten Things I Hate About You" is successful in capturing the essence of the Shakespeare play "Taming of the Shrew" to an extent because it has a similar story line and characters but many subtle differences as well. To start things off, love at first sight happens in both the movie and play. Bianca is shown as a very beautiful girl and has many guys chasing after her. Cameron, which is Lucentio in the play, falls in love with Bianca as soon as he sees her, and makes a plan to become her tutor. This leads to the young man becoming something he is not to woo, the cliche, girl of his dreams. Although Lucentio wears a disguise to hide his true appearance, Cameron attempts to disguise the fact that he doesn't exactly know french by preparing a little ahead of time and simply reading phrases out of the textbook. Regardless of their alternate egos, the stunning Bianca begins to show a slight interest in Lucentio and Cameron. Very much like these characters being alike, Katherine and Kat also have similar traits. Katherine is "renowned in Padua for her scolding tongue" (1.2.97) and refuses to conform to marriage just because its what her father wants. She is shown as a girl who could care less about her appearance, and what others think. Similarly, Kat is shown as an introverted, social outcast, "heinous bitch" who refuses to show her real feelings and be a "normal teenager". Kat could be called a duplicate of Katherine in terms of personalities, but the main difference is that Kat shows more modernized traits.
Although these similar aspects are seen throughout the movie and play, some subtle differences are also evident. For example, despite the fact that Patrick is paid to "tame" Kat and Petruchio to tame Katherine, they're ideas of taming were very different. Petruchio is shown rather disrespectful and mean towards Katherine by starving her and depriving her of sleep. While Patrick knows there is a softer side to Kat and persistently tries to be nice to her and even sings her a song to win Kat's heart, which many may agree is necessary to fit with the modern society's way of thinking. In the end, Katherine agrees to the taming mainly since she realizes her getting rid of Petruchio is impossible whereas Kat develops sincere feelings for Patrick as he did for her as well. Other subtle differences are that in the movie, the character of Hortensio, Joey, is shown as a self-centered jerk that is only after Bianca because of the challenge of getting her. But in the play, he is a rather likable fellow who is after her for the same reason as Lucentio, shes "the jewel of [his] life" (1.2.115) and he loves her. All in all, the movie does capture the important themes and character traits of the play, but if one was to look deeper into the plot line, there are several subtle differences which are also there.