Film Vs Play

How do the film’s makers of “10 Things I hate about you” keep the same story as William Shakespeare’s play “The Taming of the Shrew” and still have the movie make sense in a new setting? Obviously it would be very difficult to keep the exact same story with the change in setting. “The Taming of the Shrew” is set in Padua, a city-state in Italy, presumably during the Italian Renaissance. Whereas the movie “10 Things I hate about you” is set in a high school named Padua in modern day. Moreover, there are many other similarities and differences between the play and the movie. These similarities and differences lie within the characters, conflicts, and themes of the play and the movie.

The majority of correspondences and variations between the theatrical production and the motion picture rest within the characters of the two. In the comedy the main characters are Katherine and Petruchio, and story involves Petruchio taming, “the shrew”, Katherine. They are the equivalent of Kat and Patrick in the movie. In the play Petruchio goes about taming Katherine in a shrewish manner by keeping her hungry, uncomfortable, and sleep deprived, but all under a pretence of kindness. However, in the movie Patrick does the exact opposite by changing himself, for example Patrick quit smoking. Also, Patrick is very kind to Kat and shows her that not all guys are jerks to eventually calm her into a less shrewish woman, but not entirely compliant like Katherine. Another main character is Bianca, whose name remains the same in the play and the film. In the play Bianca is assumed to be a nice person, conversely at the end of the play it seems that she is not what she appears to be when she doesn’t answer Lucentio’s call. However, Bianca’s personality stays the same throughout the movie. Lastly, there is Lucentio and Cameron. Lucentio impersonates a Latin tutor to become close with Bianca in the play. In the movie, Cameron poses as a French tutor to get closer to Bianca. Both Lucentio and Cameron assume the personality of Bianca without getting to know her first. Consequently, they both assumed just a little too much. Cameron did not realize how much Bianca was into herself, and Lucentio did not find out until the end of the play that Bianca was not as nice as she was made out to be.

The theme of the film is very different from the theme of the play; however the themes still have some similarities. The theme of the play is the economic aspects of marriage—majorly, how economic considerations determine who marries whom. This reflects the opening scene of the movie when the social hierarchy is introduced with the cliques at Padua High School. But, the theme of the movie is to be true to oneself. This is shown when Bianca chooses Cameron over the more popular boy, Joey.

The main conflict of the play also involves social standings of the family, for example Bianca could not get married until Katherine did first; this was because of the social standings of Baptista, Katherine and Bianca’s father. Eventually Katherine does get married, which allows Bianca to get married. Baptista is happy that his two daughters are finally married because he will not have to pay for them anymore. In contrast, in the movie the dad simply does not want either daughter to date because he understands the horrors of teen pregnancy. But, he knows how much Bianca wants to be allowed to date and he knows Kat would probably never date. So he changes the rule to Bianca can date when Kat does. However, Kat does start to date. The father is not exactly happy about this, but he learns in the end that he needs to stop trying to control his daughters’ lives.

In conclusion, the film’s makers of “10 Things I hate about you” keep the same story as William Shakespeare’s play “The Taming of the Shrew” and still have the movie make sense in a new setting. They accomplished this by changing the city-state of Italy, Padua, into a high school named Padua, and reintroduced the story into modern times. There are still some major differences, but there are also many similarities. These differences and similarities are within the characters, the conflicts, and the themes of both the play and the film.