10 Things I Hate About You screenwriters Karen McCullah and Kirsten “Kiwi” Smith have nothing but love for this surprise hit romantic comedy Anyone but youwhich recently became the highest-grossing Shakespeare adaptation of all time, as a modern version of A lot of noise for nothing.
“(Anyone but you) is doing the Lord’s work,” Smith said with a laugh during a recent phone interview with Decider. “It brings romantic comedies back to life. It’s Shakespeare. We have asshole singing. What more do we need? »
His longtime writing partner, McCullah, agreed and added emphatically, “Romantic comedies are alive again. Thank God for this film.
But the writing duo is not opposed to a little competition, if, for example, as several X users have suggested in reaction to Anyone but yourecord profits – Disney had to re-release their modern adaptation of William Shakespeare The Taming of the Shrewa.k.a 10 Things I Hate About You.
“Come on Disney, here we go!” » » enthused Smith. “Let’s do a 4K restoration!” »
Twenty-five years ago today, in 1999, 10 Things I Hate About You opened in theaters. For many, it has become THE Definitive teen romantic comedy. Julia Stiles starred as Katarina (aka “Kat”), the strong-willed so-called “shrew”, whom Heath Ledger’s Petruchio (aka “Patrick”) must “tame” in order for her to date him. For what? Because the school’s new kid, Cameron (played by Joseph Gordon Levitt), along with the school’s rich, popular jock, Joey (Andrew Keegan), want to date Kat’s pretty, preppy sister, Bianca (Larisa Oleynik). ). Their strict father (Larry Miller) has a rule that Bianca can’t date Kat until Kat does, so the boys plan to pay the class bad boy, Patrick, to eliminate Kat. Obviously, shenanigans ensue, and Kat and Patrick end up falling in love for real.
McCullah and Smith cleverly translated the twists and turns of a 400-year-old play into the politics of ’90s high school life, with some major changes, of course. Most notably, in Shakespeare’s play, the taming is a success and Katherina delivers a final monologue to her fellow women on the importance of obeying men. This is not the case in 10 things. Kat’s punk rock, riot grrrl The attitude is firmly in place by the end of the film, and it’s Patrick who has to crawl to win her back.
“In that kind of early ’90s feminism, there was a lot of reclamation of words like ‘cunt’ and ‘slut,'” Smith explained. “I think maybe we did that for the ‘shrews,’ making it a powerful, provocative dance, as opposed to an insult that you call a strong woman.”
McCullah added: “It didn’t seem like we were choosing a misogynistic play. It was like we were telling a story like, “Oh, these guys think they can tame this girl. Isn’t that hilarious?’ » She’s not entirely convinced of Katherina’s opinion either. The Taming of the Shrew monologue is as sexist as it sounds. “I think it’s very winking. She tells the other women, ‘If you accept this and let them think they’ve won, you can do whatever you want.’ But I’m sure many British academics would disagree with me. »
Regardless, the writers found the Bard’s characters to be a perfect fit for modern teenage life. “Shakespeare’s characters are always very talkative,” McCullah explained. “There’s always some kind of shenanigans going on. There’s gossip. There’s people getting into business that’s not theirs. It totally fits the mold of a high school.
They were inspired by Amy Heckerling Distraughta 1995 adaptation of Jane Austen Emma it has become a cultural phenomenon. McCullah and Smith spent months scouring the library for public domain stories that could translate into a modern teen film, until a friend suggested they try. The Taming of the Shrew. THE 10 things The headline, as reported in a 2018 BuzzFeed profile, came from a list McCullah kept about an ex-boyfriend. The pair wrote the script to spec, Disney bought it, and Gil Junger was brought in to direct. Stiles and Ledger – both relatively unknown at the time, with Ledger arriving from Australia – were cast in the lead roles and brought a chemistry so electric that, according to Smith, it forever altered the film genre of “teen comedy”. to “romance”.
“We always thought of it as a female-led teen comedy, a group teen comedy,” Smith said. “It’s just a testament to the power of Heath’s performance and the chemistry between him and Julia – how it created this beating heart of a romance – that people really remember it as a romantic film, more than like a teen movie.”
People also remember Kat Stratford as one of many beloved teenage protagonists – alongside Buffy Summers and Veronica Mars – who offered young girls a role model who unapologetically spoke her mind. The ’90s and ’00s were an exciting time for angry female characters, because, as McCullah said, “a lot of teenage girls were seeing themselves for the first time — or a version of themselves that they wanted to be: someone who is not afraid to say what they want to be. she thinks and does what she wants.
McCullah offered a theory as to why beloved “angry girl” archetypes like Kat have gone out of fashion: “All angry girl movies now are mostly dramas about MeToo or abuse…Women who speak Or She says. But in comedies, this subject is not treated only as a subject of everyday life. This has now become a problematic feature of cinema.
Smith agreed and added that Kat’s anger was a “weirder character trait” at the time. “Activism is a louder, grander, maybe sometimes more performative thing that happens all the time. By the time we created Kat, she was a little more marginal.
A little after 10 thingsMcCullah and Smith went on to create another iconic, though significantly less angry, female character: Elle Woods, from the 2001 film. Blonde’s Revenge. It was an even bigger success than their first film. The surprise success of Anyone but youSmith said, reminds him of the way Blonde’s Revenge took off. “There’s just something joyful about audiences experiencing a mid- or lower-budget, character- and movie-star-driven film with new and unexpected stars,” Smith said. “It feels like it’s coming out of nowhere and the audience is taking it on. What kind of success have we felt with Blonde’s Revenge– it surprises studios and hopefully reminds them that these films are the ones that people really, truly fall in love with.
There is now ample evidence that modern adaptations of Shakespeare fall into this category. 10 Things I Hate About You grossed $60.4 million at the worldwide box office, which may not be quite the runaway success that Anyone but you appreciated ($216 million worldwide), but was still a success. (As McCullah pointed out, $60 million in 1999 dollars is closer to $113 million in 2024 dollars when adjusted for inflation – not to mention the untold millions the film has generated in rentals, DVD sales and in endless reruns on basic cable.), alongside co-writer Ewan Leslie, returned to the Shakespeare formula with another modern adaptation, She is the manthe comedy directed by Amanda Bynes in 2006 which retold Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night. Once again, it was a success, at the box office, in the home video market, and in high school literature classes across the country.
McCullah and Smith later wrote The rabbit house (2008), The sad truth (2009), and more recently, the history of Disney’s Inside Out 2. (The couple teased a new upcoming project with 10 things producer Andrew Lazar, but declined to share details.) But they will always have a soft spot for their firstborn, now 25, and for the Shakespeare play that inspired his creation. So why didn’t they return to the Bard for another modern adaptation?
“We were pretty naive, anti-corporate and anti-brand,” Smith explained. “We weren’t going to let this define us!” We wanted to write other things, other genres and other eras. But after seeing the money made by Anyone but you, Smith conceded, laughing: “We probably should have happily stayed on the Shakespeare train.” But it’s not too late! »
“We welcome suggestions (for Shakespeare’s plays), if you would like to conduct a survey of your readers,” McCullah added wryly. “We need to find an obscure one that no one knows about.”
New York Post
