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When discussing romantic comedy movies, many are quick to label the genre as

anti-feminist. These movies typically portray women in a stereotypical light. They rarely ever

pass feminist or diversity tests such as the Bechdel or DuVernay test. However, within the genre,

there are many movies that attempt to combat these stereotypes by creating characters who can

easily be identified as feminist. An example of one of these rom-com’s is 10 Things I Hate About

You, a modern retelling of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. The movie follows four high

school students, Kat, her younger sister Bianca, Cameron, and Patrick. Cameron is a new student

who has a crush on Bianca, but then finds out Bianca can not date until her “shrew of a sister”

Kat does. Patrick is deemed the only person daring enough to date Kat since he is known for his

bad boy persona. This leads to many different conflicts throughout the film, but ends in a happy

ending where all the couples end up together. 10 Things I Hate About You is in no means perfect.

The movie lacks diversity, perpetuates harmful stereotypes, and contains multiple lines of

dialogue that are extremely offensive. But unlike some of its counterparts, the movie allows its

two main characters, Kat and Bianca, to progress beyond the romantic plot and address the male

gaze using the oppositional gaze.

The movie was written by two women, Karen McCullah and Kirsten Smith, both of

whom are known for writing Legally Blonde and Ella Enchanted. The three films are very

similar in the way that they use stereotypical tropes for women as a way to push feminist ideas.

Kat is what society imagines a typical feminist to be, masculine and aggressively against the

status quo. Bianca on the other hand is what society imagines a typical teenage girl to be,

superficial and naive. The sisters are caricatures of two very different types of women yet, they

both continued to fall victim to the same enemy; the male gaze. They both get oversexualized,

manipulated, and treated as objects by the men around them. However, one would think that the
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sisters would have different responses to this treatment due to the stereotypes they are casted as.

Bianca would surely love the attention while Kat, on the other hand, would loath it, which is true

for the first part of the film. But once looked at closely, it can be seen that both sisters are hyper

fixated on the male gaze. For Bianca it can easily be seen because she is obsessed with her looks

and status, she wants to look good to the people around her. Kat acts in the same manner, she just

does it in the opposite direction. Kat is actively doing things that present her as unlikeable or

unattractive, and to do so she has to constantly be thinking about how men or other people are

perceiving her. This dynamic is similar to the one shown in the second episode of She’s Gotta

Have It. That episode delves into the idea of what makes a good feminist. Shemekka wants to get

plastic surgery because her income is dependent on it, while everyone thinks that she should

keep her body “natural.” This conflict is brought up because everyone is so focused on the male

gaze that no one is considering Shemekka’s point of view, once again making the male gaze a

focal point of her decision. Although it is no one's intention, the characters in She’s Gotta Have It

and Kat are all still actively participating in the male gaze, just like Bianca is. It is not until the

end of the movie where both of the sisters view themselves through an oppositional gaze.

At the end of the movie, there is no longer any talk about how Kat or Bianca want to be

perceived by other people. Bianca is not wearing her expensive clothes anymore, but she is also

not dressed in Kat’s feminist outfits. Kat still has interest in things like playing the electric guitar,

but she becomes vulnerable in front of her class and cries reading her poem. In these instances,

both of the sisters are viewing themselves with the oppositional gaze. As women, they are no

longer thinking about what men are thinking about them, they are only concerned with how they

view themselves (Hooks, 130). Though the romantic plot was the focus of the movie, McCullah

and Smith had the characters develop beyond their stereotypes, but not to the point where they
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both ended up at different extremes again. The sisters were allowed to keep aspects of their

identity, while also incorporating characteristics that they had previously hated. It shows that

there is no right way to be a woman or a feminist, it is just important that women focus on how

they view themselves, not how the men around them do.