Matt Di Rado Ms. Carney English 1 Honors 12 March 2023 Pushing Through Power Dynamics The idea of film adaptations have been heavily criticized since the creation of the idea. People have believed that the ideas, and motives from a well thought out story, could not be fit into a short movie. This all comes with the exception of 10 Things I Hate About You, the adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Taming of The Shrew. Characters throughout the play demonstrate character relationships that directly translate into the film, as deep as the sisters having identical names in both the play and the movie. Similarly, both the book and the movie create relationships that have one person being more important than the other. For example the master is more important …show more content…
Gil Junger’s modern adaptation, 10 Things I Hate About You, is an effective modern adaptation of William Shakespeare’s original play, The Taming of the Shrew, because throughout both portrayals characters challenge social classes such as the master versus servant, and the popular versus geek relationships while still making the story relatable to the audience. In the play, The Taming of The Shrew, William Shakespeare is able to create a story that presents a theme of breaking the social hierarchy through the servant and master relationships. During the time that this play takes place, the idea of a servant playing an important role in society would have been seen as impossible, but this is not the case with Lucentio and Tranio. Technically Tranio is Lucentio’s servant, but he is not treated like this. In the eyes of Lucentio, Tranio is a very trustworthy, important, and respected not only servant but friend. This is first seen in the beginning of the play when Lucentio says, “My trusty servant, well approved of all” (I.i.7). This illustrates that Lucentio implementing right off the bat that Tranio is …show more content…
It is known that normally the popular boy is able to get the popular girl, but it is rarely seen that the new kid or geek is able to get the popular girl. This goal was seen in the very beginning of the movie, when the new kid, Cameron, was introduced. Immediately he showed interest in the popular girl, Bianca. The director then uses outside characters, basically bringing him down, to attempt at showing the viewers that Cameron could never get Bianca. Unbeknownst to them Cameron knew that there were ways to break the system, and get through to Bianca. At first, he seems like a lousy French tutor to her, but in reality he is using this to create a relationship with her. This ends up helping him, when Bianca needs a ride home from a party, and she asks Cameron to take her home, allowing for Cameron to express his feelings toward her, further allowing him to start something with Bianca. This then leads to something even larger, when the new kid takes the popular girl to prom, and is able to show up the popular boy, Joey, at the prom. Furthermore, Cameron displayed the idea that Shakespeare created, by defying the social norms, and breaking the power dynamics. In “Does Shakespeare Suck, or is He Relatable?” Tim Cavanaugh discusses the idea of how Shakespeare is able to use his characters to connect to