Headscratchers / 10 Things I Hate About You

• Why is the English Teacher Mr. Morgan such a jerkass to Kat?
  • He's short-tempered and, in fairness, she's rather pretentious at points.
    • "At points" meaning "The entire fucking movie?"
  • What with the obnoxious , self-absorbed asshole that is Joey, the white rastas who try to act black in an actual black man's face, and Kat's Soapbox Sadie tendencies, I'd say he's kind of within his rights to be annoyed by his students, particularly one who only raises her hand to shit-start and release smarm and vitriol in...just about anyone's direction.
  • This troper got the impression that he wasn't very fond of his students in general, and the implication was that Kate had been soapboxing in his class for a while, all while he himself had an ax to grind on the race aspect of their readings (as opposed to Kate always talking about the feminist issues).
  • Not to mention that Kat, let's be fair, isn't the most ingratiating person herself.
    • "Heinous bitch is the term used most often."
  • It's also interesting since this movie isn't exactly a social justice-driven movie, that Mr. Morgan calls Kat out on "white feminism" a good ten years before it was a more common thing to do. Kat, while she has a big chip on her shoulder regarding the treatment of women, is ultimately a spoiled, upper-middle-class girl who doesn't have (in Mr. Morgan's eyes) that many problems. For a black man in what looks to be a white-dominated school, seeing kids who cry oppression when they've never even experienced anything close to it (just look at the White Rastas), he's basically calling bullshit. He's the realist.
  • Because Kat is the one who sets the tone. She doesn't open the gates for an intellectual discussion in a civil way - she snarks and makes rude comments. If she want to have a legitimate discussion, the teacher will happily allow her. But it looks as though she just wants to soapbox - so the teacher informs her that she can do so somewhere other than his class.
• How did Bianca and Chastity, who had never rehearsed together, do a fully choreographed duet? I mean, I know they were doing the same song, but they weren't doing the same dance. And why did the school just let them randomly change their routines?
  • They likely did rehearse it—just because it wasn't shown on screen doesn't mean it never happened.
• Patrick refuses to kiss a drunk Kat, and in response, Kat ignores him until he does a Grand Romantic Gesture. It might be understandable that she's hurt and irritated, and I'm not suggesting she should be falling over herself thanking him, but this really isn't something anyone, especially a proud feminist, should be punishing him for. Once she sobered up, whatever her other issues with him, her own principles should come into play: 1. no one should be punished for refusing to kiss someone, and 2. a boy refused to kiss a girl who was in a mind-altered state. Even if she had enough coherency to make the decision she wanted to kiss him, intoxicated people sometimes do things they end up regretting once sober. He didn't make any attempts to control her sexuality, nor was he unkind or shaming in refusal. He simply didn't do something with someone who may or may not have been able to fully process what was happening and that she might have regretted doing once fully able to process it.
  • I think that this was intentional, actually. Look at how dead-set she is on her views and assumptions of people. That's her comfort zone. Patrick not conforming to the mold that she placed him in makes her just as irritated (if not more) than if he HAD.
  • Also, she's a teenager. Few of us were entirely rational and reasonable with all our social interactions while swimming an hormone soup.
  • It wasn't the consent issue. Basically she was still hurting from how Joey dumped her when she told him she wasn't ready for sex - along with teenage hormones and lingering hurt from her mother's departure. So she finally opens up to a guy...and he rebuffs her. She's humiliated! And a girl like Kat responds to feeling embarrassed with anger. That way she allows herself to feel less shame. It's not her fault at all, it's Patrick's for not letting the kiss happen - and that attitude helps her feel better. She pretty much made a fool of herself at the party, and Patrick unintentionally reminded her of that when he wouldn't kiss her - again making her feel humiliated. His refusal to kiss her while drunk - or more importantly to kiss her back - was telling her that her behaviour wasn't okay and made her feel like an idiot.
  • And she got dumped by Joey for not putting out. She gets rejected by Patrick for making a move (we know it wasn't a rejection but she didn't). It's bound to annoy her even more ("what do guys even want?")
  • It sounds as though part of her annoyance had something to do with the Aren't You Going to Ravish Me? trope.
  • She was embarrassed by the whole night and (unreasonably but understandably, given how closed off she is) she projected that on Patrick. Him embarrassing himself allowed her to relax around him. Notice that when advising him Cameron and Michael don't actually say he did the wrong thing, they just say that she feels humiliated and suggest a method to fix it.
• Can someone explain Patrick's "without" comment? i.e. "I know everyone digs your sister, but she's without." I've never understood what he meant in the 20-plus years I've owned this movie.

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