I might as well have worn a big L on my head during my early high school years. I thought Shakespearean tragedies, wildlife t-shirts, and foreign pop music icons were way cool, which in turn made me not so cool in a small public school populated by hockey jocks, cheerleaders, and other dumb people. The worst part is that I had an attitude behind it all—I didn’t care what people thought. People felt scared of me. I was “different;†I was “weird.†After a while, it got to me. I started to care about not being liked, but I didn’t want to apologize for being myself. Talk about feeling conflicted—sheesh!
My parents and friends gave me great advice through long conversations, but nothing gave me as much insight as the 1999 hit flick 10 Things I Hate About You. In it, Julia Stiles’ character—a non-apologetic non-conforming high school senior named Kat—acts with the same disregard for the idiots who surrounded her that I did in ninth and tenth grades. She listens to angry girl rock music of the indie persuasion, can quote The Feminine Mystique verbatim, and has dreams of becoming a total badass indie rocker. The best part is that there’s no melodrama behind this. The screenplay portrays a very realistic teenage angsty, holier-than-thou personality type that mirrors the exact one I had. Kat isn’t part of a stereotypical clique—the story rightly focuses on her struggles through an ordinary high school and tells her story, which is why I got sucked in. I identified with her.
Through a hoax, Kat ends up finding love and good company in friends. But to the credit of the screenwriters and Stiles’ acting, Kat never breaks her personality type. She is the same angsty girl from beginning to end. Even though this is the case, good things happen to her, and this paints a very valuable lesson for wallflower teens, like myself. Be proud of yourself—no matter what people think of you, there will always be others who find joy in having you around.
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