Let’s do some actual counting for 10 Things I Hate About You.
So I’m sitting at my desk yesterday and, because my life is my life, I found myself watching a YouTube video of the climactic poem from the movie 10 Things I Hate About You.
And again, because my life is my life, I started counting all of the things that Julia Stiles’ character, Kat, hates about Heath Ledger’s character, Patrick. Naturally, I didn’t count 10. I counted 11. (And it’s not just because, since I started this website, I now view the world in multiples of 11.)
Let’s get into some semantics here.
In the poem, Kat specifically lists 14 different things she hates. She combines some of them (and starts 10 lines with “I hate”, which is how the people behind the movie arrived at 10).
The Poem
Here’s the poem; I’ve thrown in bolded numbers to show the 10 count, as I believe the people who made the movie saw it:
[1] I hate the way you talk to me, and the way you cut your hair. [2] I hate the way you drive my car; [3] I hate it when you stare. [4] I hate your big dumb combat boots and the way you read my mind. [5] I hate you so much it makes me sick. It even makes me rhyme.
[6] I hate it — I hate the way you’re always right; [7] I hate it when you lie. [8] I hate it when you make me laugh, even worse when you make me cry. [9] I hate it when you’re not around and the fact that you didn’t call. [10] But mostly I hate the way I don’t hate you — not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all.
Now here’s the poem with all 14 things she hates annotated:
[1] I hate the way you talk to me, [2] and the way you cut your hair. [3] I hate the way you drive my car; [4] I hate it when you stare. [5] I hate your big dumb combat boots [6] and the way you read my mind. [7] I hate you so much it makes me sick. It even makes me rhyme.
[8] I hate it — I hate the way you’re always right; [9] I hate it when you lie. [10] I hate it when you make me laugh, [11] even worse when you make me cry. [12] I hate it when you’re not around, [13] and the fact that you didn’t call. [14] But mostly I hate the way I don’t hate you — not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all.
Why ‘The 10 Things Julia Hates About Patrick’ is actually 11.
Looking at it as I did, three of the 14 things she hates in this poem are not specifically about Patrick. They are statements of hate toward specific actions, or general feelings of hate. Moreover, the poem is a reflection of the complexity of human relationships and emotions.
So here are the 11 things she specifically hates about him. And that’s today’s 11 points list…
1 | I hate the way you talk to me.
2 | And the way you cut your hair.
3 | I hate the way you drive my car.
4 | I hate it when you stare.
5 | I hate your big dumb combat boots.
6 | And the way you read my mind.
7 | I hate it — I hate the way you’re always right.
8 | I hate it when you lie.
9 | I hate it when you make me laugh.
10 | Even worse when you make me cry.
11 | I hate it when you’re not around.
The three “hate” lines that doesn’t count
The three “hate” lines from the poem I’ve omitted because they’re not things she hates about him:
– “I hate you so much it makes me sick, it even makes me rhyme”… which I am calling NOT something she hates about him.
– “And the fact that you didn’t call”… that’s not something she hates about him, it’s a specific event involving him that she happened to hate. Julia expresses hatred towards the fact that Patrick did not call her, but this is not necessarily something she hates about him as a person.
– “But mostly I hate the way I don’t hate you — not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all”… which, again, is not something she hates about him, it’s something she hates about herself because she can’t bring herself to hate Patrick.
And thus concludes more academic analysis into the poetry of 10 Things I Hate About You than anyone EVER should’ve done.
Stay tuned next week, in case I decide to break down how Miley Cyrus also hates 11 things about a guy in her song 7 Things.
