Movies and Books

Movies and Books

Movies and books tend to have similar themes. Teen angst is and has been a popular theme of many books and movies (Garvin, 2006). Almost all of us have come across several movies with the title that spells ‘teenage stuff’. Where some are witty and fun, there are some on the other hand that depict in depth issues and concerns relating to teenagers and give out a rather darker and grave side to their lives. Two such movies that have caught my attention and engaged me are Allan Moyle’s “New Waterford Girl,” and Gil Junger’s “10 Things I Hate About You.” Where one is a serious yet a typical teenage movie followed by a teenage scenario in the 1950’s, the other is the funny, and hilarious remake of Taming of the Shrew in the form of a 90’s teenage scenario, the other follows a rather serious theme, but a typical teenage movie nonetheless of the same time period. There may be a difference of a story between the three flicks, but the issues are comparable and all the more relevant to parent and teenager relationships, where fathers are highlighted and their impacts upon their children.

In 10 Things I Hate About You, Kat and Bianca’s father has strict rules about his father, and as Kat follows up to his standards as a studios and boyfriend-free daughter, he confines the younger daughter from having one as well. His aim for his daughters is to achieve high standards academically and move ahead in life, while protecting themselves from the evils of the society. When Bianca continually insists on having a boyfriend and the life of a normal teenager, his father conditions her into having one if her elder sister does, knowing that the elder is strict in her own rules and would not deviate. So, he in a way has both his daughter under control. But this confinement pushes the younger daughter into tricking her own sister into getting a date, where she ends up not only fooling her father but also her elder sister.

Moonie Pottie’s father, along with his mother, refuses her to go out of town to join an art school with complete disregard to how gifted she is in creativity. She is compelled to act out aggressively and in violent terms. She faces unacceptability and misfit in the town she lives in and her parents make it all the more difficult. Her father has his reason of binding her to the town as he was a small Towner and his intention was to protect her. Where we see a small and witty trickery owing to a father’s forceful rules and obligations, we see a similar yet a violent matter in the others. Comparatively, the fathers’ attitudes are justified to an extent and not justified at the other.

Where we see a small and witty trickery owing to a father’s forceful rules and obligations, we see a similar yet a violent matter in the others. The most vivid and deep relationship shown in both the movies that provokes discussion is that of a father and a teenager. The relationships that are the most obvious in the two movies are those between Kat and Bianca and their father in 10 Things I Hate About You and that between Mooney Pottie and her father in New Waterford Girl. In each case fathers produced immense and strong influence upon the teenagers and force them into doing certain things, from slightly wrong to drastic, but the causes traceable directly to their parent. Comparatively, the fathers’ attitudes are justified to an extent and not justified at the other.

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