Episode 7: 10 Things I Hate about You (1999)
Are some people un-date-able? What does attachment avoidance look like? How should we think about grand romantic gestures? Paul and Eli dissect 10 Things I Hate about You, the 90s attempt to modernize Shakespeare’s eternally controversial “The Taming of the Shrew.”
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Hosted, produced, and edited by Paul Eastwick and Eli Finkel.
Intro
0:55: (Eli) Who are the characters and couples?
2:15: (Paul) 1-minute plot recap
3:40: What is our relationship to this movie?
What the movie gets right
6:10: (Eli) Kat is avoidantly attached
Life events change people’s avoidance study by Dr. Fraley
Emotion Focused Couples Therapy review by Dr. Johnson
Intimacy requires vulnerability review by Dr. Murray
12:30: (Paul) Novel and arousing activities lead to better dates
Self-expanding activities promote desire study by Dr. Muise
13:15: (Eli) The “what is beautiful is good” stereotype
Physical attractiveness stereotype review by Dr. Eagly
Misconceptions in the movie
14:55: (Paul) People’s feelings change on a dime in this movie
Paul describes data from his forthcoming book, Bonded by Evolution
19:20: (Eli) What’s the right way to respond to someone’s unwanted romantic attraction?
Rejecting unwanted advances is hard study by Dr. Bohns
24:10: (Paul) Is being a shrew “a thing”?
Stable features of a person barely predict long-term mate value study by Dr. Joel
People barely agree achieve consensus about a person’s long-term mate value study by Paul
Individual therapy causes you to be happier in your relationships review by Dr. Park
“Are we ok with this?”
30:20: (Paul) The movie is misogynistic while trying to be feminist
38:10: (Eli) Power and sexuality imbalance is jarring
39:00: (Eli) Is it ok to relentlessly pursue someone?
Relationship Quotes!
40:50: (Eli) Lyrics to “Can’t Take my Eyes Off of You”
41:45: (Paul) Bianca on her Sketchers and Prada backpack
What do we wish we knew?
42:55: (Eli) What do we do with grand romantic gestures?
Stars (1–5): Both hosts rate the quality of the movie
Rusbults (1–5): Both hosts rate the accuracy of the movie’s ideas about relationships
Music by Andrew Fraker and Sons
Artwork by Katie Keil
My completely unscientific hunch is that Grand Romantic Gestures work nearly 100% of the time when the person on the receiving end is already attracted to the gesturer, and they don’t work nearly 100% of the time when they know the gesturer but are not attracted to them.