Favorite Fictional Females: Katarina Stratford

This evening while I was watching a rerun of one of my favorite TV shows, The Gilmore Girls, I was thinking about all the fictional female characters that I identify with, admire, and pretty much have a girl-crush on. So, I was going to post all of them together, but decided to pay homage to each of them separately.

I'm not going to lie, I adore the movie 10 Things I Hate About You. For years I would ask for this movie as a present for either my birthday or Christmas, yet I still don't own it. You would think by now I'd just buy the damn movie for myself, since it's probably like less than ten bucks.  However, I'm now wondering if I don't love it as much as I think I do, or possibly I don't want to ruin my nostalgia with it.

I remember years ago one of my cousins telling me that I reminded her of Kat.  Maybe because she's a feminist, hates high school, loves music and drives a vintage car?  Who knows?  But I'm definitely not as tough or bad-ass as Kat, although I do love her strong character and can identify with her uniqueness and being unafraid to stand up for who she is. Maybe that's what my cousin was referring to with me?

I love that she's sarcastic . . . "I want you, I need you. Oh, baby. Oh, baby." 

She's opinionated and will speak what's on her mind.

Kat:  Romantic?  Hemingway? He was an abusive alcoholic, misogynist who squandered half his life hanging around Picasso trying to nail his leftovers. 

Joey:  As opposed to a bitter, self-righteous hag who has no friends?

Kat:  I guess in this society, being male and an asshole makes you worthy of our time.  What about Sylvia Plath, or Charlotte Bronte, or Simone de Beauvior? 

Patrick:  What'd I miss?

Kat:  The oppressive patriarchal values that dictate our education.

And here is Kat casually and adorably reading The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. One of my very favorite books, too. 

I can identify with her commitment to being herself and not following the crowd.  This is something that I've worked extremely hard at through the years.  It's taken me a long time (longer than I'd like to admit) to learn to love myself for who I am and it's finally good to be at a place where I can say, "I don't have to be like you.  I'm me and if you don't like me for who I am or the person I've become, then that's not my fault."

Lastly, Kat is not like most of her female peers who are boy-obsessed.  While she does get involved with Patrick in the end, she makes it clear throughout most of the movie that she doesn't need to be rescued.  I love this for many reasons.  I float between the extremes of needing/wanting someone in my life and then not wanting anyone at all because "I'm independent and I don't 'need' anyone."  It really depends on the day and how I'm feeling.  Most days I could care less about having a relationship or someone in my life because it just causes heartache and I'm tired of feeling rejected (this goes back to the whole trying to love myself thing.  It's hard when people keep finding things wrong with you.)  It's such a vicious cycle - you get close with someone, you get burned, and then you put the walls up again.  Who am I really protecting?  Me or am I keeping people from getting too close to me?  Probably both. It's a struggle that I've dealt with for years.   Just last night I had a thought that I'm probably better off alone because I can be hard to handle at times - kinda like Kat.