By Erin Free
FilmInk salutes the work of creatives who have never truly received the credit they deserve. In this installment: screenwriting duo Kirsten Smith and Karen McCullah, who penned 10 Things I Hate About You, Legally Blonde and The House Bunny.
If you were to compile a list of the most maligned movie sub-genres, the romantic comedy would be right up there, sitting unhappily beside rape-revenge flicks, stoner comedies and Mondo movies in terms of most derision delivered by critics, commentators and film-heads in general. In terms of box office, however, the romantic comedy is something of a quiet titan, pulling in large numbers of women (leading, of course, to the reductive and surprisingly easily applied term of “chick flick”) at the box office, creating even more animus among more “serious minded” movie types. So, if you specialise in the romantic comedy sub-genre, you’re more than likely to remain Unsung, except amongst studio heads and those counting the money…and even then, you probably still won’t get the credit you deserve. Enter Kirsten Smith and Karen McCullah, an American writing duo with a considerable list of strong-performing romantic comedies to their name…and while you almost certainly know their films – which include Legally Blonde and 10 Things I Hate About You – they are very, very far from being household names.
Karen McCullah was born in 1967 in The Philippines (where her father worked in counterespionage for the US Navy), grew up in Orange County, went to college in Virginia, and eventually moved to New Mexico, where she worked in marketing and PR, furniture restoration, and hospitality. This is also where McCullah developed her interest in writing, and also taught creative workshops for gang-affiliated teenagers. Kirsten Smith, meanwhile, was born in 1970 in California, and largely grew up on a sailboat without TV or other mod-cons. A keen writer from an early age, Smith studied English and film, and initially aspired to be a poet. While in college, however, Smith got an internship at CineTel Films, an independent film company, and eventually began reading scripts and writing coverage for the company. This led to a full-time job at CineTel as a Director of Development in 1995, where Smith also got more serious about screenwriting.
It was while working at CineTel that Smith first came into contact with Karen McCullah, who had submitted a script to the company. When they met to discuss the film, the two became fast friends, and almost instantly began writing a script together; though this project (a female-led action comedy) never got sold, their next collaboration did. Inspired by Amy Heckerling’s sassy, savvy hit 1995 teen film Clueless – which put a modern spin on Jane Austen’s Emma – the duo set about running William Shakespeare’s The Taming Of The Shrew through a contemporary lense. “We definitely knew she would not be tamed at the end,” McCullah told Buzzfeed of their approach to the material. The result was 1999’s smash hit 10 Things I Hate About You, a fresh, funny, big-hearted and wonderfully tart high school romantic comedy, the influence of which can still be felt today. The film follows lovestruck new student Cameron James (Jospeh Gordon-Levitt) who falls for Bianca Stratford (Larisa Oleynik), and schemes to get brooding tough guy Patrick Verona (Heath Ledger) to date her snooty, too-cool sister Kat (Julia Stiles) in order to get around her over-protective father’s (Larry Miller) strict rules around dating. Featuring terrific performances from a young cast all headed for major stardom, 10 Things I Hate About You was a well-deserved hit.
While 10 Things I Hate About You was being filmed, Smith and McCullah were writing what would be their next big hit with their adaptation of Amanda Brown’s novel, Legally Blonde. Directed with an energetic snap by then-young Australian first-timer Robert Luketic, Legally Blonde is lovingly, deliriously pop, and filled with wonderfully sharp, witty dialogue from Smith and McCullah. The film was the major breakout hit for Reese Witherspoon, who created a character for the ages in the form of big-hearted Elle Woods, a blonde with a brain who makes it in the world of law without compromising herself or her beliefs. “It was fun to play with that dynamic with the rich, pretty, popular girl being the underdog, and having to prove herself to other people even when she was completely capable,” McCullah has said of the film. As funny and fresh as their debut, Smith and McCullah laid the groundwork for everyone to excel, and Legally Blonde turned out to be a massive surprise smash hit, leading to sequels and spin-offs of greatly varying quality.
Many, many years on, both 10 Things I Hate About You and Legally Blonde have dedicated armies of fans. “I’m freaking pumped to be their nostalgia queen,” Kirsten Smith told The Retaility. “Seeing all these young women respond to our work and this multigenerational empowerment amongst women means a lot to me. Older women gave me the secret keys to the kingdom and I want to give the younger women those keys. It’s super nourishing and fortifying because I don’t have children but I have these characters, these movies, and I have these relationships with younger women who are inspired and excited and that fills me with a lot of pride.”
With two big hits under their collective belt, Smith and McCullah quickly became screenwriting quiet achievers, delivering a host of female-driven comedies and romances, often with an enjoyably feminist bent. They worked on the adaptation of Gail Carson Levine’s book for 2004’s snappy fairy tale rethink Ella Enchanted; pulled off a silly gender swap comedy with Amanda Bynes in 2006’s She’s The Man; were handpicked by star and producer Ana Faris for the very funny 2008 comedy The House Bunny (in which Faris’s ditzy one-time Playboy Bunny finds new employment as house mama to a sorority full of nerds); and tackled male-female relationships with the hit 2009 Katherine Heigl-Gerard Butler starrer The Ugly Truth. With various high-profile projects in development – including an animated feature with The Spice Girls (!!!!) and a third Legally Blonde film – the commercially astute, profoundly perceptive and highly inventive Kirsten Smith and Karen McCullah (both of whom have also written books and produced other works outside of their screenwriting partnership) continue to quietly ply their trade as happily and successfully Unsung Auteurs.
If you liked this story, check out our features on other unsung auteurs Jerrold Freeman, William Dear, Anthony Harvey, Douglas Hickox, Karen Arthur, Larry Peerce, Tony Goldwyn, Brian G. Hutton, Shelley Duvall, Robert Towne, David Giler, William D. Wittliff, Tom DeSimone, Ulu Grosbard, Denis Sanders, Daryl Duke, Jack McCoy, James William Guercio, James Goldstone, Daniel Nettheim, Goran Stolevski, Jared & Jerusha Hess, William Richert, Michael Jenkins, Robert M. Young, Robert Thom, Graeme Clifford, Frank Howson, Oliver Hermanus, Jennings Lang, Matthew Saville, Sophie Hyde, John Curran, Jesse Peretz, Anthony Hayes, Stuart Blumberg, Stewart Copeland, Harriet Frank Jr & Irving Ravetch, Angelo Pizzo, John & Joyce Corrington, Robert Dillon, Irene Kamp, Albert Maltz, Nancy Dowd, Barry Michael Cooper, Gladys Hill, Walon Green, Eleanor Bergstein, William W. Norton, Helen Childress, Bill Lancaster, Lucinda Coxon, Ernest Tidyman, Shauna Cross, Troy Kennedy Martin, Kelly Marcel, Alan Sharp, Leslie Dixon, Jeremy Podeswa, Ferd & Beverly Sebastian, Anthony Page, Julie Gavras, Ted Post, Sarah Jacobson, Anton Corbijn, Gillian Robespierre, Brandon Cronenberg, Laszlo Nemes, Ayelat Menahemi, Ivan Tors, Amanda King & Fabio Cavadini, Cathy Henkel, Colin Higgins, Paul McGuigan, Rose Bosch, Dan Gilroy, Tanya Wexler, Clio Barnard, Robert Aldrich, Maya Forbes, Steven Kastrissios, Talya Lavie, Michael Rowe, Rebecca Cremona, Stephen Hopkins, Tony Bill, Sarah Gavron, Martin Davidson, Fran Rubel Kuzui, Elliot Silverstein, Liz Garbus, Victor Fleming, Barbara Peeters, Robert Benton, Lynn Shelton, Tom Gries, Randa Haines, Leslie H. Martinson, Nancy Kelly, Paul Newman, Brett Haley, Lynne Ramsay, Vernon Zimmerman, Lisa Cholodenko, Robert Greenwald, Phyllida Lloyd, Milton Katselas, Karyn Kusama, Seijun Suzuki, Albert Pyun, Cherie Nowlan, Steve Binder, Jack Cardiff, Anne Fletcher ,Bobcat Goldthwait, Donna Deitch, Frank Pierson, Ann Turner, Jerry Schatzberg, Antonia Bird, Jack Smight, Marielle Heller, James Glickenhaus, Euzhan Palcy, Bill L. Norton, Larysa Kondracki, Mel Stuart, Nanette Burstein, George Armitage, Mary Lambert, James Foley, Lewis John Carlino, Debra Granik, Taylor Sheridan, Laurie Collyer, Jay Roach, Barbara Kopple, John D. Hancock, Sara Colangelo, Michael Lindsay-Hogg, Joyce Chopra, Mike Newell, Gina Prince-Bythewood, John Lee Hancock, Allison Anders, Daniel Petrie Sr., Katt Shea, Frank Perry, Amy Holden Jones, Stuart Rosenberg, Penelope Spheeris, Charles B. Pierce, Tamra Davis, Norman Taurog, Jennifer Lee, Paul Wendkos, Marisa Silver, John Mackenzie, Ida Lupino, John V. Soto, Martha Coolidge, Peter Hyams, Tim Hunter, Stephanie Rothman, Betty Thomas, John Flynn, Lizzie Borden, Lionel Jeffries, Lexi Alexander, Alkinos Tsilimidos, Stewart Raffill, Lamont Johnson, Maggie Greenwald and Tamara Jenkins.
