Jane Austen in California
How might three postmodern suburban sisters separated from Jane Austen by 200 years, an ocean, the women’s movement and the sexual revolution, live the narrative of Pride and Prejudice? “Our goal,” write Hank Green and Bernie Su, creators of the Lizzie Bennet Diaries (lizziebennet.com), “is to tell and honor a great story in a way never experienced before.” In setting out to adapt a novel into a web series styled as a video blog, it helps to begin with one of most loved—and most adapted—stories of all time.
The series, which posted its last webisode in March, is self-aware and humorous in trying to show how stories ring true across time and space. Because it was designed for viewer interaction across Internet platforms, viewers had their say about how the diaries navigate that territory. Viewers’ affection for the diaries testifies to the success of the project in performing Austen for the contemporary world.
That performance obliges the creators to change the story to reflect the artifacts of our era. Austen’s army officers are turned into championship swimmers; a marriage proposal becomes a job offer; unfortunate rules of inheritance are replaced by a bad mortgage. Elizabeth becomes Lizzie, a 24-year-old grad student still living at home. Elizabeth’s youngest sisters disappear from the story, for few contemporary families have five daughters—and the pressing need to get all those girls married (the entailment on the Bennet estate) makes no sense in today’s California. So Mary becomes a cousin. And Kitty? Kitty is a cat.
