As
college students, I’m sure we’ve all done our fair share of
procrastination. Watching Netflix,
surfing the web, even mindlessly twiddling our thumbs- we’ve done all of them
to avoid doing work. In my case, my most
recent procrastination guilty pleasure is watching the Lizzie Bennet Diaries on
Youtube, a series that has been described “an
addictive bi-weekly retelling of Pride and Prejudice” that is “is faithful to
the original without being slavish or full of in-jokes,” (Welsh).
This modern retelling of Jane Austen’s Masterpiece Pride and
Prejudice provides the viewer with a fresh outlook on the novel, one that
allows the viewer to become personally acquainted with each of the character’s
various flaws and strength by having each vlog episode be portrayed as actual,
modern-day life. As a result of this,
the retelling is filled with a variety of easily definable and recognizable
borders, not only between characters, but also between the original novel and
the retelling.
The LBD (as it will be referred to from this point on)
not only provides a more modern twist on a classic, but it also allows us to
explore this novel in terms of the past and present, and the borders between
them. Obviously, the settings of both
versions of the story are different- Austen’s Pride and Prejudice takes place at the turn of the 19th century, whereas LBD takes place in
the same time frame that our modern lives are.
This border between times helps us recognize the distinct border between
the portrayals of the stories. Instead
of the marriage-crazy world of Austen’s P&P, in the retelling, we’re
treated to a modern viewpoint of dating, even though the first video in the
series begins with the quote “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a
single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife,” the
slogan that adorns a t-shirt owned by Lizzie (Episodes). Although this aligns with P&P, a boundary
is crossed by LBD, a boundary from old-fashioned views on men, women, and
marriage, to a more contemporary view, one which is explored many times in LBD
through the romantic exploits of the Bennet sisters. This can be viewed in terms of True Grit,
where Mattie crosses the border between what is conventional for women and what
she as a woman desires to do, and also in terms of All the Pretty Horses,
in which Alejandra defies the expectations of her family as she engages in a
relationship with John Grady.
Because the video retelling is so personal, not only do
we see the borders between Austen’s telling of the story and the modernization
of the novel by Hank Green and Bernie Sue (Team) but we also manage to see the
borders between characters. There are
visible borders between the Lizzie and Lydia, characters whose opinions on how
to maturely handle life differ greatly, and romantic borders that vary between
the characters of Wickham, Darcy, Bing Lee (Mr. Bingley in P&P), Jane,
Lizzie, and Lydia. Their personal
relationships vary, and borders between trust, friendship, love and lust are
crossed. This is very similar to the way
these borders are crossed in All the Pretty Horses and True Grit,
two novels in which border of friendship and trust (and in the case of ATPH,
love and lust as well) are crossed and altered frequently by the ever-changing
characters.
All of these borders have led to a closer reading of the
novels mentioned above than I would have ever thought possible. The modernization of P&P crosses and
creates borders that grant us a fresh perspective on a timeless classic, and
also leave us with a different perspective on the novels read in class, as
well.
"Episode 1." Lizzie Bennet Diaries. Youtube.
“Team.” Lizzie
Bennett Diaries.<http://www.lizziebennet.com/team/>.
Welsh, Kaite.
"Pride and Prejudice at 200: the best Jane Austen small-screen
adaptations." The Guardian. 28 Jan. 2013. 18 Feb. 2013. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2013/jan/28/youtube-austen-pride-and-prejudice>
I think it is very interesting that you noted briefly a border of a old versus new way of life. As an over-arching or overall theme, the desire of our society is to "remake" or "reinvent" things that were popular or important in the past. There are many modern day movies they are renewed modern versions of something past. I think this leads to how contemporary society seems to want to make every aspect whether that be in books, literature, or movies be interpreted in a modern way so as those creations are not lost because the public does not seem to have a connection to them any longer. This shows how the border of old versus new can be broken down and adapted easily to suit the needs of a modern day society. Perhaps, because of all these modern adaptations, people tend to cling to the past because it is what they know and relate to. In the novels we have read this can be evidenced in multiple characters especially in Rooster Cogburn and John Grady.
ReplyDeleteThe ideas behind this video reminds me of the children's show Wishbone, which you might remember if you were raised on PBS like I was. This show similar borders by using a dog and teenagers to expose young children to classic novels and Shakespearean works. So now that you've mentioned how much easier it can be to understand classic plots through modern life, it makes me realize that I remember much more from all the Wishbone watching I did as a child than from the yearly Shakespeare readings I completed in high school.
ReplyDeleteIt's been equally interesting to compare the different means of storytelling that have been used to portray the same themes in the two novels we've read so far this semester. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing how the remaining books we study will choose to spin the same old tales.