Jane Austen’s beloved romance novel Pride and Prejudice, with its ball gowns and quaint English villages, hardly seems like the source for countless memes, GIFs and a diehard online fandom. Yet that is exactly what The Lizzie Bennet Diaries has achieved by giving a classic tale an update for the digital age. The innovative web series, which came to an end on Mar. 28 with its one-hundredth episode, retells the classic novel in vlog form via YouTube. For the most part, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries stays faithful to the plot of Pride and Prejudice, even starting off with the same famous first line: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” Several aspects of the story, however, were modernized so as to seem plausible in today’s world.
“I like that as a reader of Pride and Prejudice, I can still be surprised,” junior Erin Givens said. “Changes in the series have been very natural and they fit well in the 21st century setting.”
Austen’s novel dealt with an early form of feminism, as well as class division and individuality. These themes still carry weight today, although not in the same ways that they did two centuries ago. For that reason, the characters, as well as their interactions, have been tweaked to better reflect modern concerns. The main character and narrator Lizzie is still bright, snarky and opinionated, but now she is a grad student studying mass communications and the vlog series is part of her thesis. Darcy, her broodingly handsome love interest, is a wealthy CEO and socially-awkward hipster, whereas in the novel he was a haughty elite of English society. Only the character of Mrs. Bennet remains much the same as her counterpart in Pride and Prejudice, as she is still desperately trying to marry off her daughters.
“Pride and Prejudice contains many plot themes that have entertained readers for hundreds of years, such as the battle of the genders and boy meets girl,” junior Priyanka Reddy said. “Nowadays, young women have strong roles above or equal to men, and the idea of a relationship between them is still diversely thought about.”
The appeal of the series comes largely from the modernized versions of characters, as well as quirky, witty performances from a talented cast. Developed by well-known YouTube personality Hank Green and written by award-winning web-screenwriter Bernie Su, it comes as no small wonder that the series has over 170,000 subscribers and 25 million video views. The series also won two Streamy Awards, the web show equivalent of the Oscars, for Best Writing in a Comedy and Best Interactive Program.
“I found out about The Lizzie Bennet Diaries because I follow the VlogBrothers, Hank Green’s channel on YouTube,” senior Maya Ivensky said.
What truly sets the series apart from the myriad of Pride and Prejudice parodies, ranging from Bridget Jones to the zombie-apocalypse edition, is the trans-media and interactive extension. Lizzie, her sisters, Charlotte and various other characters all have Twitter accounts, and many characters have Tumblrs and Facebooks as well. Through these forms of social media, fans receive bonus content: tweets between characters and photos from events that were referenced briefly in the show. In Q&A videos, characters from the show directly answer questions that audience members have submitted through its various social media outlets. Several characters also appear in spin-off series when they do not appear in Lizzie’s main narration. The spin-offs are not based on the narrative of Pride and Prejudice, allowing the writers of the show to further interpret and develop side characters.
“Another adaptation opens my eyes and makes me interested,” Reddy said. “In today’s world, technology has expanded rapidly, and social networking websites have changed the ways this generation interacts.”
The Lizzie Bennet Diaries breathes new life into a book that just celebrated its bicentennial. More than that, the series proves that the value of literature is that it transcends not just the boundaries of time, but that it withstands the onslaught of new media as well. The series raised over $200,000 in just a few days on Kickstarter to finance a DVD set of the current series and also extend the project with a second major series based on another Austen novel. Details have been kept under wraps, but the series is expected to launch this summer.
“I think The Lizzie Bennet Diaries has been so successful because it is not just a recreation of the novel online, but a story of its own,” Givens said.
