Bethany Latten
Paradigm Shift Paper
10/31/12
Jane Austen, the Hottest Author in Pop Culture
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word Janeite was first coined
in 1896 to describe female devotees of Jane Austen and her six novels (“Janeite” 1).
Although there have always been a handful of Austen-admirers since Austen’s books
were originally published, Jane Austen’s popularity has experienced two major
surges throughout the last 150 years. Austen first received widespread notoriety in
the 1870s after the publication of her first biography, and since then, her novels
have never been out of print (Polak 1). With the rise of cinema in the early
twentieth century, several of Jane Austen’s novels were adapted to the big-screen,
but until 1995, Austen waned from public attention. This declining popularity
changed overnight with the release of BBC’s Pride and Prejudice in 1995 (Giffin 1).
As a result of the tremendous reception of this breakthrough miniseries, dozens
more film adaptations and hundreds of spin-off books based on Jane Austen’s novels
have been released over the last decade and a half. Now, society is undeniably
fixated on Jane Austen and her novels. Furthermore, the omnipresence of
“Austenmania” in popular culture demonstrates that even in modern times, people
still perceive that Austen’s ideas on human characteristics and feminine strength are
relevant to their own lives.
However small the residual presence Austen had in society until recently,
individuals have always been somewhat familiar with the basic plotlines of her
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novels. Consequently, whenever individuals come upon a new Jane Austen
adaptation, they bring with them certain expectations of a love story and class
struggle (Hughes). One way by which this new class of Jane Austen adaptations first
came to frequent popular culture was by exceeding these former, antiquated
expectations and making Austen’s plotlines more relevant to modern life. At one
end of the extreme are the movies Clueless (1995) and You’ve Got Mail (1998). Set in
modern-day Beverley Hills, Clueless translates Austen’s Emma into a satirical
account of a teenage girl’s obsession with playing matchmaker. Likewise, You’ve Got
Mail adapts Austen’s Pride and Prejudice to the internet-crazed setting of the 1990s
by transcending the original plotline of boy meets girl, boy offends girl, and boy
seeks girl’s forgiveness into more modern times.
Although portrayed less obviously, appeals to contemporary audiences can
also be found in the recent adaptations of Austen’s works that align more directly
with her original novels. Before the 1995 miniseries of Pride and Prejudice, Austen
adaptations always conformed to Austen’s original text in order to ensure
historically accurate scenery and costumes (Monaghan 197). Consequently, these
adaptions were merely “supplements to the original novels rather
than…independent works of art” and thus never achieved widespread acclaim
(Monaghan 197). The primary reason for the success of BBC’s Pride and Prejudice
was its inclusion of several clever twists on Austen’s original plotline that finally
gave the classic story a fresh edge. For example, the famous scene that shows Mr.
Darcy (played by Colin Firth) emerging from Pemberley Lake is nowhere to be
found in Jane Austen’s original novel. Nevertheless, this scene was the very spark
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that ignited society’s current “Austenmania.” A soaking-wet Mr. Darcy would never
have been viewed as appropriate in Austen’s original novel, yet modern audiences
certainly embraced the impropriety. In the summer after the miniseries’ release,
women in the UK held Mr. Darcy themed parties in order to “play and replay their
videotapes of [Colin Firth] diving into the lake” (Collins 161). Moreover, this fresh
edge was exactly what Austen’s novels needed to reclaim their presence in popular
culture, and widespread adoration of the miniseries set a new standard for
subsequent adaptations. Now, a Jane Austen adaptation has no chance of being well
received if it does not include a modern twist on its austere 18th century setting.
As Austen adaptations began to include allusions to modern society, the
scope of Jane Austen’s presence in popular culture exponentially increased. In
addition to dozens of film adaptations and hundreds of spin-off books based on
Austen’s original novels, her works have also found broader audiences in new
mediums such as online social networking sites. On Facebook alone, there are over
half a million users who have “liked” the Pride and Prejudice page (Leddy 1).
Another current trend that incorporates Jane Austen is society’s obsession with
zombie and vampire novels. Seth Graham Smith’s 2009 international bestseller
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was so well received that it is already being
adapted for film (Leddy 2).
Despite popular culture’s inclination towards Austen adaptations that were
designed to interest modern audiences, society’s lure to Austen also demonstrates
our insatiable desire for nostalgia. From the description of Pemberley’s lush
grounds in Pride and Prejudice to Emma’s characterization as having “lived nearly
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twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her,” it is easy to feel
nostalgic when reading an Austen novel (Austen 1). According to Deidre Lynch,
author of Janeites: Austen's Disciples and Devotees, Austen’s novels and their
adaptations captivate modern audiences because they offer “a kind of time-travel to
the past … to a comfortable, soothingly normal world" (Lynch 2). However, upon
careful examination of these recent adaptions, it becomes apparent that their
current appeal also stems from their ability to “mold history into a form which is
reminiscent of the present” (Collins 88). When viewers watch and experience
recent film adaptations of Austen’s works, they realize that their ideas on
relationships, family and social class are not unlike those that Jane Austen held
nearly two centuries ago. In addition, recent adaptations allow modern audiences
to discover the parallels between Austen’s 200-year-old characters and modern-day
individuals. By no longer focusing as much on Austen’s original text, recent
adaptations are finally conveying the timelessness of Austen’s fascinating
characters.
That being said, Austen did not create her protagonists to be perfect female
prototypes. Austen’s Catherine Morland of Northhanger Abbey is overly naïve, and
the protagonist of her eponymous novel Emma is extremely vain. Nevertheless, in
our modern world of Snooki and Kim Kardashian, it is not difficult to discern why
society has renewed its former hold on Jane Austen’s comparatively modest leading
ladies. As a result of the strong presence of risqué women in popular culture,
females are left desiring more scrupulous individuals to exemplify their sex.
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Consequently, they have come to appreciate the less reprehensible qualities that
certain 200-year-old literary characters possess.
With the majority of Jane Austen’s current popularity centering around Pride
and Prejudice, there is no denying that society is especially fixated on the novel’s
protagonist, Elizabeth Bennet. When compared to the extreme flaws of women in
popular culture today, Elizabeth Bennet’s fault of being prejudiced is minor to say
the least. Moreover, Elizabeth’s small imperfection is relevant to the shortcomings
of the average 21st century female. As Denver Post book editor Glenn Giffin stated,
“Just as Elizabeth Bennet is ready to make snap judgments about people, so are we”
(Giffin 3). In our current, fast-paced world of social media and Facebook, we are
constantly making quick and oftentimes unfounded judgements on individuals we
know nothing about. As a result, we oftentimes feel as foolish as Elizabeth Bennet
does at the resolution of Pride and Prejudice for judging Mr. Darcy’s personality too
quickly.
It is not coincidental that “Austenmania” comes at a time when we are
constantly seeing women in popular culture experiencing tremendous conflicts in
their lives. While Jane Austen was sure to give her protagonists imperfections, she
was also apt to demonstrate how they independently resolved the hardships that
resulted from their flawed personalities. For example, in Sense and Sensibility, Jane
Austen portrays how the protagonist Marianne Dashwood reclaims her life by
overcoming her overzealous character. Unlike the examples we see from the
majority of women in current popular culture, Jane Austen’s characters demonstrate
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that despite their imperfections, women have the ability to check their faults and
take control of their own lives.
From satiric books such as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies to the numerous
dramatic adaptions of Jane Austen’s novels, there is no denying that Jane Austen’s
works have established a strong presence in popular culture. However, when one
considers the feminocentric nature of Jane Austen’s novels and their film
adaptations, it seems bizarre that they possess such a widespread following given
society’s newfound enthusiasm for fast-paced, macho action movies. Perhaps the
true cause of Jane Austen’s popularity results from society’s appreciation for the
equilibrium that her works have restored to our unbalanced society of masculine
movies and risqué females. Regardless of the accuracy of this conjecture, it certainly
seems that society will never be fatigued by an excessive presence of Austen.
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SOURCES:
Austen, Jane. Emma. Barnes and Noble, 2005. Print.
Collins, Amanda. “Jane Austen, Film, and the Pitfalls of Postmodern Nostalgia.” Jane
Austen in Hollywood. Ed. Linda Troost and Sayre Greenfield. Lexington,
Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky, 1998. 79-89. Print.
Dobie, Madeleine. “Gender and the Heritage Genre.” Jane Austen and Co. Ed.
Suzanne R. Pucci and James Thompson. Albany, NY: State University of New
York Press, 2003. 247-259. Print.
Giffin, Glenn. "JANE AUSTEN REDUX English author making splash 178 years later."
The Denver Post, 3 Jan. 1996. LexisNexis Academic. Web. 20 Oct. 2012.
Hughes, Jacob. Personal Interview. 17 Oct. 2012.
“Janeites.” Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press, n.d. Web. 20 Oct.
2012.
Leddy, Chuck. "Cents And Sensibility: A Look At The Jane Austen Juggernaut." Writer
123.12 (2010): 8-9. Academic Search Complete. Web. 20 Oct. 2012.
Looser, Devoney. “Jane Austen, Film, and the Pitfalls of Postmodern Nostalgia.” Jane
Austen in Hollywood. Ed. Linda Troost and Sayre Greenfield. Lexington,
Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky, 1998. 159-176. Print.
Lynch, Deidre. “Clueless: About History.” Jane Austen and Co. Ed. Suzanne R. Pucci
and James Thompson. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2003.
71-92. Print.
Monaghan, David. “Emma and the art of adaptation.” Jane Austen on Screen. Ed. Gina
Macdonald and Andrew F. Macdonald. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press, 2003. 197-227. Print.
Polak, Monique. "Jane Austen's fame endures; In her own time, the brilliant novelist
was unknown." The Gazette (Montreal). LexisNexis Academic, 13 March
2010. Web. 20 Oct. 2012.
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