Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice celebrated its 200th birthday this past Monday, and while the BBC’s miniseries and Joe Wright’s Pride & Prejudice are both great adaptations of a timeless tale, let’s be honest: It’s time for an update.
Spoiler alert: The rest of this article contains spoilers for the original Pride and Prejudice, so proceed with caution. Although if you don’t know the whole story by now, I’m genuinely concerned for you.
Meet Lizzie Bennet (played by the wonderful Ashley Clements), star of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, a modern online adaptation of Austen's classic tale devloped by Hank Green and Bernie Su, who both also serve as exectuvie producers for the web series.
With help from her best friend Charlotte Lu (played by the talented Julia Cho), Lizzie chronicles her life through her YouTube videos. There isn’t much action in the videos themselves – it’s mostly Lizzie, and sometimes Charlotte, talking to the camera about her daily life. Yet through them the viewers get to see Austen’s story unfold in a way that’s innovative and addicting. Each video lasts for only about three to five minutes, so the guilt of “only one more episode” is lessened – until you realize you’ve just marathoned 40 episodes in one sitting.
Of course, it’s not just Lizzie and Charlotte in these videos. There’s also Jane and Lydia Bennet (played by Laura Spencer and Mary Kate Wiles respectively), who make lots of appearances in Lizzie’s videos, as well as her reenactments. These reenactments are one of the best parts of the videos. Not only are they hilarious, they also let the viewers see how Lizzie views the people in her life, which is oftentimes through a prejudiced lens.
There’s also epic drama and romance when Bing Lee (played by Christopher Sean) and his sister Caroline (played by Jessica Jade Andres) come into the picture. Anyone who’s familiar with the story knows that Jane and Bing spend a lot of their time making googly eyes at each other, but it’s Spencer’s heartbreaking performance after the inevitable breakup that makes you realize just how emotionally invested you are in these characters’ lives – and that you’re in too deep to do anything but click “Next Episode.”
Never one to let others have the spotlight for too long, though, Lydia gets her own YouTube channel.
These videos provide an interesting perspective on the classic story, giving Lydia a lot more depth than the literary text ever did (sorry, Jane Austen). While in the book she’s made out to be more of a plot device to support Lizzie and Jane's story arcs, Lydia’s videos let the viewers understand and connect to her. Plus you get to meet her fun cousin, Mary Bennet (played by Briana Cuoco). Sadly, Lydia’s videos take a turn for the worse around episode 23. They’re incredibly difficult to watch and should come with a warning label, as emotional abuse is no laughing matter.
Back to a somewhat lighter note, there are, of course, Lizzie’s suitors as well: Mr. Collins and George Wickham (played by Maxwell Glick and Wes Aderhold, respectively). One is awkwardly hilarious and the other is a terrible human being who needs to be run over multiple times by a cement mixer (I’ll let you figure out on your own which character description goes with who).
So far The Lizzie Bennet Diaries sticks relatively close to the original work in terms of its characters, but the team has taken a creative liberty in featuring Maria, Charlotte’s sister (played by Janice Lee).
She, too, has her own YouTube channel. Unfortunately after Maria’s internship, which was the catalyst for her vlogs, is over, she doesn’t appear in any other videos, nor has she posted any. Hopefully they’ll bring her back soon, as she is a delight.
Speaking of people who need to show their faces more often, Fitz (played by Craig Frank) needs to come back! A good friend of the Darcy’s, Fitz has appeared in several of Lizzie’s videos and has been immensely enjoyable every time. (Seriously, we need more Fitz.)
And then there’s the Darcy’s themselves: William, who everyone just calls Darcy (played by Daniel Gordh, who’s face is lovely, but should be avoided until you meet him in the videos) and Gigi (played by Allison Paige). Darcy is Darcy: aloof, proud and misunderstood by Lizzie, just like you'd expect him to be. Gigi is a lot of fun, though, so much so that she recently got her own YouTube channel.
Granted these videos are a part of her job at Pemberley Digital, but it’ll provide another new, digital-age perspective on the story. Plus if it means more Fitz, it can only mean good things.
As this recent video with Gigi shows, social media is the focal point of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. The world of Pride and Prejudice is literally being recreated through technology, and the creative team behind it does an amazing job of keeping all of the various YouTube channels in sync with each other. The story isn't woven only through these videos, but also through the interactions that happen outside of them on the characters' Twitter accounts.
That particular tweet by Charlotte is most likely in response to a pretty terrible event that happened in The Lizzie Bennet Diaries universe yesterday, which might be triggering for some viewers as it concerns emotional abuse and manipulation.
You can see for yourself what the awful incident is, but bear in mind that not only is it horribly upsetting, it also contains a massive spoiler for the series, so you should really watch all of the videos (compiled into their correct order) before clicking the link. It’s also NSFW, so be aware of your surroundings, as I was in the library when I unsuspectingly opened the web page and am pretty sure everyone judged me for it.
Don’t worry, though. Most of the Twitter interactions that happen are much more entertaining, less worrying and especially amusing when the characters respond to fans.
The Lizzie Bennet Diaries is a huge commitment to make. Not only will it take newcomers almost a quarter of a day to catch up on all of the videos, it’s also an emotional investment. More than anything, though, it’s a lot of fun and probably one of the pioneering transmedia projects out there, which is an exciting indicator of the future of entertainment.
Editor's note, Friday Feb. 1 at 8:01 p.m.: A previous version of this story suggested Maria was a character created for The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. Thanks to commenter Melina Yeh for pointing out the error.