Every work is a
portrait of its artist, and a successful one is also a clear product of its
time but timeless enough to continue to be appealing well after it.
Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is certainly one of
those immortal works, with universal appeal not only because of the at first
reluctant romance between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy, but also because of
the tongue-in-cheek approach to the adherence of social rules, family
expectations, and the value of money when it comes to getting married. The novel
has been adapted countless times across different types of media: film, books,
radio, televison, and graphic novels. Elizabeth Bennet has been to Bollywood
and Utah, she has fought zombies and even been featured in an episode of Wishbone, and most recently, she has
discovered YouTube.
The Lizzie Bennet Diaries is an ambitious project captained by Bernie Su and HankGreen. In a nutshell, it is Pride and Prejudice done in the form of
a video diary or vlog of Elizabeth 'Lizzie' Bennet, a gradschool student in
modern-day America. Of course, the vlog is a well known and loved form of
expression on the internet, and a lot of cult fictional works have been created
in this form – The Guild by Felicia
Day and Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog by
Joss Whedon perhaps being one of the most famous – but never before has a
Victorian novel been adapted for the internet.
Four episodes have been uploaded
to Lizzie's channel so far, outlining most of the main characters and the
opening events, and the most recent episode has introduced the elusive,
mysterious and attractive Darcy. The challenge, of course, will be twofold:
updating the novel for the YouTube generation, which is used to short form and
quick delivery of information and fun, and at the same time maintaining the
integrity of the characters and following the classic storyline. The main format is as close to the novel as possible: Lizzie (played by Ashley Clements) addresses the audience directly, a staple element of a vlog. In an interview with Tubefilter, Hank Green says that the goal of the Diaries is viewership and level of engagement: the video diaries will not be a sealed off universe, but future videos may respond to the input of the viewers via YouTube comments or Twitter, employing a new kind of storytelling similar to the choose-your-own-adventure style. The Diaries are very dialogue- and character-based, which is at the same time very faithful and incredibly different from the source material: Lizzie is the one who carries the whole story, and imparting everything to the audience rests on her shoulders. She has to be genuine, likeable, and also a character that the audience can believe is the Elizabeth Bennet, except in the twenty-first century, for this project to work.
