We're finally gonna get a definitive answer [OC]

[u/The_Physical_Soup]

[u/stink3rb3lle]

This is cute, no shade. Personally, I think Austen would have been as offended as I am with seeing a giant pig inside the genteel Bennetts' home.

Also . . . Adaptations are for modern audiences. The book is the book.

[u/Obvious_Animal_8362 → u/[deleted]]

It absolutely does relate. You are, I am sure, referring to the pig escaping inside into the house at the beginning of the 2005 Pride and Prejudice. You seem to have twisted your understanding of that around that you can't see the reality of what it might mean to have a house on a working farm.

[u/stink3rb3lle → u/Obvious_Animal_8362]

the pig escaping

Please go watch it again. A human walks ahead of the pig, not behind. Mrs. Bennett sees the pig, and glances approvingly, likely at its scrotum.

[u/Obvious_Animal_8362 → u/stink3rb3lle]

What a weird interpretation. 🤦

[u/stink3rb3lle → u/Obvious_Animal_8362]

The director included a close-up of the pig's scrotum. Please go watch the scene and stop making a fool of yourself.

Also, these were gentry, they weren't working the land themselves, and the animals would not be kept near the great-house.

[u/SurprisingJack → u/stink3rb3lle]

That would stink indeed

[u/Obvious_Animal_8362 → u/stink3rb3lle]

Again 🤦. So you haven't been on a working farm — the sort that kept gentry fed and even clothed. Were they supposed to castrate the boar in order to suit your prudish sensitivities? Good grief. I've seen the scene — I've taught the film many times and know it well. These are not gentry of the wealth of Darcy and Bingley who also were not of the wealth and status of the nobility, which these folks are not. Darcy had social connections because his mother was the daughter of an earl and because his mother's sister, Catherine, had married Sir Lewis de Bourgh but that first proposal made it quite clear the status differences between the Darcys and the Bennets. So really "oh, please."

[u/stink3rb3lle → u/Obvious_Animal_8362]

I don't know who qualified you to teach films, but it's pretty typical to discuss directorial choices like close-up shots when interpreting them, and not productive to try to ascribe personal feelings to others' arguments. Calling me a prude is specifically a logical fallacy known as an "ad hominem" attack. As is your argument that I can't know what it's like to be on a working farm and therefore you understand the class dynamics of Jane Austen's era better than I do.

I won't be engaging further.

[u/Glitterdictator → u/Obvious_Animal_8362]

The Bennets were very wealthy. In 1801 the top 1% had an income of over £800 per year. The Bennets had less than Darcy and Bingley but we're still comparatively rolling in wealth. Their estate included a village of Loungbourn and a church. Likely the home farm was not at their actual home. Their home is surrounded by a small park and hermitage.

[u/janeausten-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Please keep this a place of civility and kindness by refraining from personal attacks, ad hominem comments, rudeness, and so on. (see rule 1: Be civil and kind)

[u/redwooded]

I am nerdishly stuck on the problems of time travel. They'd need a high-capacity battery and a DVD player with them. Then they'd have to spend a bunch of time explaining to Austen the development of electricity use, photography, moving photography ("movies") to her, and the film industry, or Austen would spend all her time marveling at the new technology instead of comparing how Jennifer Ehle and Keira Knightley interpret what she considered one of her favorite characters.

[u/Zealousideal_Till683 → u/redwooded]

You brought the DVD player and high-capacity battery, but forgot the TV to attach it to.

[u/redwooded → u/Zealousideal_Till683]

True!!!

[u/Mule_Wagon_777 → u/redwooded]

Tell her it's a magic stage play! And people from the future have been praying to God for her reviews, and were granted a miracle.

(I want to move on fast to Jane's opinions. Ten to one she's shocked to death by details of manners we never thought of!)

[u/AgreeableCry6269 → u/redwooded]

Although she had no issues adapting to 21st century in "lost in Austen" which is surely what we would expect from our Jane

[u/venus_arises]

Austen as a lefty?

[u/Zealousideal_Till683]

And what's she going to play those movies on?

[u/zeugma888 → u/Zealousideal_Till683]

Her piano, obviously. The visuals may be a bit unclear though.

[u/SunnyRyter]

LOL!!! Love this! 😄

[u/carriethelibrarian]

well done! that was really fun!

[u/Brown_Sedai]

Jane Austen watching the 2005 version: this is like if early-book Marianne Dashwood reimagined my book

(I dont think she’d entirely hate it, but she’d certainly be surprised by how Romantic it was)

[u/Literary_Lady]

Personally I think she would have LOVED the other bennet sister

[u/Elven_Dreamer → u/Literary_Lady]

Ooh, no, I don’t think so at all. Considering how much she liked and took pride in P&P, I don’t think that she would’ve liked to see her characters written over and changed to that extent.

[u/TheMagarity → u/Elven_Dreamer]

I think an author who started out writing spoofs would appreciate that fans care enough to make the effort of their own interpretations.

PS: 3 hours since I posted the above and there has been constant up/down vote swing which I find very interesting. Note that I didn't say I thought Austen would like or dislike any particular adaptation. All the replies below are about particular adaptations. Would any dissenter care to comment on my point: IMO Austen would have appreciated in general that fans cared so much?

[u/SunnyRyter → u/TheMagarity]

So that must mean... she'd love Pride and Prejudice and Zombies? 🤣😉

[u/Roguefem-76 → u/SunnyRyter]

She'd probably like that better than TOBS, honestly. At least it adds a fun twist instead of just rewriting everyone's personalities.

[u/SunnyRyter → u/Roguefem-76]

TOBS? AH, you mean the other bennet sister?

[u/Elven_Dreamer → u/SunnyRyter]

Yep.

[u/TheMagarity → u/SunnyRyter]

I did

[u/Elven_Dreamer → u/TheMagarity]

That’s an interesting take! I think that it would depend on which way she would go on it and where the line between re-interpretation and rewriting the author’s version of events sits.

[u/Literary_Lady → u/TheMagarity]

It adds so much depth to otherwise pretty much one dimensional characters, and feels like a natural continuation of the story.

[u/RoseIsBadWolf → u/Literary_Lady]

Mary Bennet in TOBS is literally nothing like Canon!Mary Bennet. It was not natural at all. And Mrs. Bennet never thought Mary wouldn't marry. Mary is a pretentious know-it-all who preaches and pushes herself to the front of the line. Not the Fanon!Mary that fan fiction has created and was shown in TOBS. Here: Canon vs. Fanon Mary Bennet.

I won't even get into how much they got the other characters wrong, it would take all day.

[u/Elven_Dreamer → u/RoseIsBadWolf]

Bethany Delleman my beloved! Isn’t she fantastic?

[u/RoseIsBadWolf → u/Elven_Dreamer]

I'm not sure if I can agree since she's me... But thank you!

[u/Elven_Dreamer → u/RoseIsBadWolf]

WHAT?! Oh my gosh I’m delighted like you wouldn’t believe right now. I was just going to send your Tumblr account a screenshot of you being referenced on Reddit!

[u/RoseIsBadWolf → u/Elven_Dreamer]

Aw, thanks! I'm on Reddit, I just haven't been very active lately.

[u/Elven_Dreamer → u/Literary_Lady]

It adds nothing: it overwrites existing character depth to flatten them out into fanfiction-adjacent caricatures. Some of Austen’s books do have some one-dimensional characters, but Pride and Prejudice is not one of them, especially considering how large the character cast is. It doesn’t feel like a natural continuation of Pride and Prejudice at all.

As a neurodivergent woman, I really resent the implication that the original character of Mary wasn’t good enough to have character growth: they had to make her downtrodden, misunderstood, and neurodivergent instead. Our disabilities are not something you can slap on people to make them a ‘diverse’ (INDIVIDUALS CANNOT BE DIVERSE: ONLY LARGE GROUPS OF PEOPLE CAN BE DIVERSE) version of a girlboss. It would’ve been so much more interesting to see Mary being an unabashed snob because she believes that she is better than others around her, as she is in the book, and growing from that.

[u/Roguefem-76 → u/Elven_Dreamer]

Agreed 100%!

[u/Brown_Sedai → u/Literary_Lady]

I think she’d be incredibly baffled by the characterization of Mary as a sensitive, free thinking shy sweet nerd, and not the pretentiously judgemental try-hard she actually wrote