It looks like we’re finally seeing the backlash to Jane Austen’s rise in popularity over the past decade or so. Maybe backlash isn’t the right word: It’s more of a side-lash, a re-appropriation. Hollywood’s treatment of Austen has typically targetted the female demographic, full of lush escapism and romantic intrigue. Well, no more. Wresting her work from the clutches of sentimentality are a bunch of projects which marry the Victorian stories with the most sordid aspects of Pulp genre fiction.
Due up in April is Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a novel by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith. It’s advertised by publisher Chronicle Books as “The Classic Regency Romance—Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!” The title may not be so clever, but the execution is: Grahame-Smith is leaving large portions of the original text (long-since in the public domain) intact, rewriting just enough to intersperse the comedy of manners with gory, brain-devouring terror.
Also announced is Elton John’s newest project, Pride and Predator, a movie version of the same story. This time it’s hostile aliens that splatter blood over corsets and petticoats.
Lastly, there’s the time-travelling Lost in Austen, wherein a young heroine from the 21st century finds herself whisked backwards through the ages to inhabit the body of Elizabeth Bennett.
This is a delightful new genre, one which DRIVEN hopes to see flourish into dozens of spinoffs. To that end, we propose four other Pulp-Austen mashups:
Dolemite! and Prejudice
Genre: Blaxploitation
Plot: Womanizing detective Fitzwilliam Dolemite uncovers a human trafficking ring when Kitty B is kidnapped by Delicious Wickham Slim.
The Sense, The Sensibility and The Ugly
Genre: Western
Plot: John Waynewood’s conniving wife forces his three half-sisters out of their Louisiana estate, so the trio heads out west to start a simpler life on a ranch. Colonel Brandon (veteran of the civil war) and The Willoughby Kid both vie for the affections of Marianne, but the bloody shootout ends with the Colonel standing over the younger man’s twitching body, squinting into the sun.
Mansfield Pork
Genre: Erotica
Plot: The protagonist of Austen’s third novel is perhaps the most debated amongst literary critics; some feel her too prudish and moralizing, and some feel that her faith—while enabling her to resist temptation—makes her intolerant. Well not in this version, Fanny Spice.
Emma (Frost)
Genre: Superhero
Plot: Spoiled and bored X-Men member Emma Frost uses her telepathic abilities for matchmaking and to ‘fix’ her friends’ faults with hilarious results, before finally settling down herself with Mr. Knightcrawlerly.
Men writing and producing slasher-historical costume romances where women are brutally killed for a laugh? I can’t help thinking these men must harbour some deep seated anger/hatred for women.
I can understand some people might be sick to death of Hollywood’s Austen-fest, but slashing and killing characters who are the last bastion of innocence? How is that funny?
“Wresting her work from the clutches of sentimentality are a bunch of projects which marry the Victorian stories with the most sordid aspects of Pulp genre fiction.”
Victorian? The most basic fact-checking will tell you that Jane Austen lived, wrote and died during the reign of George III.
I can think of quite a few Austen characters who could stand to be devoured by zombies! I think we can all agree that everyone would be better off if Mr. Wickham, for instance, had had his brains eaten.
I must also point out that credit for this trend should go to the peerless Maureen Johnson, who added zombies to Pride and Prejudice over a year ago.
Also, Katie is perfectly right. Jane Austen died in 1817. Queen Victoria ascended the throne some 20 years later as a whippersnapper of 18. Although it is very possible that she enjoyed slaying zombies in her free time.
This is one of the wonders of the internet: The wisdom of the crowds makes fact-checking unnecessary. Long live sloppy writing! (Thanks to Katie and Electric Landlady for proving, once again, that the internet is smarter than me.)
As an aside, although neither the Grahame-Smith novel nor Elton John’s movie have been released yet, I’d wager that both slaughter the male and female characters in roughly equal proportions. I hope so, anyway.
What is the least feminist–the Austen mashups, the Hollywood Austen adaptations or the novels themselves? Ah, ongoing Austen fury. I say, hoorah for whatever keeps Austen alive and kicking when newspapers are publishing articles like “In Tough Times, the Humanities Must Justify Their Worth” (see nytimes yesterday).
As for the Victorian-ness of Austen–I think, although she’s not Victorian, she does represent a bridge figure from 18th c. to Victorian literature, prefiguring the Brontës and all. Her stories exemplify a lot of Victorian literature traits–internality of characters, marriage plots, virtue winning out in the end, the difficult life rewarded etc. Besides, Victorian literature people do tend to use her all the time in their work. In some ways, it is fair to call her stories “Victorian” in character though maybe it’s not entirely temporally accurate.
“In some ways, it is fair to call her stories “Victorian” in character though maybe it’s not entirely temporally accurate.”
So if I steal tropes and characterizations from Tolstoy, that makes him a Canadian novelist does it?
Interesting theory.
“In some ways, it is fair to call her stories “Victorian” in character though maybe it’s not entirely temporally accurate.”
“So if I steal tropes and characterizations from Tolstoy, that makes him a Canadian novelist does it?”
Actually, I think it’s more like calling Neitzsche existentialist in character, even though the term wasn’t coined until the next century.