Pride and Prejudice, the Web Diary Edition

It is a truth universally acknowledged that we can never have too many Jane Austen parodies.

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It is a truth universally acknowledged that parodies and adaptions of Pride and Prejudice will never die. The newest one is an autobiographical web series titled the “Lizzie Bennet Diaries,” which premiered on YouTube earlier this month Meet the modern day Elizabeth Bennet:  a 24-year-old grad student studying mass communications and burdened with a mountain of student debt. 

The web series stays true to the Jane Austen novel’s main characters. Elizabeth (a.k.a. Lizzie) is just as snarky and independent-minded as ever, except now she has a webcam. Her sister Lydia is still boy crazy and ditzy, only this time she barely escapes appearing on the reality show 16 and Pregnant. And Mama Bennet seems to be some concoction of a southern belle and president of what Lizzie likes to call the  “white picket fence club.” Her soul’s desire? To have all of her daughters become trophy wives.

This isn’t the first parody of Austen’s work to come out in recent years, first among equals probably being the 2009 parody novel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies — narrowly beating out  Jane Austen’s Fight Club, in which bored, 19th-century ladies break the monotony of their lives by punching each other’s lights out in the picturesque English countryside.

The web series can be added to the dozens of Austen adaptions and stories about the plight of the independent single girl. Still, as long as this means a little more Mr. Darcy in our  lives, we doubt anyone will complain.

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