The Yassification of Jane Austen: Is Film and Television Studios Trying to ‘Girlbossify’ this Classic Author a Bad Thing?
By Laurel Stone
Anyone who enjoys a) the work of Jane Austen and b) films and shows where people wear funny trousers and declare their love for one another a lot will be aware of Netflix’s recent adaptation of Persuasion. Experimental takes on the much-adapted work of Austen are sometimes considered a welcome innovation, but to call the response to director Carrie Cracknell’s film divided would be generous. Viewers seem baffled by her take on the classic novel.
The film borrows heavily from Fleabag and Bridget Jones’ Diary, turning Austen’s quiet and serious heroine, Anne Elliot, into a fourth-wall breaking girlboss who chats to you about her trials with her ‘ex’. In the world of Netflix’s Persuasion, Anne and her family may be dressed like 18th-century gentry, dine in manor houses and play classical tunes on the pianoforte, but their dialogue is reworked to sound very much from 2022 – one excruciating example was a discussion about how, ‘it’s often said that if you’re a 5 in London, you’re a 10 in Bath.’
Many found this anachronistic take cringeworthy, and, to be honest, half of the dialogue sounding like something I might overhear in Starbucks did ruin my enjoyment of the film. However, I understand where Cracknell was coming from; after all, Austen’s witty and heartfelt commentary on the Regency marriage market contains powerful observations on love and human nature that ring true through the ages.
What’s more, Austen wrote heroines with a lively inner commentary, something that has inevitably influenced literature, filtering down to the female-led films and shows that this adaptation seems to mimic. Jane is well and truly the granddaddy of the romcom, and it feels like the way this film borrows from modern romantic comedy should feel clever. So, why doesn’t it work for so many people?
After all, when an author is adapted as much as Austen, purism seems a little pointless. Take Clueless, which draws from Austen’s Emma – it’s more 90s than a fluffy pen, but it works as a modern rom-com. The underrated 2016 adaptation of Love and Friendship takes some snappy modernising liberties with Austen’s dialogue and comes off better for it rather than worse.
While it is not an adaptation of Austen’s work, her influence on Netflix’s anachronistic regency behemoth, Bridgerton, cannot be denied. Out of this list, Bridgerton is further from faithful to the period than any other title – the sparkly costumes and visuals, somewhat modernised dialogue and sex scenes that would make your gran blush all produce a vision of the regency era on steroids.
For audiences, Bridgerton captures a kind of regency romance magic that Persuasion seems to have missed entirely. While parallels with modern love and dating can be found in Austen’s 18th-century romances, I don’t think that this is why we love them so much. The draw of her world to modern readers and viewers lies in the fantasy of these dynamics: the tenderness, reserve and propriety shown by her characters due to the rigid social rules of the time.
Just take the ‘hand-flex’ scene in Joe Wright’s 2005 Pride and Prejudice. When Darcy (Matthew Macfayden) helps Lizzie (Keira Knightley) into her carriage, the rare moment of physical contact between them leads a flustered Darcy to flex his hand while walking away from her in a way that is undeniably horny. The fact that this took place in a society where physical touch was socially policed is so alien to us – and also what makes it hot.
The high stakes and limitations of relationships back then are kind of the point! When Austen’s heroes and heroines cross the finish line to marriage, they’re risking it all for lasting happiness. It’s big, silly and romantic. It is a million miles away from the noncommittal modern dating landscape of hookups, Tinder and ghosting. That’s not to say that these regressive relationship structures are anything to strive for, but in the context of these fantasy narratives, it works.
This, ultimately, is why Anne Elliott and her family, sitting there in corsets and pantaloons yet knowing what a 10/10, an empath and self-care are, just cannot float my boat. While Bridgerton is extremely silly in many ways, it seems to understand what it is about. It keeps romance viewers invested and relies heavily on rigid social conventions and starchy manners to keep its lovers star-crossed, even holding back on the sexy stuff in season two to emulate the slow-burn romance that many fans of period drama love.
While Persuasion certainly hoped to emulate Bridgerton’s success, the extremely online-feeling rewrite breaks down the strict manners and conventions keeping Anne and her love interest, Wentworth, apart so much that you have to wonder what prevented them from resolving their issues in the first place. A world in which Anne can cheerfully complain about being ‘friends with her ex’ does not feel like a world in which the heartbreaking misunderstanding that drove them apart for eight years could occur.
At the end of the day, there will never be a total consensus between Austen fans over what does and doesn’t stand the test of time – take the savage debate over the 90s BBC series versus the 2005 film of Pride and Prejudice as proof of that. But it seems that 2022’s Persuasion is broadly a swing and a miss.
That is not to say it’s all bad: the creative desire to reimagine Austen in relation to modern womanhood and love is always going to be something I personally admire, and its diverse casting choices – another similarity to Bridgerton – are a crucial and necessary update to a genre that has lagged behind in terms of representation.
However, as famously written in Emma, ‘There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart’. Such a principle is one that the most-loved Austen adaptations thrive on, but something that Netflix’s latest offering seems to forget.