The Lizzie Bennet Diaries

Written by: Michelle Gajewski

What happens when you transport one of the greatest love stories from the 1800s to the present day? You get a vlogging “24-year-old grad student with a mountain of student loans living at home.” Her name is Lizzie Bennet, and this is her life.

With help from best friend since foetuses Charlotte Lu, Lizzie vlogs about her life as part of her thesis project in mass communications. With 100 episodes and a total of 159 in-universe videos airing over the span of a year, the Lizzie Bennet Diaries has successfully managed to capture the essence of Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice in a modern context

Warning: some specific modernizations mentioned ahead.

The story focuses on Lizzie, Charlotte and Lizzie’s two sisters Jane and Lydia. Jane is older and practically perfect in every way while the younger Lydia is more “energetic.” Austen’s original had five sisters and the two who were omitted, Kitty and Mary, are instead brought into the story as a cat and an “emo” cousin, respectively.

There are many other crucial revisions that are made to the story, like marriage proposals (a central feature of P&P), which are changed to a variety of our modern romantic equivalents, or in some cases, business proposals. Lydia’s scandal also gets an update that is equally as shocking as her decision to run off with George Wickham in the book. Despite all of these modernizations though, the spirit of the Lizzie Bennet Diaries maintains the messages of the original work.

Pride & Prejudice is written in third-person narration. Because we chiefly get the story from Lizzie’s perspective on her vlog, the creators incorporated a vast transmedia universe, which is the gem of this adaptation. All the characters seen on screen have Twitter accounts, a handful have Tumblr and Facebook accounts, and some even have a Lookbook, Linked-In, and YouTube. The team even went so far as to create websites for two in-universe companies. Though painful as it was to not see all of the characters in action all of the time (when do we get to meet Bing Lee and Darcy?!) it was fun to read tweets between several characters. My favourite interactions were between the Lees and Darcy when they first moved to Netherfield because we got to witness how pretentious and hipster their views were (except for Bing who’s a sweetheart).

This use of transmedia also allowed for secondary characters to be rebuilt into complex heroes of their own stories. The most notable character to undergo this transformation is Lydia. She is definitely one of the least cared for and annoying characters in P&P. She was also one of the most annoying characters on the LBD -at first. The first 15 or so episodes I could not stand her, at all. It almost pained me to watch any scenes with her, but slowly, thanks to the wonderful acting of Mary Kate Wiles, I started to see another side to her. I was reluctant at first to have any sympathy for overly senseless Lydia, but the LBD took a turn that made me love her as much as I love Lizzie and Jane. Charlotte Lu also undergoes a powerful transformation from her book’s counterpart of a hopeless singleton to a career-oriented powerhouse.

I cannot praise the acting of the entire cast enough. Each part was perfectly cast and the actors work so well on the screen together that they deserve all the awards. It also doesn’t hurt to mention just how good looking everyone on this show is, it’s almost ridiculous!

Though there are some fans that have vocalized certain concerns, there really isn’t anything that I can personally criticize (except maybe more Dizzie screen time). I loved every bit of this adaptation and having been the first classic novel told in this format, the entire Lizzie Bennet Diaries team did an outstanding job. Their success on Kickstarter and Creative Arts Emmy® for Original Interactive Program in 2013 win is a testament to the team’s hard work, dedication, and ingenuity.

You can read more of my thoughts and feelings on the Lizzie Bennet Diaries here, or follow the entire story, watch Lizzie’s videos, or check out this awesome fan-made summary for yourself!