Elevating Lydia Bennet: Illustrating Third Wave Feminism's Politics of Difference in The Lizzie Bennet Diaries

Object Type: Asset
In Folder: Gender & Cultural Studies, MA

Expand to show object metadata

Elevating Lydia Bennet: Illustrating Third Wave Feminism's Politics of Difference in The Lizzie Bennet Diaries

McLain, Sarah - Thesis

Dublin Core Metadata

title: Elevating Lydia Bennet: Illustrating Third Wave Feminism's Politics of Difference in The Lizzie Bennet Diaries

creator: McLain, Sarah

subject: Academic theses.

description: "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. My mom gave each of these one of these last Christmas. I have yet to wear it … ever," Lizzie Bennet says, displaying her T-shirt with Jane Austen’s famous opening sentence to Pride and Prejudice (The Lizzie Bennet Diaries 1: "My Name is Lizzie Bennet"). The opening sequence of the 2012 web series, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries (LBD), immediately acknowledges intertextuality with Austen through its repetition of the novel's iconic first sentence, yet the transmedia series transforms the popular story by offering multiple female-centric narratives. Premiering on YouTube on April 9, 2012, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries web-series churned out biweekly serialized1 episodes that were two to eight minutes long, concluding on March 28, 2013 with its 100th episode. During the span of the primary series, an additional sixty or so videos appeared as spin-offs, question and answer videos, and alternative narratives that expanded the reality of Lizzie's videos while challenging her perspective and prejudice. The accolades which followed the series included winning a 2013 Creative Emmy for "Outstanding Creative Achievement in Interactive Media - Original Interactive Program," and garnering multiple nominations (and a few wins) for the 3rd Annual Streamy Awards, a set of awards recognizing the top web series on the Internet. In addition to the awards, entertainment media wrote numerous articles celebrating the new take on Jane Austen, including The Guardian's Kaite Welsh referring to the series as "the best Austen adaptation around." Still, the creators, Hank Green and Bernie Su acknowledged the uncertainty of the web series' popularity which loomed large over the launch of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries even with its relationship to the incredibly popular Pride and Prejudice. The transmedia scope, the shift from romance to sisterlytension, the YouTube format, and biweekly schedule initially represented an innovative experiment that relied on a patient audience willing to invest in the whole experience, an experience with multiple avenues of interactivity and reception.

publisher: Simmons College (Boston, Mass.)

contributor:

date: 2015

type: Text

format: 1 PDF (51 Pages)

identifier: td_gcs_2015_sl

source:

language: English

relation:

coverage:

rights: Material from the Simmons University Archives collections are made available for study purposes only. For more information, or to request rights to reproduce or reuse any material, contact the University Archives at archives@simmons.edu.

Show more ▼