Girls on film

Three-quarters of the twenty-first century lies ahead of us, but already the New York Times is hard at work on clickbait Best of the Century lists—most recently, "The 100 Best Movies of the 21^st Century."

“Best according to whom?” you are no doubt wondering—and therein lies a tale that tangentially involves Jane Austen.

The newspaper’s main list, dribbled out online over several days last month, was derived from the votes of “more than 500 influential directors, actors and other notable names in Hollywood and around the world.” Then the NYT polled its readers and drew up a second list based on the votes of the more than 200,000 who responded.

Not surprisingly, given the demographics of the New York Times’ readership, the Experts list and the Proletarian list largely overlap—seventy-two of the Best 100 movies appear on both lists, albeit sometimes with different rank-ordering. Of the twenty-eight preferred by the experts but not the proles, many are foreign films (or, as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences now puts it, “international features”); of the twenty-eight preferred by the proles but not the experts, six are episodes of science fiction/superhero/fantasy franchises, and several more are genre blockbusters. (Although four are also international features—see under “NYT reader demographics.”)

As a devoted movie fan—I’ve seen all but 20 of the 128 movies on the two lists—I would happily argue over the choices for days. (The experts picked Adaptation but not Drive My Car? Were they on crack?) But for our purposes today, let me turn your attention to another title, missing from the experts’ list but clocking in at #50 on the readers’ list—Joe Wright’s 2005 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, starring Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen.

I’m not here to adjudicate the two-decades-and-counting dispute between devoted Janeites who think this movie’s swoony romanticism makes it a travesty of Austen’s novel and those equally devoted Janeites who think said swoony romanticism makes it the best possible version.

Instead, I want to point out that P&P is one of four films picked by readers but not experts that might be classified as Girlie Bildungsromans—coming-of-age stories about the social, romantic, and professional lives of young women. And coincidentally—or maybe not--two more of those have their own Austen links, as blog readers may recall.

In Little Women (#60), from 2019, the protagonist offers her writing to a publisher named Dashwood, while 2023’s Barbie (#84) incorporates a hilarious shout-out to a (different) famous Pride and Prejudice adaptation.

In both these cases, the Austen homage is undoubtedly sincere, since both (wonderful) films were directed by Greta Gerwig, who is on record calling Jane Austen an influence, albeit an ambiguous one (see 6:27 in this 2020 interview with Vogue). But by now, it’s clear that Austen has become the go-to referent when anyone--writer, filmmaker, perfume marketer—wants to gesture toward an ineffable combination of female empowerment, romantic love, and general classiness.

As far as I can remember, the fourth girl-grows-up movie that the NYT’s readers picked --2004’s Mean Girls (#82)—doesn’t mention Jane Austen. But you know what? It’s been a long time since I've seen it, so I could be wrong. After all, Jane Austen’s mean girls are some of the meanest around. Looking at you, Caroline Bingley.