Maddie Webb – Bitch Flicks

“A Truth Universally Acknowledged”: The Importance of the Bennet Sisters Now

But more and more it seems you can judge the quality of modern adaptations on how the filmmakers view Lizzie in relation to her sisters. Even though the representation of women has greatly expanded since Austen’s time, a story that revolves mostly around sisterly relationships remains rare, which makes it even more vital. And while it is true that Austen’s romance has a timeless quality that makes it popular, the narrative of sisterly love remains transcendent.

This guest post written by Maddie Webb appears as part of our theme week on Sisterhood.

The Bennet sisters are some of the most enduring characters in fiction and Pride and Prejudice remains a beloved story. Can the modern incarnations of Lizzie, Jane, Lydia, Kitty, and Mary explain why people keep falling in love with their story?

Pride and Prejudice, for most people in popular culture, is seen as an early example of the “rom-com” genre. Boy meets girl, boy and girl hate each other, but despite their clashing personalities, they grow, develop and eventually, inevitably, fall in love. But Pride and Prejudice is more than just a first in its genre; it’s also one of the most adapted, readapted, spun off, and reworked pieces of fiction. I think the reason for that isn’t about how hunky Darcy and Wickham are or even the comic stylings of Mrs Bennet; I think it’s because of the Bennet sisters.

Like most of Jane Austen’s work, there is so much more going on under the surface and it’s easy to miss how her plots or characters often subvert societal norms, which is part of the reason her stories endure. In the case of Pride and Prejudice, this subversion comes in the form of the Bennet sisters, who are at once relatable and thoroughly atypical female characters in Regency fiction. Even within the confines of the 19th century, the Bennet sisters, for better and worse, have agency and personality coming out their ears. Though I didn’t watch every single adaptation of Austen’s classic (you’ll have to forgive me but my spare time is not that abundant), the most successful ones choose to make Lizzie’s happiness as dependent on her relationship with her sisters as her relationship with Darcy.

Three modern versions of Pride and Prejudice I did watch recently are Bride and Prejudice, the web series The Lizzie Bennet Diaries and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies — all of which I can recommend for different reasons, but all ground the heart of the narrative in the Bennet sisters’ bond. My personal favorite retelling of the Elizabeth Bennet story is The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, an Emmy-winning web series that reimagines Lizzie as a grad student who starts a video series while studying mass communication. Although only two of the sisters, Jane and Lydia, make the cut for this adaptation (there is a cousin Mary and a cat replaces Kitty), they are unquestionably more important to Lizzie than her love life, a good thing considering Darcy doesn’t even appear in person until episode 50. The vlogging format of the show gives the story enough room to fully flesh out both Jane and Lydia and shifts large amounts of Lizzie’s character development onto her relationships with her sisters. Lydia even gets her own spin-off series, which in her own words is “totes adorbs.”

I also enjoy Bride and Prejudice, the 2004 Bollywood film, mostly because of some killer musical numbers, but also because of the Bakshi sisters’ camaraderie. Our Elizabeth character, here called Lalita Bakshi, has three sisters, only losing Kitty in the translation (poor Kitty). Having the concept of arranged marriages still in place within the culture makes it a modernization that maintains more of the plot than The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. But again the alterations made to the story are largely to do with the sisters. The frame of the plot is largely the same, but the chemistry, affection, and bickering between the women feels honest and refreshing; it’s given more screen-time than the period adaptations. Bollywood and Regency fiction may not seem like a natural pairing, but keeping the family dynamic central is key to why this version is so charming.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies may be ridiculous but it’s both a period film and an action movie, making it my kind of ridiculous. Even though this is still technically a period piece it has much in common with the other modern spins on the story. The action in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is focused on the power of the sisters as a team and helps develop their characters. The opening fight scene — when the girls slaughter the zombie hoards — is a moment where an otherwise muddled film comes alive, while the training scenes are used to smuggle in some sister bonding time, over their love lives. Considering how easily this could have ended up as the period version of Sucker Punch, the Bennet sisters ensure that the film, while occasionally brainless, is never heartless.

Another key point of change in these versions is how the Wickham/Lydia plot is handled. I can only speak for myself, but in the book, Lydia’s behavior for me is just another annoying inconvenience in the path of Lizzie and Darcy’s happiness. In the original, the issue of Lydia running off isn’t about what will happen when Wickham abandons her, but more that it’ll ruin the family’s standing in society (read: Lizzie and Jane, the characters we actually care about). However, placed in a modern context, the Wickham/Lydia plot reads more like an abuse story. She is still young, naïve, and silly but crucially, not vilified because of it. As a result of this subtle but important distinction, Wickham is elevated from cad to full on monster. Hell, in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, he literally locks Lydia up and is unmasked as the cause of the zombie apocalypse. It’s another element of this version that is a bit ridiculous, but again, no one can accuse Pride and Prejudice and Zombies of being subtle.

The Lizzie Bennet Diaries variation on Wickham, while more restrained, is equally as menacing and monstrous. Over the course of the series, a subplot of party girl Lydia becoming isolated from her family slowly unravels. Now career women, Jane and Lizzie are too busy for their little sister, with the latter dismissing her as a “stupid whorey slut” in the second episode. This leads her to be emotionally manipulated by Wickham, which we get to see painfully play out in her own spin-off series. The episode in which Lizzie confronts her and Lydia realizes Wickham’s true nature, is devastating. Not because it messes with Lizzie’s happiness, but because we truly care about Lydia. Creators Hank Green and Bernie Su have spoken at length about the importance of their alterations to Lydia’s story, resulting in a heartbreaking and insightful portrayal of abuse, within a light comedy series.

A similar situation unfolds in Bride and Prejudice, perhaps to a more satisfying conclusion since we get to see both Bakshi girls slap Wickham before walking out hand in hand. It’s only fitting that, in each of these adaptations Lydia is (sometimes literally) saved from Wickham and her crime of being an impressionable and impulsive teenage girl is no longer worth a life sentence. This area of the story has always left a bad taste in my mouth when it comes to the otherwise completely serviceable 2005 Joe Wright film adaptation. Despite bringing a modern filmmaking sensibility to the rest of the narrative, Lydia is still just another silly, inconvenient hurdle on Lizzie’s path to happiness, a real wasted opportunity to show how crap it was being a woman in Regency England.

People love Pride and Prejudice for all sorts of reasons: for example, my mother is rather attached to Colin Firth’s Darcy. But more and more it seems you can judge the quality of modern adaptations on how the filmmakers view Lizzie in relation to her sisters. Even though the representation of women has greatly expanded since Austen’s time, a story that revolves mostly around sisterly relationships remains rare, which makes it even more vital. And while it is true that Austen’s romance has a timeless quality that makes it popular, the narrative of sisterly love remains transcendent.

Recommended Reading: Lizzie Bennett Diaries #2 by Hank Green (on the Lydia Bennet story)

Maddie Webb is a student currently studying Biology in London. If she doesn’t end up becoming a mad scientist, her goal is to write about science and the ladies kicking ass in STEM fields. In the meantime, you can find her on Twitter at @maddiefallsover.

5 Women Scientists Who Need Their Own Movie ASAP

Issues around equal gender representation in film are compounded by many female researchers’ accomplishments being erased from history, resulting in very few women being key players in scientific biopics. As a woman studying for a science degree, this absence is as painful as it obvious. So in a bid to restore balance (and an excuse for me to nerd out), here are 5 female scientists that deserve to have their stories told on the silver screen.

This guest post written by Maddie Webb appears as part of our theme week on Women Scientists.

I am a fan of biopics. And, judging by the success of films like The Theory of Everything and The Imitation Game, biopics about scientists are definitely viable projects for Hollywood. However, issues around equal gender representation in film are compounded by many female researchers’ accomplishments being erased from history, resulting in very few women being key players in scientific biopics. As a woman studying for a science degree, this absence is as painful as it obvious.

So in a bid to restore balance (and an excuse for me to nerd out), here are 5 female scientists that deserve to have their stories told on the silver screen.

1. Katherine Johnson and the women of NASA — Physicists

NASA is awesome. That’s probably one of the least controversial statements ever, but did you know that it was a group of African American female mathematicians that gave the USA the edge in the space race?

This first one is a bit of a cheat since it’s already being made into a movie, but since it seems to be flying under the radar of even my most devoted cinephile friends, I’m using this list as an excuse to talk about it. Hidden Figures, is the sophomore effort of director Theodore Melfi, written by Allison Schroeder, and the film adaptation of a book of the same name written by Margot Lee Shetterly.

Taraji P. Henson has taken a break from owning season 2 of Empire and is set to star as Katherine Johnson, the physicist turned space scientist badass whose calculations were so accurate, NASA would call her to verify their own computer-generated numbers. Johnson graduated high school at the age of 14 and graduated college at 18. At NASA, she calculated launch windows and space flight trajectories. She has also “co-authored 26 scientific papers.”

Janelle Monáe and Octavia Spencer, who are also playing scientists, round out the leading ladies roster and the film is expected to touch on the civil rights era from the unique perspective of women working inside an institution like NASA. In a world where the representation of Black women in positive roles is still lacking, there’s plenty to get excited about in this story.

2. Ada Lovelace — Mathematician

How this women’s story still doesn’t have a film adaptation I will never know. Largely abandoned by her famous but useless father Lord Byron, Ada Lovelace is widely credited with writing the first algorithm designed to be performed independently by a machine. In other words, a woman born in 1815 was the first person to write computer code. HOW IS THIS NOT A MOVIE?!

It’s also a tragedy. Lovelace by all accounts was a woman ahead of her time and her genius went unappreciated by her overbearing mother, her indifferent husband, and even Charles Babbage, the man who invented the counting machine she wrote the code for. She died aged 36 from uterine cancer and it wasn’t until the beginning of the digital age that she was rightfully recognized as a pioneer of computing.

Her prominence in civil society would also the perfect excuse for a film to include some famous historical faces. Lovelace moved in the same circles as Charles Dickens, Michael Faraday, and fellow lady scientist Mary Somerville. Plus doesn’t everyone love a good period film?

3. Rosalind Franklin — Chemist

Sometimes history forgets people; sometimes people “borrow” your work and never give you proper credit. Thus goes the story of Rosalind Franklin, an X-ray crystallographer whose work was instrumental in the discovery of the structure of DNA, the importance of which cannot be understated in modern biology. Trust me on that one.

Born in 1920 to an upper class Jewish family in England, Franklin became a research associate at King’s College in 1951. She ruffled a lot of feathers in the scientific community and left her post after just 2 years due to clashes with her superiors. Fellow researchers Watson and Crick used the images she produced in her research (and was forced to leave behind at King’s) without her knowledge to help determine the structure for DNA and win a Nobel prize, which Watson later admitted should have also been awarded to Franklin.

One reason why this story is a more likely candidate for a film adaptation is that a play about Franklin’s life, Photograph 51, starring Nicole Kidman recently concluded a very successful run on the West End. It would certainly be interesting to see a film about a Jewish woman dealing with institutionalized sexism but also the growing anti-Semitism in 1930’s Europe and the repercussion of World War II.

She will never get the Nobel Prize but that doesn’t mean Rosalind Franklin shouldn’t get her time to shine.

4. Vera Rubin — Astronomer

Vera Rubin is a pioneer astronomer in the field of galaxy rotation and dark matter, one of the most important concepts in modern physics. And if absolutely none of the previous sentence made any actual sense to you, welcome to the world of theoretical physics.

At the age of 22, Rubin presented her first thesis on galaxy rotation and was essentially laughed out of the room. Her peers mostly dismissed her argument; the resulting paper she authored was rejected by the major astronomy journals of the time. On top of that, she was later barred from pursuing her theories further at Georgetown’s Applied Physics Lab “because wives were not allowed” there.

It turns out Rubin’s thesis was right. Not only is Rubin credited with providing research and evidence of dark matter, the Rubin-Ford effect, which “describes the motion of the Milky Way,” is named after her and fellow astronomer Kent Ford.

Rubin is pretty much a modern-day Alexander Hamilton in regards to her work ethic. As of 2013, she has at least co-authored 114 peer-reviewed papers, while somehow finding time to raise 4 children who also all have PhDs. Basically, she’s the head of the science equivalent of the Von Trapp family, and if you don’t want to see that film, then there is simply no pleasing you.

She’s also the definition of a role model; an outspoken advocate for encouraging more women into STEM fields and combating peer review gender bias, while staying endearingly humble about her own achievements.

In her own words: “Fame is fleeting, my numbers mean more to me than my name. If astronomers are still using my data years from now, that’s my greatest compliment.”

I say we give her a movie anyway.

5. Flossie Wong-Staal — Biologist

Maybe as a biologist I’m just biased, but Flossie Wong-Staal’s life story in my opinion would make the most interesting film.

Born Yee Ching Wong in communist China, Wong-Staal fled to Hong Kong with her family when she was 5 years old and she was given the English name Flossie after a typhoon that hit the family’s home. The name turned out to be appropriate, since in her professional life, Flossie was a force of nature.

Moving to the U.S. alone at only 18, Wong-Staal was the first female member of her family to go to college. After earning her PhD in molecular biology, she went on to become a world-leading expert on HIV. She was the first scientist to successfully clone the virus and helped prove that it caused AIDS, which was the medical and geopolitical issue of the time. Her continued research made it possible for the development of an HIV test, saving countless lives worldwide. Wong-Staal also founded her own pharmaceutical company and still works today, as if she wasn’t cool enough already.

From a cinematic perspective, it would be interesting to see the AIDS epidemic from the perspective of the scientists that try to combat one of the most deadly viral outbreaks in modern history. Additionally, a film based on the achievements and contribution of an immigrant in Western culture would be appreciated, considering the current political climate.

So there is my personal list of the women in STEM that I’d like to see on screen. Hopefully in the future some of these ladies will get the recognition they deserve and inspire more girls to follow in their footsteps; what a legacy that would be.

Photo of Katherine Johnson by NASA in the public domain.

Image of Ada Lovelace; portrait by Alfred Edward Chalon in the Science Musuem, London in the public domain in the U.S.

Photo of Dr. Rosalind Franklin by Robin Stott via the Creative Commons License.

Photo of Vera Rubin and others at the Women in Astronomy and Space Science 2009 Conference by NASA in the public domain.

Photo of Dr. Flossie Wong-Staal by the National Institutes of Health in the public domain.

Why Scarlet Witch May Be the Future of Women in the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Having a superhero grapple with the right use of their power is hardly a new theme and it’s central to the broader narrative of ‘Captain America: Civil War.’ But allowing a female superhero to tackle the same dilemma on a deeply personal level feels quietly subversive. …Women superheroes can be inhumanly powerful without being reduced to a boringly infallible female badass caricature.

This guest post written by Maddie Webb appears as part of our theme week on Superheroines. | Mild spoilers for Captain America: Civil War.

There is a lot to dissect in Captain America: Civil War, which is what makes it so compelling to watch. It’s a film overflowing with political allegory and highly anticipated character introductions, building to perhaps the most emotional climax to a superhero film ever seen. It is therefore understandable that most of the reviews and buzz around the film don’t seem too interested in the small role Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch plays in the greater plot machinations of the superhero showdown. This is kind of a shame because her character arc gives me hope for the other women superheroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), whose treatment of their all too few female characters in the past has been checkered at best.

Introduced in Avengers: Age of Ultron alongside her brother Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch (Wanda Maximoff)’s entrance into the MCU seemed to be more of a result of Marvel’s endless pissing contest with Fox rather than anyone actually wanting to do something interesting with the character. Sure, she gets to mess with the Avengers’ minds and rips out Ultron’s mechanical heart, but she never feels like a three-dimensional human. Instead, she exists more as a tool to move pieces into place and create conflict within the team. Though not at quite the same level as the treatment Black Widow gets in the film, which some people saw as tantamount to character assassination, Wanda’s introduction is, like the rest of the film, a bit underwhelming.

Imagine my surprise when leaving Civil War, the first thing I wanted to do was read House of M so I could fall in love with Scarlet Witch’s comic counterpart as well as her movie form. In Civil War, Scarlet Witch doesn’t just drive the plot forward but she’s allowed to exist as a fully formed young woman, all without undermining the fact that she is the most powerful character that has been introduced into the MCU so far. That is so exciting to me it’s kind of ridiculous. It’s also no small feat considering incredible unbridled power in the hands of a young woman is something that pop culture often fails to portray with any nuance. As film critic Bob Chipman commented, in traditional storytelling, “Male characters that get power can be destructive if they abuse it, but female characters with power will be destructive period.” This is not the case here.

In the opening of Civil War, an incident in Lagos results in major civilian casualties due, at least in part, to Wanda’s actions. Although, Captain America himself admits that he, as their leader is responsible, the wider world decides that Scarlet Witch is the one who cannot be trusted, perhaps since she isn’t the all-American hero Steve Rogers is. For a short time, she is public enemy number one and she reacts in a deeply emotional and human way, questioning her own actions and purpose as an Avenger. One of the worst tropes of modern action screenwriting is the “strong woman,” the omni-competent badass who on the surface is empowered but realistically is devoid of any complexity or characterization. Here Wanda is the antithesis of that, a young woman who is at once undeniably strong but emotionally complex, perhaps even a little fragile. It may be a small plot point in the broad scheme of the film but it’s a moment of subtle and important character development. Rather than breaking down entirely or being completely without remorse, the film presents Wanda’s guilt as both understandable and authentic, but most importantly, something that strengthens her as the plot progresses.

Having a superhero grapple with the right use of their power is hardly a new theme and it’s central to the broader narrative of Civil War. But allowing a female superhero to tackle the same dilemma on a deeply personal level feels quietly subversive. Wanda’s powers aren’t a curse and haven’t corrupted her, like with so many female characters, but she also learns that as her abilities grow so will the consequences of her actions. “With great power comes great responsibility,” is a well-worn superhero trope but it’s normally one reserved for men.

Even the traditional and potentially problematic elements of Wanda’s relationships with the other characters are resolved in a satisfying way. Her relationship with Vision is sweet, genuine, and has none of the clumsy melodrama of Black Widow and Bruce Banner’s forced romance (despite how I sound, I don’t actually hate Age of Ultron). Their relationship is based on mutual experiences of feeling like the “other” in a world that doesn’t quite know how to react to them and the burden possessing a greater power they don’t quite understand. Furthermore, when it becomes clear that Vision is willing to keep Wanda in the Avengers compound against her will, in one of the coolest moments in the film, Wanda makes it abundantly clear that even Vision isn’t strong enough to stop her from doing what she wants.

In fact, Tony Stark and Vision not trusting Wanda is a huge part of why she chooses Team Cap; she’s strong enough to leave a team when she knows she’s not respected. In one of my favorite interactions in the film, Wanda accuses Tony of trying to lock her in her room and when he tells her it was for her own good, she responds by dropping a car park on his head. While her surrogate father figures, Captain American and Hawkeye, refer to her as just a kid, Wanda’s heroic displays in the now legendary airport scene show that she can handle herself and her powers just fine.

Maybe this is what really gets to the heart of why I’m so jazzed about Scarlet Witch in this movie and the potential of Captain Marvel, the Wasp and the future women in the MCU (personally, I’m praying for Squirrel Girl). With the right script and actress — Elizabeth Olsen really is stellar here — Civil War proves that women superheroes can be inhumanly powerful without being reduced to a boringly infallible female badass caricature. The conclusion of Wanda’s mini character arc consists of learning and empowerment. As Vision warns her, that choosing Captain America’s side will mean people will never stop fearing her power, she replies, “I cannot control their fear, only my own.” Forget Team Cap or Team Iron Man, that sounds like a woman whose team I want to be on.

Maddie Webb is a student currently studying Biology in London. If she doesn’t end up becoming a mad scientist, her goal is to write about science and the ladies kicking ass in STEM fields.