Jane Austen to Mrs. Bennet: "No T, no shade, hunty..."

One of the most interesting moments of the Spring Gala occurred when Amy got to the q&a portion of her talk on film interpretations of P&P. A hand went up, and a woman told how glad she was to hear someone defend Mrs. Bennet, a mother who was just doing the best she could in a tight situation. Person after person voiced their surprisingly passionate agreement. Austen wasn't mocking her, they agreed; she was just presenting her realistically as a concerned mother. The vehemence of their emotion was startling: the portrayal of Mrs. B. in the 1995 version hit a nerve.

Here's the thing, though: I'm not sure Austen was so generous and sympathetic to Mrs. B., or for that matter, Mr. Collins and Mary. They are ridiculous. Mary's pedantic one-liners are jokes; Mr. Collins exemplifies all that is pompous and small-minded; and I don't think there's ever a moment we really feel genuinely for Mrs. Bennet. Do you disagree? I want to know.

I tend to agree with Woolf, who said: "sometimes it seems as if her creatures were born merely to give [her] the supreme delight of slicing their heads off" (Common Reader, 144). Austen loves them, like Elizabeth loves her mother, but she acknowledges their foolishness. Like Elizabeth, Austen laughs at what is ridiculous, but doesn't tear anyone down just for the sport of it: "I hope I never ridicule what is wise or good. Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can" (P&P, 50).

I think Austen was adept at identifying the follies of people and exposing them sharply in her novels. She wasn't necessarily compassionate, but she wasn't cruel.

I didn't watch much of Drag Race, but I'm glad Jinkx Monsoon won. She was one of the few who didn't get into that "reading" culture that is briefly amusing, but quickly becomes tiresome. Most gay men I know love Mean Girls but seem to have missed the point of the movie. After years of being taunted in high school, they hope to be the popular, clever girls now, and try to do it with saucy quips that make people feel beneath them. Like Caroline Bingley, basically. Or Alyssa Edwards. And look where that got them. No Darcy, no crown. Crown? Do they win a crown in Drag Race?