Fangirling and Feminine lawlessness

Can I just start out this post with a SQUEE SQUEE SQUEE?! Ok, I did it anyway, I can't help myself. I've known for a while that there is another made-for-TV version of Emma on the way, but I just had the chance to look at the cast list and I'm super super excited. Romola Garai is going to play Emma, Jonny Lee Miller will play Mr. Knightley, and Michael Gambon will play Mr. Woodhouse. Judging by the great cast, I'm thinking that the script might just be wonderful (the same woman wrote the recent adaptation of Jane Eyre, which was perfect!). I really love the Gwyneth Emma because I thought the casting was perfect there too (Juliet Stevenson and Toni Collette, OMG!), but I'm stoked for this new adaptation as well. Maybe it will be a little less Hollywood, and a little less starchy BBC. Don't get me wrong, I usually love BBC adaptations, but their last version of Emma with Kate Beckinsale was so difficult to watch. Scratch that, Kate was difficult to watch. She sucked out all of the charm and humor in Emma's character. She pretty much justified the very much problematic (for me) 'girl being taught a lesson' theme, which is what I'd like to focus on in this post. I hope the new version of Emma will do what the recent adaptation of Northanger Abbey did, and that was have Henry Tilney actually apologize for his scolding Catherine! If you can't portray the misguided scoldings of Austen's heroes correctly on screen, then I think the best bet is to have the heroes admit they were in the wrong.

I think the 'girl being taught a lesson' theme in Emma is much harder to get around than in Austen's other novels, because frankly, Emma was in the wrong for being so rude to Miss Bates. But how is Mr. Knightley equally in the wrong? Does he have the right to educate and father Emma? The only reason he is allowed to speak to her the way he does is because she is a woman, and the only reason he wants to scold her is because Emma has just about the same amount of power as he does (she runs her estate instead of her father, and converses with men on an equal level--at a dinner party, she can move back and forth between the masculine Knightley brothers and the feminine Woodhouses with ease, because she has the power and understanding to do so). Mr. Knightley scolds Emma because she trespasses on some traditionally masculine roles, but is still a woman (being a male is the one thing he has advantage over her). When Mr. John Knightley is rude and often tyrranical to Emma's father and sister, Mr. George Knightley doesn't say a word! He does not have the authority to because John is a man. This is true with Austen's other heroes, such as Edmund Bertram, who wait for all of the men in the room to leave before preaching to women. Edmund waits for the men to leave because they are the only ones who can rightly question his supposedly moral authority. Anyway, Emma's 'lesson' is problematic because the Box Hill incident was a failing, yet her fluid masculine and feminine power is treated admirably in the novel. I think Mr. Knightley's 'teaching' crosses the line from 'friendly advice' into 'patriarchal demand' territory, which is probably why it upsets Emma more so than any of his other scoldings (which she laughs off and even toys with). Also, why is there so much animosity towards Emma? How is her 'snobbishness" any different than Mr. Darcy's? Mr. Darcy is considered this sensitive sex-pot and Emma is a controlling bitch. But honestly, don't they do the same exact things? Mr. Darcy matchmakes and separates as Emma does, and his 'not-handsome-enough-to-tempt-me' comment is on the same level as Emma's comment to Miss Bates (he is speaking about a poorer woman in a much more malicious way than Emma does to Miss B). Fortunately, Lizzy challenges his patriarchal authority verbally and refuses his proposal. In some ways, Lizzy teaches Mr. Darcy a lesson (he can't always have his way just because he's a rich man). Because Mr. Knightley is in the position of power when compared to Emma, his scolding is more complicated than Lizzy's refusal. What is being criticized? A female trespassing on masculine power? Masculine power itself? Mr. Knightley's thinking that his power should be exlusive to men? I would like to think the latter two. To be honest, I haven't studied Emma as much as I have the other novels, so I find a lot of this confusing. Also, I read Claudia Johnson's take in her Jane Austen Women and Politics on Emma and she also commented on the complicated nature of Emma because the novel is not as clear didacticly as Austen's others (which are already pretty ambiguous). Hopefully after finishing the novel I'll have a better idea of what exactly Emma is saying about women and patriarchal authority.

Sorry for jumpiness of this post, I've just come down with a cold, blech!

P.S. My flatmate brought to my attention that I need to remember "differences of situation and temper" or more specifically that Mr. Darcy has much different execution than Emma. If the novel were through his point of view instead of Lizzy's, how would we feel about his actions? He is obviously not as much of a busy body and controlling others' lives is not his central interest as it is Emma's. But perhaps it is not central to him because he is not central to the story. We do not know how much controlling is part of Darcy's personality. Is Darcy a gossip? Doesn't he tell Colonel Fitzwilliam about his "triumph" of separating Jane and Bingley much like Emma tells of her triumph of getting the Westons together? If he does execute his plans differently, shouldn't we look on them less sympathetically (as we see very little of his side of the story)? Not really sure, a lot of this is up in the air for me!