The titanium spork is getting a workout
It’s more than a week still to April 1, or we would be wondering if someone was pulling our leg with some of the stuff sent in by Alert Janeites today.
Alert Janeite Stefanie sent us a link to an article in The Times about a new portrait of Jane Austen that was commissioned by the publisher Wordsworth Editions to make Jane “prettier.”
Helen Trayler, its managing director, said: “The poor old thing didn’t have anything going for her in the way of looks. Her original portrait is very, very dowdy. It wouldn’t be appealing to readers, so I took it upon myself to commission a new picture of her.
“We’ve given her a bit of a makeover, with make-up and some hair extensions and removed her nightcap. Now she looks great — as if she’s just walked out of a salon.”
Excuse us–nightcap? Does one wonder why we thought this an April Fool gag?
Of course, all those newly-minted Austen readers can join Posh’s Oh So Literary Book Club, along with Katie Holmes and Jennifer Lopez!
POSH: Welcome to the first meeting of our book club, ladies! Does everyone have their lovely new copy of Pride and Prejudice with the pretty lady on the cover?
KATIE: I think it’s awesome.
POSH: I think the lady on the cover is Elizabeth Bennet. She sort of looks like me, don’t you think? Except her hair. I would never go out the door looking like that, but I guess they didn’t have flatirons and silicone styling products in Victorian times. But Becks says Lizzy looks just like me. And Becks looks like Mr. Darcy, don’t you think? All tall and athletic and handsome and rich and desired by women all over the world.
J-LO: No, Posh, Elizabeth Bennet looks like me. And Darcy looks like my husband, Marc Anthony. But taller. And not so much like a vampire.
KATIE: Mr. Darcy is awesome.
POSH: No, no, Jennifer, Pride and Prejudice is OUR story, mine and Becks’. He saw me at a Spice Girls concert but wouldn’t come backstage; said I was tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt him. But then he fell in love with me and I didn’t want HIM. And then I fell in love with him, and we live happily ever after in our Derbyshire estate, and our townhouse in London, and our vacation home in The United Arab Emirates…
KATIE: Pemberley is awesome.
J-LO: No, Posh, my first husband was Wickham, and my second was Mr. Bingley, and my third was Colonel Fitzwilliam, and now I’ve found MY Mr. Darcy. Because you KNOW that Mr. Darcy sang love songs in Spanish to Lizzy, and then drank his special “wine” from the locked cellar and went to lie down in his coffin at dawn. My Marc says that he fell in love with my fine eyes. And my booty. So obviously I am Lizzy Bennet.
POSH: No, darling, you are Charlotte Lucas, because you married the creepy guy, because you weren’t getting any younger and Affleck didn’t want you anymore. I am Lizzy, because my husband is rich and glamorous and we are in all the papers.
KATIE: Lizzy is awesome.
J-LO: Say you’re Lizzy again, beeyotch, and I will cut you. I AM LIZZY!
POSH: NO, I AM LIZZY!
Tom Cruise runs in, jumps up and down on couch.
TOM CRUISE: KATIE! I MUST TELL YOU HOW ARDENTLY I ADMIRE AND LOVE YOU! I LOVE THIS WOMAN! HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAA!
KATIE: My husband is awesome.
(Apologies to the Fug Girls for borrowing their schtick, and thanks to an Alert Janeite who wished to remain anonymous for the heads up!)
And lastly from the Janeite X Files, Alert Janeite tattycoram sent us a link that had us calling for the Tullamore Dew. ITV, heady with the success of its Jane Austen Season, has commissioned a series called Lost In Austen about a Pride and Prejudice fan who time-travels back to Jane Austen’s day.
Lost in Austen, made by Mammoth Screen, hopes to capitalise on the appeal of the Jane Austen adaptations lined up for spring on ITV. The light-hearted drama follows an Austen fan as she magically switches places with Pride and Prejudice character Elizabeth Bennett, and has to survive in late 18th century England.
Hey, maybe Katie or J-Lo could star! *laughs crazily* Where’s that bally spork when we need it?
Comments are closed.
I find Cassandra’s portrait of her sister (which I recently saw “in person” in the National Portrait Gallery) quite touching, and not at all unattractive. Carol Shields describes the face in the portrait as having “a slightly absent, querulous air of sad reasonableness.” I like that. Seeing that portrait next to a portrait of her father (as I did at the Jane Austen Centre in Bath), I noticed a definite resemblance, which I also found touching.
Regarding the makeover:
It rather looks like the artist has given her a mullet. Is this to appeal more strongly to American audiences?
(Also- nightcap? Oh my, prepare the cluebat!)
By the way, hello everyone! This is my first comment here. I am a long-time and zealous Janeite!
Why does anyone, least of all Jane Austen, need to be prettier?
Oh, my! Good thing they gave her the makeover. I would have mistaken Jane for a woman rather than an androgynous individual who does not realize dark lipsticks are to be used at night! I can’t imagine why those late 18th- and early 19th-century salons did not tell her! And thank heavens they removed the “nightcap” so we can see her stylish coif. As a resident of Alabama, I’m thrilled to see someone else rocking a mullet, especially someone as genius as Jane Austen.
Re: the Book Club. Is anyone besides myself tempted to join, if only for entertainment purposes?
Hello Prudence, and welcome!
(Note: Yes, I am from Alabama, but mullets are not truly in fashion here. Not really. Maybe even close to not at all. And if you think I’m protesting too much, I’m not above using my spork for evil.)
Oh oh! Now I know!
What’s happening to Jane Austen is what Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart has gone through already, going from
http://img107.imageshack.us/my.php?image=mozartdrawingbydorisstouc6.jpg
to
http://img74.imageshack.us/my.php?image=f0001960gj4.jpg
*headdesk*
I see Christie’s is auctioning a supposed portrait. It will be on display in New York in April.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/23032007/325/only-known-austen-portrait-sold.html
Another new portrait of Jane Austen ? I recall thinking the last one looked like the artist, not Jane…. I like the Rice Portrait but I doubt it’s Jane.
Oh my goodness! That modern portrait looks awful! I don’t think ‘Jane’ looks pretty on it at all. Blegh! Such a stupid thing. Let us forget about it as quickly as possible.
I also think that the portrait Arwen linked isn’t Jane Austen. Like Robert Hardy said, it’s obvious that the ‘Cassandra painting’ from the National Portrait Gallery (I was surprised to see how tiny it was, by the way, between all those huge portraits in the Gallery) resembles paintings of Jane’s other relatives. I think the painting to be auctioned at Christie’s doesn’t resemble them at all…
I’ll post more about the Rice painting tonight–I’m at work and can’t give it the time required.
Terrible. Just terrible. Prettier my foot!
Helen Trayler is a twit.
(And how amusing to find two of my daily internet addictions – AustenBlog and GoFugYourself – in one post. As Katie would say, “That is awesome!”)
Hate it hate it hate it. Jane turned into Lucy Steele. Hair extensions. Makeup. Just walked out of a salon. How can you Helen? Did you just call Jane Austen “the poor old thing”? Girl, we’re going to have a fight.
Just discovered Go Fug Yourself–hilarity ensued.
Yet another in a long line of insults to JA. Why on earth do people keep thinking she’s ugly and her portrait needs to be pretttied up? Because obviously one can’t be a respected woman writer unless one also looks like one belongs on the cover of a ridiculous fashion magazine? WTF?! All gods forbid that she should have anything like, oh I don’t know, character and determination and strength showing through in her experssion. Oh no! Such attributes must be covered up! With lipstick, and as much as possible! Dear lord…
I can’t say I see any improvement. Different, yes. Better? No. But it would be interesting to see a younger version of the original portrait.
That ‘improved’ version is so utterly ghastly there are simply no words….
What the devil have they done to her picture.It looks so artificial.The original one in my opinion is much prettier than the modified version.
I regret to say that Helen Traylor would fit in perfectly with the Powers That Be at Vogue Magazine. Apparently their policy, in any article that features a woman of reknown, regardless of her specialty, knowledge, or sphere of influence, is to find out what she looks like. If she isn’t acceptably glamorous, apparently only a tiny photo is used – or none at all. “Poor old thing” – how the heck old is Traylor??? I’d like to hear what she has to say when she hits forty-one.
For the mullet-haters, alack, I have to report that it would in fact have been quite fashionable during JA’s adult years (per Richard Corson’s Fashions in Hair). However, Jane herself kept her hair long in the back – it was braided and pinned up under her cap – and it was short and curled naturally in the front.
Nightcap. Why do people feel the need to put their ignorance on parade??
Thanks for linking this! I just stumbled by this site by chance, read the link and just couldn’t believe it. I’m still waiting to find out that it’s an April joke.
I’ve heard different variations of this horrible line (“Oh no, we can’t print a dark-skinned face on the cover of Earth-sea books! The sales will go down!”), and here it is shown for the garbage it is. Jane Austen has sold well for over 200 years without a blandly pretty face over the back cover blurb, and now she suddenly needs to be air-brushed into that non-entity?
I hate how publishers do something so inane and then push away the responsibility by imputing to some voice-less readership that they won’t by the books otherwise. And of course readers who protest are then the exceptions, who mustn’t assume that everyone thinks like them.
“It may be superficial, but the readers want me to do it!”
Not to mention that I like the original picture so much better.
I guess we can all comfort ourselves that Jane Austen would have a good laugh at this.
Nightcap my a.. Ehm. Arm.