Sadist, Land Shark, and Reptile: Autumn de Wilde's EMMA.

Abstract

Jane Austen knew this, reportedly saying of her 1815 novel Emma, that it would include "a heroine whom no one but myself will much like" (Austen-Leigh 204). Autumn de Wilde knows this, opening her 2020 film adaptation of Austen's novel, EMMA., 1 with an early morning scene in which Emma instructs her trailing servants exactly which flower to cut: "Not that one." Critics of de Wilde's film know this, complaining that it turns Austen's heroine into a "sadist," a "land shark," and a "reptile." 2 We argue that "Emma Woodhouse, sadist, land shark, and reptile" is equivalent to the opening words of the novel duplicated on screen in the adaptation, "Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich": it is simply the critics saying out loud what Austen and de Wilde have said quietly.Emma's privilege makes her a heroine who is difficult to love, and both Austen and de Wilde revel in the opportunities this affords them, delighting in Emma's superficial delights. We propose to take the superficiality of the film's style seriously as a performance of what D. A. Miller calls "Austen style," which Devoney Looser has recently rechristened "Jane Austen camp." Premiering in 2020 just before the COVID-19 pandemic began, EMMA. provocatively offers its audience what Miller describes as a "utopia of those with almost no place to go" (Miller 29): our straitened, even claustrophobic, circumstances

«Clueless» (1995) and «Emma.» (2020) in Dialogue: the Postfeminist and the Fourth-Wave Feminist Heroine in Austen Adaptations

“…McGrath, 1996;Lawrence, 1996), which depicted a more amiable and welcoming protagonist. As Dashwood and McInnes (2023: 2) argue: de Wilde's Emma is colder and less likeable than her predecessors […]. However, the result is a characterisation that emphasises the most radical aspects of Austen's portrayal of a woman who, precisely due to her wealth and social position, holds many of the privileges that would have been considered as the prerogative of men.…”