Emma Approved
(Pemberly Digital)
Sweeney: In the first Snark Tube post I mentioned that (Emmy Winning!!) Lizzie Bennett Diaries was one of the reasons we first started toying with this forever ago. I’m pretty excited, then, that we managed to get this idea off the ground just before they started Emma Approved. After the success of the P&P adaptation, this was the most obvious choice and I’m not just saying that because Emma is my favorite forever. She’s just so obviously the one who would be most likely to start a vlog, in large part because she’s the most self-absorbed of the lot.
Jane Austen described her as a character that only she would like, so it’s not really surprising that people seem annoyed with her vloggy incarnation. Kirsti mentioned on Tumblr that she found Emma’s grating traits — namely, how pushy she is — more palatable in the novel because book!Emma wanted everyone to be happy, this one is only in it for her own image. I’ll add that it’s also a very different experience reading a character’s internal monologue than watching it in video form. All of that being said: I love this.
Having already babbled about all of this on Tumblr, excuse me while I directly lift that. Emma spends most of the book giving approximately 1/2 a shit about what makes other people happy. She is primarily interested in the fact that SHE knows what will make them happy, totally ignoring their expressed wishes. Over the course of the book she learns how insane that is and resolves to try to chill the fuck out and let other people dictate what will make them happy.
If Harriet’s happiness had been her chief concern from the start, Emma would not have interfered. She was convinced that she knew better than Harriet what was right for her. Related: she was also affected by whether she felt she could associate with Harriet if Harriet followed her own heart or Emma’s wishes. Part of why I love Emma so much is that she is so fucking obnoxious. I love her for her flaws and the lessons she learns from them.
All of that being said, I totally get that she’s grating. As a modernization, it’s not going to be a truly faithful adaptation, which, in turn, means it’s bound to disappoint a few people. So far, I’m not among the disappointed. PLUS: Knightley’s hot and not twice her age and not her brother-in-law. (Or OMG EW her STEP-BROTHER.) So, there’s that.
Lorraine: Emma is actually the only of Jane Austen’s finished works that I haven’t read. It figures. It seems like I’ve got some fast reading to do. I mean, I briefly entertained the idea of watching the vlogs blind, I’m not sure that that would be very fun at all, or that it would add any sort of insight to my viewing experience. Take this introductory video, for instance. All I got out of it was, “oh, look. We’re meeting people. Also, I almost bought that picture frame behind Emma’s head.”
So, there’s that.
Local Ambition
(Always Late TV)
Lorraine: We’ve got two episodes to cover, and I’m not gonna lie: I was confused to find that they jumped up in length from episode two’s 17 minutes to three’s 24 minutes and four’s 31. Who knew! This show is going to try and be like, an actual show, and not just confessions edited together with a few pictures.
We start episode 3, with Christine showing up two hours late, and the director deciding to cut her. She cry-babbles about why she was late. I think her boyfriend left her and took their shared cell phone in the divorce? I’m not entirely sure, but it doesn’t really matter, because she’s gone. We never knew ye, Christine, but we will always enjoy this gif immensely:
After that, what follows is a number of confessionals about whether or not Christine should’ve been cut. Pretty much everyone says some variation of, “yes, she’s sloppy,” except Ace who offers that she wasn’t a model, but maybe she could like, side model and she was a very nice girl. We’re sure she was, Ace.
As I mentioned, the show lost me a little after that with scenes of the judges deliberating and giving their feedback to the girls. Little Sweeney gets told her body is a work of art but that her outfit sucked. I get slightly defensive because Ace was wearing a bandana top and that was acceptable. Anyways, Desiree is eliminated, which is something of a shock to the other girls.
Sweeney: Understandably because she was precious. Also: over the summer, I remember my sister saying two main things about this experience (1) That it was occasionally a shit show, a fact that now seems obvious -and- (2) That the judges consistently hated her outfits. My 18-year-old sister who goes to college in Brooklyn obviously has a hipstertastic fashion sense. Color me unsurprised that the judging panel of middle aged, mid-western semi-professional wrestlers dislikes her outfit choices. Don’t worry girl, it means you’re doing shit right.
Lorraine: Episode four is the comic book challenge round. The girls are split into two teams, heroes and villains, and they each had to come up with their own costume and identity for the shoot. The interviews are fantastic, but my favorite thing by far is Nicole (pictured above) as “Heckrah the Ice Queen.” She holds up that sphere for every single moment of her interviews. Just seeing her hold that thing makes me laugh.
The portions of the photo shoots we got to see were pretty entertaining. Also, Nina is so precious. If I had to describe her in just one way, it would be, “bless her heart.” Little Sweeney did the only thing that even looked close to modeling, or what America’s Next Top Model taught me modeling is.
Sweeney: Wait, you mean actual modeling is supposed to be different than ANTM? Mind blown. Nina is an absolute sweetheart, but a total “Bless her heart” girl. The math seems to suggest to me that she’ll be kicked off next week, right? Obviously the heroes team, with its absent captain, will get the lowest score. Captain Sharon is out along one other girl from their team — my money is on Bless Her Heart Nina.
ALSO, ALSO: This show keeps trying to pretend to be an actual show, and yet they never really show any of the pictures they take. It’s weird. They post them all to Facebook, though there is literally no indication of this in the episode descriptions or video or anything, which is weird. Anyway, going through them confirms that my sister is obviously the best one, though Ace is the other one to watch. The other girls can go home now.
Misc. Links
Sweeney: In addition to all the fun recap-worthy stuff, we also wanted to use this space to mention some other great YouTube things we think you should check out. The chain of people I follow doing the Ladies Survey has yielded amazing things for my subscription list. Most recently, I discovered the fantastic lesliefoundhergrail who, in turn, pointed me in the direction of BlinkPopShift and OpenEllbey. More people will read this than will ever watch one of my videos, so this seems like a more productive space for recommending people. Leslie is hilarious and charming and shares funny life stories. She’s also got a great eye for what else is worth watching, which is why I am literally just directly lifting her two most recent recommendations and saying, “YES. SHE’S RIGHT. WATCH NOWPLZ.” (Also, looking for other amazing people in the community is legitimately a big part of what she does on her channel, in addition to all of her charming story time fun.) BlinkPopShift has a sort of PBS Idea Channel feel to it and OpenEllbey is a screenwriter who is vlogging about her year without dating and, more importantly, her creative process. In continuing to directly copy Leslie, start with the first video and you won’t be sorry.
In other stuff I think you’ll like on YouTube news, someone else I love has started a book channel, in which she reads and shares her infinite wisdom about books. She’s got excellent taste.
Lorraine: I’ve got some stuff for y’all too! The new Hobbit movie has an official trailer. I haven’t read The Hobbit, but I did see the first movie, so I’m interested in what everyone thinks. To me, the entire trailer can be summarized thus: DRAGON.
In other movie news, the Catching Fire soundtrack track list was released a bit ago, and since then, bits and pieces of songs have been heard around the internet. I was a fan of most of what happened on The Hunger Games soundtrack, so I’m anticipating this part two. If you are as well, check out The Lumineers playing “Gale’s Song” live.
Finally, this isn’t a Youtube channel, but they are videos, so we do what we want. Have you guys heard of the #StarbucksDrakeHands meme? Because you should know about it. Model Piper Kennedy gave her number to a Starbucks barista and later received a video selfie of him stroking his own face in ways that could probably only be accurately described by EL James herself. One of Kennedy’s friends posted the video up on Instagram, and it was only a hop, skip and jump to a new, probably short lived Internet meme. But because I spent some solid minutes chuckling and cringing, I couldn’t not share #StarbucksDrakeHands.
That’s all for this week!
You guys are always welcome to tell us about your Youtube finds in the comments and be sure to let us know your thoughts on any of the links or videos we referenced.
Happy Snarking.
Nicole is the co-captain of Snark Squad and these days she spends most of her time editing podcasts. She spends too much time on Twitter and very occasionally vlogs and blogs. In her day job she's a producer, editor, director, and sometimes host of educational YouTube channels. She loves travel, maps, panda gifs, and semicolons. Writing biographies stresses her out; she crowd sourced this one years ago and has been using a version of it ever since. She would like to thank Twitter for their help.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
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