I love Charlotte and forgive her for being in this terrible series

The Lizzie Bennet Diaries has the potential to be a charming adaptation of Pride & Prejudice, but it stumbles into so many obnoxious tropes and offensive throw-away lines that I can’t find it anything but aggravating. The characterization was fair, even if people came off as obnoxious and offensive. I liked all the puns, like “Mr. Douchey,” and the little references to Pride & Prejudice’s fandom, like Lizzie’s love of Colin Firth movies. They were cute and clever. I also liked when people knocked Lizzie off of her own pedestal, like when Charlotte asked Lizzie what was wrong with Bing Lee besides the fact that her mother liked him and then adds a bit to the video to specifically say that “Lizzie hates changing her mind.” Or the time Charlotte points out that Mrs. Bennet dressed Lizzie as a witch (NOT a spinster) for Halloween. OR the time she made her own video to show Lizzie’s bias against Darcy. I liked Charlotte, if that isn’t clear already.

Me, adoring this adaptation of Charlotte beyond all reason.

As I have already established, I loved Charlotte, but I was concerned about casting her as a Chinese woman because one of her key features as a character is that she is undesirable. She’s not supposed to be as pretty as the Bennet girls. She doesn’t have as much money as the Bennet girls. She’s older than the Bennet girls. Her only real redeeming marriageable quality is the fact that her father is a knight, but that may not be a factor to many suitors, especially the nouveau riche. By making Lizzie and her family white and making the comparatively plain and undesirable Charlotte Asian, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries seemed to imply that Asian women (specifically Chinese women) are less attractive and generally less appealing than white women. I doubt that this was purposeful, but that doesn’t make it okay.

The way Lydia said “they’re too hot and single to be gay” was probably meant to make her and her homophobic comment look as ridiculous as it is. On a slightly different note, as a lesbian, the fact that Lizzie immediately jumps from “What if he’s gay?” to “What if he’s a serial killer?” is.... Disquieting. It shows me that people think a person being gay is just as shocking and upsetting as a person being a murderer. That really hurts. I had been prepared to like the series, but that really put me off, and I had trouble warming back up to the series after that. Again, I doubt that this was purposeful, but that doesn’t make it okay.