Pride and Prejudice (Or, Bitches and Ho's of Longbourn)

If you're too lazy to read this, just watch the goddamn movie. Just make sure it's the Colin Firth one, not the Keira Knightley one. So the Darcy in that version is sexy. The movie is unfaithful to the book and is total shit.

Oh, Fitzwilliams. You make me quiver in my nerdy little boots.

NEVER, under ANY circumstance, watch Becoming Jane or the Jane Austen Book Club. Neither film has anything to do with P&P, and both will make you want to punch babies.

So, the Bennets are a “middle-class” English family in the early 1800s (this ain’t no Marxist proletariat middle class – it’s more of a McMansion type of thing). Mr. Bennet is a kindly old sarcastic guy, and his wife, Mrs. Bennet, constantly worries about her five daughters getting hitched. There are Lydia and Kitty, the younger girls who mostly flit about (if alive today, they’d wear Bieber Fever t-shirts and chew Double Bubble), Mary, the ugly bookish one, Jane, the eldest and the hottest and the calmest and the nicest and the blah blah blah, and Lizzy/Elizabeth, who is her father’s favorite and Jane Austen’s favorite the favorite of everyone who’s ever read the book. She’s feisty and intelligent but ultimately wants a man. Lizzy is the bitch, Jane is the saint. They’re like Tina Fey and Amy Poelher, or Lauren Bacall and Katherine Hepburn, or me and virtually every friend I've ever had. Mrs. Bennet wants one of her gals to get with Mr. Bingley, who’s totally loaded (money-wise. not coke-wise), and is hardcore bromancing with Mr. Darcy, who’s one sexy douchebag.

Plot-wise, very little happens. There’s  something about Jane being at Bingley’s estate and then Lizzy getting caught in the rain and whatever. (That scene is super romantic in the shitty Keira Knightley version.) There’s a bitch named Charlotte Lucas who’s besties with Lizzy, and just wants to get married married married for money money money, and people go waltzing and dance with each other and flirt with Bingley and Darcy. Then they talk about Bennet being rich but not that rich, and Bingley having a bitchy, judgmental sister and a really nice house. Lizzy kind of falls for Darcy, in spite of (because of?) the fact that he’s a douche. Oh, and then there’s this little shit named Mr. Collins, who initially wants to jump Jane’s bones, but then finds out about her and Bingley and then decides to try to get with Lizzy. He really just wants to keep Longbourn in the family. He's the Bennets' cousin. He also talks about this old bitch named Lady Catherine de Bourgh all the fucking time. If you watch the movie, you will want to kill the little bugger.

Wickham is a soldier in the militia who’s the son of Darcy’s caretaker, and they have a beef, and he thinks Lizzy is hot. He’s a total cad. Lizzy declines Collins' marriage offer because she thinks she has a chance with sexy-ass Wickham (and because she doesn’t want to marry for money, and because Collins is kind of a little shit whose idea of a proposal is basically, "I'm a preacher, Lady Catherine thinks I'm da bomb, and you're not super ugly"). But Wickham turns out to be kind of a liar and a manbitch and winds up with Lydia, Lizzy’s 16-year-old sister (statutory rapy ftw!) Collins eventually marries Charlotte Lucas.

All the bitches just act bitchy toward each other. Charlotte and Lizzy and Jane are bitchy to and Catherine de Bourgh and Bingley's sister, who are bitchy to them in return. It’s a battle of the very rich versus the kinda rich. If you need to understand this concept further, may I suggest listening to “Rich Girl” by Hall and Oates.

The 'stache doesn't lie

Overall, this is good old-fashioned chick lit. You can make the case for it being social commentary, and Mr. and Mrs. Bennet have a semi-satiric relationship (he’s the whipped husband with a really sad life, she’s the crazy shrew), but, honestly, nothing happens. All this book is good for is convincing generations of females that if we find a snarky douche who treats us like shit, and if we hang around long enough, eventually we’ll discover his sensitive side and he’ll love us forever and ever. Given an early exposure to the films of Bill Murray, I’m only attracted to sarcastic douchebags, and I can attest that, while they may be hot, they are not worth it. Even if they look like Mr. Darcy.