How Does "Growing Up on Jane Austen" Influence Christian Women?

If we fill our minds with Jane Austen-inspired movies and countless books and articles that tell us how we can have lives just like the Austen heroines, we do two things. First, we create an endless cycle of discontentment and fill out discontentment with Jane Austen movies. Second, we dismiss the idea that God has a plan for our lives and that he alone offers a relationship that can truly satisfy us. Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict is an eerily truthful way to view what we have become. I am writing these things and still find it more difficult to open my Bible and seek God's truths, than to turn on the television and distract myself with the latest period-drama. On one hand, our generation has grown up learning that distraction in the form of media entertainment is the only relief from our discontentment. We have become increasingly lazy to the point where reading scripture feels more like "work" than starting at a television screen.

I fully agree with Joy Eggeriches when she says in her video that this form of "escape" creates an "idealism for Christian men in the way that they should behave and perform.” She also says that it creates a “dissatisfaction with…the life that you have.” This is dangerous because Christian women do this under the false pretense that they are "bettering their Christian walk" when really they are creating an “unhealthy idealism in how Christian men should be” and developing a "“blindness to false expectations which will create a lack of grace for humanness.”

This form of "Christian-escapism" seems so "safe" as many of the girls I interviewed shared. Jane Austen was a Christian, afterall, we offer as an excuse.  Another excuse is that the movies are so morally pure compared to other "chick-flicks" Hollywood offers us. Jane Austen's original works do end in happy marriages for the morally upright, as the 19th century novel-genre and patriarchal system dictated. The books do not say that these relationships offer the satisfaction that women search for, however. Hollywood took Austen's work and made the romantic-tension much more central than Austen herself had. This can be seen through looks the couples exchange, small touches of hands, sighs, etc. Not to mention the physical appeal of the male and female actors to add to the sexual/romantic tension in the films. Growing up watching these films creates the idea that these ideal men are waiting for us, and that all women have happy marriages in their future.

This expectant mindset makes books such as Elizabeth Elridge's Lady in Waiting popular devotionals for women. The book's tagline: "Becoming God's best while waiting for Mr. Right." We are not satisfied to simply "become God's best" as women, but must do so in preparation of bettering ourselves for our future husbands. Forget the castle in the background and dream-like expression on the girls' face.

Another book that's widely-read among Christian women is called Captivating. This book also suggests that women must work harder and take the responsibility to "captivate" or snag the right man.

Hayley DiMarco is the author of several books for Christian girls, including her book, Idol Girls. When I first browsed through my sister's copy of this book several years ago, one section in particular seemed to hit home: Romance. In this section of her book, she suggests that romance can be an idol for Christian women. She says "romance is not a sin, but wanting it (or needing it) could be" (97).  I believe that viewing these romantic Jane Austen adaptations can create that idolatry for many Christian women. I believe that I found myself bowing to that idol.

Conclusion:

I do not think that it's at all wrong to watch film adaptations of Jane Austen's movies, or any other type of romantic movie. I think that what we as Christian women need to keep in mind is that reality exists, and these movies are not it. We also need to realize that our contentment and satisfaction can only come through Christ.

Matthew 6:33 "But seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added unto you."

Jeremiah 17:7-8 "Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose trust is in the Lord. For he will be like a tree planted by the water, that extends its roots by a stream and will not fear when the heat comes: but its leaves will stay green, and it will not be anxious in a year of drought nor cease to yield its fruit."

As Christian women, we need to choose God as the stream that we plant ourselves by, and not satisfy our thirst with romantic film or novels.

Works Cited:

DiMarco, Haley. Idol Girls. Grand Rapids: Hungry Planet, 2007. Print.

Eggerichs, Joy. "Romance Novel - Vampire Film." Youtube.com. 29 April 2010. Web. 26 April 2010.