Jane Austen + Fight Club = Regency excitement!

The answer to the tedium of Regency drawing rooms? Jane Austen's Fight Club, natch! "The first rule of fight club is one never mentions fight club."

Sara sez, "Made by my best friends, a bunch of mormon girls in Los Angeles, this film trailer is exactly what it sounds like. And it sounds like awesome."

Jane Austen's Fight Club (Thanks, Sara!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Anonymous

The first rule of Sensibility: You do not make sense of Sensibility
The Second rule of Sensibility: You do not make sense of Sensibility
Anonymous

“Otherwise, they are considerate and well-educated, modest, and industrious.”

As a non-mormon resident of Utah, I call gross over-generalization on that claim. Like most groups of people, some are, and some (really, really) aren’t.
iamameatpopsicle

hello my future girlfriend
Anonymous

Mormon women are quite often HUGE Jane Austen fans. There’s some sort of cultural affinity with her or something. Here’s another Jane Austen flick by Mormons: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride_%26_Prejudice:_A_Latter-Day_Comedy
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  A friend of mine dragged me to see Twilight before I had read the books. My first reaction was, “Did we just watch Pride and Prejudice?”, which, of course, it was based on.
110rdr33f4

aw, yeah!
Anonymous

Brilliant, utterly brilliant. I would see this movie … someone really needs to pick this up and make it a full length film. Loved it.
nehpetsE

Maybe i’m just in denial, but do we have any corroboration that these young ladies are REALLY Mormons? Maybe that’s just a continuation of the joke?.
- mattso
  
  Nope, they’re really Mormon. In fact, I will see half of these women at church today in my ward (that’s Mormon for congregation). Here’s our Facebook page – http://facebook.com/santamonicaysa
  
  Their video won our 11th annual church film festival last Saturday. The fest is a local thing we’ve put on to great success every year, with a nice mixture of Mormon-specific entries and videos that could play to a wider audience, such as this Fight Club gem.
Drhaggis

Is knowing the filmmaker’s religion important in understanding this work? Are we supposed to apply a Mormon literary critique to this creative mashup?

Or is it like qualifying Jane Austen as a “woman author”, subtly placing the work in a different category to be judged and enjoyed with another set of standards.

“Look at this film they made, all while being Mormon. Good for them.”
- mattso
  
  It’s probably not necessary to apply some kind of Mormon literary critique (save that for Stephanie Meyer!), but in the context of where the video originated, at a Mormon film festival, then that’s something worth noting, I’d imagine.
  
  I mean, there was the Old Spice BYU library spoof video from a few weeks back that went viral, and that video was specifically promoting a college library at a Mormon institution, while never specifically stating anything about Mormons.
  
  So, I suppose it’s all interesting within context, but I wouldn’t read anything more in to it. You’re right – a cool video by people who just happen to be Mormon about sums it up.
  - Drhaggis
    
    A Mormon film festival. Well in that context, it makes much more sense. Otherwise it just sounded like “I got together with some Jewish friends and made a Star Wars fan film that doesn’t contain any Jewish cultural or religious overtones”.
- shale
  
  I grew up Mormon. I’m not so sure that mentioning the makers were LDS re-frames the clip so much as it re-frames Mormonism—which is kind of cool.
  
  I think it’s tasteful. Even though I’m a secular humanist now, a scientist, and an atheist to boot, I know enough Mormons to know that they are not all batshit insane, and can actually be rather good company sometimes.
Anonymous

Cute. Well done ladies!
Ashley Y

Kate Beaton called it.
Antinous / Moderator

Hilarious and extremely faithful to both sources.
Jack

This is too weird. Just had an intense urge to watch Fight Club clips on YouTube, and now this. Whoa.
proletariat

Hey, when they’re not interfering in other people’s lives by forcing their archaic beliefs on others, Mormons can be funny sometimes!
Hirsty

I am Emma’s impudence.
- Jack
  
  I am Emma’s impudence.
  
  FTW!
- Felton
  
  “I am Emma’s colon.”
  
  “I am stricken with a malady. I cause Emma’s untimely demise.”
- tizroc
  
  “You, are not… a special snowflake!”
  
  I loved the movie, but it was such a delightful book. With all the Sense, sensibility and sea monsters and other J.A. reproductions this book would be grade A awesome.
  - Alex_M
    
    Ah yes, the trailer for “Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters” is worth seeing as well:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jZVE5uF24Q
Anonymous

Much better looking than Android Karenina. Movies, please.
tedder

Hmm. Mormon girls in LA? Guess they aren’t good molly mormons, watching an R-rated movie.

I can’t imagine what a censored Chuck Palahniuk would be like.

Mormonism, the ikea of religion?
Anonymous

Mormons are interesting as a culture. Yes, they feel compelled to proselitize, but that’s only because they’re trying to save everyone’s soul (from their perspective)

Otherwise, they are considerate and well-educated, modest, and industrious.

Of course, I’ve also met quite a few that are batshit insane. But their magazines are well written, even with some interesting nonreligious content.
Doug Sharp

This film must be made!
Anonymous

I hope that tea is decaffeinated, or else they are definitely going to to be cast into outer darkness.
ROSSINDETROIT

I don’t care if they’re Zoroastrians. This is nuts and I love it!
olimax

This is not the first use of Jane Austen in pugilistic drama. Andy Hamilton’s hysterical Old Harry’s Game, currently in repeat on BBC7 features her, resplendent with tattoos, bad mouthing other residents of Hell and knocking nine bells out of them.
Latest episode here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b007jmbj/Old_Harrys_Game_Series_3_A_Four_Letter_Word/
RigelK

*happy sigh* This is exactly the mood reboot I needed today.

For all the people arguing about why these girls couldn’t put their time to better use, be more original, etc., look at it this way: they’ve just gained practical experience in cooperative effort, technical integration, and more that will serve them well in adult life.

Besides, come on, let them have their fun this way. It’s not like they’re out getting into trouble or whining, “I’m booooored.” Besides, it’s heckafunny.
Marcel

Oh Internet, how wearthy of my everlasting affection you prove to be!
Anonymous

There’s also a buttload of irony in that Mormon girls really are trained to be ultimate wives and mothers (there are even college courses in dating), expected to practice the Homely Arts, and have virtually no place in the world if they don’t eventually marry and reproduce. Cry for help, anyone?
- Anonymous
  
  Seriously?! do you have any close friends that are Mormon? clearly not.
lupin13

Ugh, another Austen parody. However, I wish I could be alive 100 years from now and see what kind of Harry Potter parodies the not-particularly-creative of that time will make.
- frankieboy
  
  @lupin, why wait? Two of the funniest women ever have already done it
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9onI92OxBHY
trygstad

Oh my, and I thought GEEKS hung out at Boing Boing. All these comments and no one appears to have tumbled to the fact that the writer/director/co-producer/co-star of this video, Emily Janice Card, is Orson Scott Card’s DAUGHTER. Now reconsider everything you might have said in light of that fact. And everybody who didn’t do their homework loses 18% of their total geekdcred.
- Anonymous
  
  Achievement unlocked: You’re a Card!
  15 geek points
Gilgongo

This reminds me of a skit the BBC did for the Children in Need charity a few years ago. It featured the actors (Colin Firth, et. al) from the BBC TV adaptation of Sense and Sensibility (I think) duking it out in a withdrawing room armed with automatic weaponry and rocket-propelled grenades.

I can’t seem to find it anywhere though, if I find it I’ll post as it was a classic.
- Gronk
  
  Gilgongo, Iâ€™ve been looking for this for quite some time now. Iâ€™m dying to see it again.
- Anonymous
  
  I can’t recall that skit but it sounds awfully like a Heineken tv advert from years ago that was based on Pride & Prejudice. Unfortunately the only copy I could find on youtube has terrible sound, but here you go:
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fcs0TVSZXI
bklynchris

OK, those were not just Mormon chicks. Those were Mormon chicks with skilz. Did you see the shoes fly off on the flipped gal?

But what I really wanna know is how do Mormons get such perfect freaking teeth? Are they always PERFECT? Do you have to have straight white gleaming choppers to be accepted into the fold, or required to orthodontically obtain them? They’re like Tibetans!
heydemann3

What gets me about all of these re-writings of literature with a few horror tropes chopped in is how much they remind me of fanfic. And how many people who scream and have conniptions at the thought of anyone using their characters in such a way adore these.
Personally, I wonder what these authors are being praised for. Are we so used to having one good script show up in one medium, only to have it move from page to big screen to small screen to stage to gameboy to graphic novel that we no longer actually want or expect new ideas, new stories, new characters?
I think the clip is funny, in a we-made-it-for-YouTube kind of way. Nice camera work and a good sense of how to frame the idea so the Austin aesthetic shows through. I just can’t help but wish these talented young women had spent the same amount of time and energy on something original.
- Gloria
  
  Well, if nobody else thought to mash up Austen and Fight Club, I think it’s worthy enough to deem “original.”
defunctdoormat

Damn it. I hate when my day peaks and I’m not out of bed 10 minutes.
Hoot

If that’s not made into a full-length movie, I’m going to pick a fight with a complete stranger.
Anonymous

needs zombies
ackpht

Delightful and well done.