Jane Austen is one of the giants of literature. But in the words of one of her modern day publishers, "the poor soul didn't have anything going for her in the way of looks." Sweet. Two hundred years on, and a bestselling writer still has to worry about getting her author portrait spiffed up and PhotoShopped. (See Gawker's discussion: Jane Austen -- Book Hot?)
From Barbara Ellen via the Guardian, "If even the literary establishment thinks one of its biggest female hitters is a dog, what hope does Austen, or any 'ordinary woman', have in Hollywood?
The beauty gap between real-life figures and the actors who play them is nothing new -- consider the middlin-pretty to decidedly unhandsome crowned heads of Europe portrayed by Greta Garbo, Vanessa Redgrave and Cate Blanchett. When it comes to casting of actresses to play well-known writers, Ellen argues, though, the distance between iconic author portrait and Hollywood becomes even more vast. Hilarious, almost
Cases in point: the undeniably lovely Anne Hathaway (THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA) plays the young Jane Austen in BECOMING JANE , a fanciful, not-exactly true romance of the young Englishwoman's maybe-romances gone wrong. (Austen did not marry.) Hathaway is a fine actress -- she made you believe she was gawky in THE PRINCESS DIARIES. But one thing she isn't is plain, even intermittently--not in the way Joan Fontaine, another beautiful actress, could make you believe she was in REBECCA and SUSPICION.
Ellen takes further issue with Renee Zellweger in BEATRIX, whom she says is too cute by half to play children's book author and illustrator Beatrix Potter.
Well, take a number. Frida Kahlo wasn't the hot number that Salma Hayek is, and I doubt very much that anti-slavery campaigner William Wilberforce was as boyishly handsome as HORATIO HORNBLOWER hero Ioan Gruffud. No man could be. And William Shakespeare: he was no Joseph Fiennes.
Becoming Jane is out now in the UK. Miramax says it will release the film on August 3.
