So I found a metaphor that helped me explain the appeal of Jane Austen and similar movies/books:
- the dialogue that happens on screen is about as relevant to what’s happening in the character’s minds/hearts/etc as an interview with one of the hockey players before a team game
- much like the fun of watching teams play one another over the season and collect rivalries and beefs they would never just, like, explain to a reporter, the fun of the jane austen plot comes from the reader’s ability to put together all the clues to the emotional rollercoaster happening behind the scenes
- which builds tension and anticipation to the inevitable face-off/all-out brawl/intense emotional confession scene
which then leads me to the thought that a jane austen novel maybe is to a hockey season what a harlequin novel or hallmark holiday movie is to, maybe, wrestling?
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