Non-binary star Emma Corrin makes history in new Jane Austen adaptation for Netflix

Before we had Colleen Hoover’s It Ends With Us (need I remind readers of the Blake Lively versus Justin Baldoni saga…) or even Emily Henry’s rom-com sensations that fly off shelves and into shopping baskets - most recently Great Big Beautiful Life, there was Jane Austen.

She is one of English Literature’s most beloved writers - and with good reason - not least as she has given us Mr. Darcy to dream about.

If you are new to Austen, you are in for a treat with her novels. They are funny, fresh and modern, so much so that you may not have realised just how many pop-culture movies have taken direct inspiration from her books.

READ MORE: The Wiggles fans are all saying the same thing about 'amazing' character

READ MORE: Leeds Festival: Inside swanky backstage area with private bars and luxury dining options

Adaptations of her novels run from Bridget Jones’s Diary, which is based on Pride and Prejudice, to the cult-classic movie Clueless, a retelling of the novel Emma but set in an American High School in the 1990s.

Austen’s novels offer as much social commentary now as they did when they were released in the 1810s. The writer's commentary then focussed on a woman’s need to marry to ensure economic security and social standing.

Anybody who has ever been single and received a wedding invite will feel an affinity with Austen’s humorous takedown of the pursuit of coupledom to get by in society.

Author and memoirist Dolly Alderton’s adaptation of the classic novel is treading this same ground by offering a new social commentary: this time on gender. In Alderton’s Pride and Prejudice, Emma Corrin is the first non-binary actor to play the iconic Elizabeth Bennet.

The casting is a brilliant move that reflects the society we live in today, where people are free and open about not only their sexualities but their gender representation too. To see Corrin play this role will surely be celebrated by the LGBTQIA+ community.

In 2022, they appeared on the West End stage in an adaptation of another icon of English Literature’s work: Virginia Woolf’s Orlando. Their performance received rave reviews, with the Guardian describing the show about a person who falls asleep as a man and wakes as a woman as a “liberation”.

Earlier this year, we saw a conservative and reductive ruling by the Supreme Court on what they ruled it meant to legally be a woman. On April 16, the UK Supreme Court ruled that the term 'woman' used in the Equality Act 2010 refers to biological sex.

This is exhausting, reductive, and frankly, totally boring. It is not reflective of how people are living their lives today. In this regard, Austen’s work is the perfect arena to challenge stuffy societal understandings of what it means to live now.

I have no doubt that Corrin’s Elizabeth Bennet will bring a new glimmer of joy: not only as non-binary characters will be represented on screen, but also that they are at the centre of one of English Literature’s most timeless love stories. Here’s to future liberation of gender through adapted works of great fiction.

Like this story? For more of the latest showbiz news and gossip, follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok , Snapchat , Instagram , Twitter , Facebook , and Threads .