#northangerabbey2007

[unsociableandtaciturnbarbie]

This week's find is an edit of 2007 Northanger Abbey movie to the song Seven by Taylor Swift. The TikTok shows different clips of Catherine, Henry Tilney, and General Tilney as the lyrics run along the bottom of the screen in a stylized white font. Edits, generally, can be a range of things, but in my research are typically videos in which footage from a movie, TV show, or celebrity is cropped and rearranged to align with a chosen song. Taylor Swift songs themselves are becoming increasingly popular in mainstream media, but have been popular for quite a while in the #booktok and fandom scene on TikTok and Youtube. This song in particular, Seven, can be found in edits for everything from Harry Potter to Five Nights at Freddy’s. Typically, it is used to highlight an unhappy home life with the phrase “your house is haunted” and an escape from that home life with another character in a platonic or romantic relationship with the phrase “I think you should come live with me”. 

For Northanger Abbey in particular, I think this song was an interesting choice. With the first line, “I think your house is haunted,” over a clip where Catherine is talking to Henry Tilney followed by a clip of Catherine walking through what I assume is Northanger Abbey (side note: I have not watched the movie, but I did some IMDB sleuthing), it sets up Henry as the “your” in this song and thus the idea of Henry Tilney’s house being haunted. This brings us back to the idea we discussed in class of Jane Austen flipping the tone of the novel from a story about a naive girl on vacation to one of a gothic novel as Catherine arrives at Northanger Abbey. Northanger Abbey is described in a large amount of detail as Catherine tours it, but also in how Catherine sees it at night and daydreams about it. Northanger Abbey, in this way, builds up to this sort of scary haunted house in the mind of Catherine. Following this line is, “your dad is always mad and that must be why,” with a clip of General Tilney storming around a corner. In most edits, the creators use mad in a sense that I usually think of it, as being angry, which I think applies to how the General looks in the scene. However, while I was considering this edit, it seems like maybe there’s a double meaning here. As Catherine builds up this haunted house in her mind, she becomes convinced that General Tilney murdered his wife. She starts to obsess over all of his actions, turning what could be construed as pretty typical behaviors to evidence that he must be coping with murdering his wife. Mad, aside from meaning angry, can also mean crazy, something that could probably be used to describe someone who’s murdered his wife. I don’t often think about this meaning of the word “mad” but I think it’s a really interesting application here, whether the creator meant to use it in both of its meanings or not. After this is the line, “I think you should come live with me.” This follows with more scenes of Catherine and Henry Tilney together (side note 2: my best guess based on the emotions of the recurring scene shown of Catherine and Henry talking is that it is when Catherine tells Henry she thinks his father murdered his mother, I could be very off here because I haven’t finished the book, but I wanted to put an official guess out there for when I do watch the movie). As I have not finished the book, I can only really hazard a guess based on previous edits I’ve watched, but I think the general meaning of the rest of the video is to (hopefully) convey how Catherine and Henry find happiness in being together despite the sort of haunted sadness permeating Henry Tilney’s home.

And for some added enjoyment, here is some other Northanger Abbey media I found that made me giggle and I would analyze given more time:

#jane austen #northanger abbey #taylor swift #austen #Youtube