From Jesus to Fairyland

[vovat]

hellmutt linked to this article about the upcoming movie of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which says that the filmmakers are going to downplay the Christian allegory somewhat. Honestly, I never saw the allegory as THAT prevalent anyway. Yes, it was certainly there, and even as a kid I recognized it. In one of the books (I forget which one), Aslan tells a visiting British child something like, "In your world, I am known by another name. You will come to know me by that name." I'd say that pretty much seals the deal, wouldn't you? Nonetheless, the Chronicles of Narnia are hardly direct retellings of Bible stories. The circumstances of Aslan's death are very different from those of Jesus' crucifixion. I've heard people complain about the Christian symbolism in the Narnia books, but I think this sort of comes down to the separation of the artist from the art. The director even mentions this in that article: "Christian themes were very important to CS Lewis and imbued everything he did, but he himself denied any religious implications." He mentions Star Wars as another example of the resurrection theme, by which I assume he means Obi-Wan coming back to talk to Luke Skywalker. This isn't really a bodily resurrection, though, as the Bible teaches that Jesus underwent, and which Aslan and Gandalf go through in literature.

The article also mentions Philip Pullman's criticisms of the Narnia series, which are discussed in a little more detail here and here. I can see the charge of racism supported by Lewis' treatment of Narnia's enemy Calormen, a country that parallels Arab nations on our world, and is portrayed quite negatively. Calormen doesn't really come into play until later in the series, though. As for misogyny, I seem to recall Father Christmas telling either Susan or Lucy that "battles look ugly when women fight," but is that really Lewis' own opinion on the matter? Perhaps there's more misogynism in the books, but I can't recall any specific examples.

The Narnia movie looks to be inspired quite heavily by (some might even say "a rip-off of") the recent Lord of the Rings films, the first of which was released around the same time as the first Harry Potter movie. I don't see this as a bad trend. These are books I grew up with (well, not so much in the case of the Potter series), and I'm glad to see them adapted more faithfully than most book-to-movie adaptations have been done in the past. With the recent influx of fantasy films, fellow Oz fans have brought up the possibility of a new Oz movie along much the same lines. I think the main problem with this, aside from the fact that the Oz books have just never been as successful as other children's fantasy series, is the incredible success of the 1939 MGM film. Any new Oz film is going to be compared to it, and generally in a negative way, as happened with Return to Oz. Narnia and Lord of the Rings don't really have this same issue. They've both been filmed before--I've watched the Wonderworks version of The Lion (which was low-budget but quite true to the book) several times, and I also remember seeing an animated version of part of Rings--but none of the films have managed to supersede the source books in the way MGM's Wizard of Oz has. The movie is so ingrained in our culture that any film based on the later books would probably have to do one of three things: incorporate the changes made by MGM (as Return did with the Ruby Slippers [1] and the Kansas/Oz parallels), ignore these changes (which might confuse audiences), or explain what MGM got wrong (which would be pretty awkward, and perhaps difficult to do without sounding overly criticism of the classic movie). While the fact that Oz is a dream in the movie has been viewed (quite accurately, in my opinion) as the biggest change from the book, I also think it might be one of the easiest to overcome. I wouldn't be surprised if even some movie-only fans have a hard time buying the dream thing; and Return kind of incorporated both ideas by having Oz appear to be a dream, but finally turn out to be real. What I think would cause more trouble would be issues like Glinda being a separate character from the Good Witch of the North, and the Munchkins all dressing in blue and not all being short. None of this is to say that an Oz film WOULD necessarily be successful if the filmmakers managed to separate their project from the 1939 movie, but it might have a little more of a chance.

[1] As many people know, they were actually Silver Shoes in the book. However, the following two books, on which Return is based, don't actually include any magic shoes at all. What the Nome King uses to accomplish his transformations is the Magic Belt, a talisman that becomes one of the most annoying examples of deus ex machina in later books.

Comments

[kristenjarrod.livejournal.com]

My library that I volunteer at did a little kid thing for the Narnia movie 2 weeks ago. Not very many kids and parents showed up.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Do very many kids and parents show up for other activities at the library?

haha, live journal sends me comments 2 weeks late

[kristenjarrod.livejournal.com]

Tonight, we had a picture taking thing with Santa and there was lots of parents and kids there. Probably about 100.

Re: haha, live journal sends me comments 2 weeks late

[vovat.livejournal.com]

What about for other book- or movie-related events?

Re: haha, live journal sends me comments 2 weeks late

[kristenjarrod.livejournal.com]

I haven't been to one yet.

I think my library has storytime in the mornings, but I'm never there. I'm guessing during the summer storytime is packed, with kids of all ages, but I'm sure around this time of the year there's only a few toddlers there.

[skylark-king.livejournal.com]

the only two books with major religious undertones in my opinion were dawn treader and last battle

[vovat.livejournal.com]

The Last Battle definitely does, what with all of the Revelation themes (the false Aslan, the new Narnia, etc.). It also has Shift trying to convince everyone that Aslan and the Calormene god Tash are one and the same, which turns out to be a total lie; the comparison to how people in our world say Christianity and other religions have the same god seems pretty obvious.

I was thinking about whether The Magician's Nephew has similar themes (seeing as how that was the beginning of Narnia, while Battle was the end), but, from what I remember, I don't think it's anywhere near as saturated with religious references. I also find it kind of interesting that the first King and Queen of Narnia, as well as its first great evil, aren't part of Aslan's creation at all.

[arfies.livejournal.com]

Again, the religious themes didn't occur to me in the least while I was reading the books. I mean, "Son of Adam" and "Daughter of Eve" did, but those were fairly obvious.

[loz]

Would you embrace a new film? Given the inherent complications?

The only thing I know about Narnia is a tv adaptation of "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe". Oh, that, and the fact I have a book or two of them lying about somewhere :D

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Would you embrace a new film? Given the inherent complications?

A new Oz film, you mean? That would obviously depend on the quality. I really did like Return to Oz, even though I think it spent too much time drawing the Kansas/Oz parallels. I think there's the potential for a really good, faithful adaptation of an Oz book. There's also the distinct possibility that the filmmakers would totally screw it up. And I wouldn't want them to film Wizard again, as I think that cow has been milked dry.

[onib.livejournal.com]

I don't remember hardly any Christian references in "The Magician's Nephew" either. It's interesting that you mention Philip Pullman's criticisms, as I remember hearing that he wrote his big children's series to be an "anti-Narnia" as he called it. He had said that C.S. Lewis, while not writing directly about Christianity, infused so much Christian imagery into his books that they were basically proselytizing tools. So, he had written his own books to inject more atheistic ideas into kids' minds.

I think the Christian elements could easily be downplayed, and that such an approach is probably better in a public market. Provided they don't change any major points, the imagery will still be there underscoring the story - keeping those fans happy without outright preaching.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Interestingly enough, I've heard that the films of the His Dark Materials trilogy are going to downplay the ANTI-religious elements of the books, which kind of makes me wonder how they'll salvage a plot, since the war against God is pretty central to the last book, especially.

Regardless of what Lewis' intentions might have been, I don't think the Narnia books should be viewed as Christian proselytizing tools (or, for that matter, that Pullman's trilogy should be viewed as atheistic proselytizing tools). If someone is going to derive their religious and spiritual beliefs from a series of children's fantasy novels, the author can hardly be blamed for this.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

I can see the charge of racism supported by Lewis' treatment of Narnia's enemy Calormen, a country that parallels Arab nations on our world, and is portrayed quite negatively.

But wasn't one of the heroes of one of the books... maybe Horse and His Boy, or maybe Silver Chair, or maybe both... from Calormen, anyway? Which would imply that it's more the stereotype the people of Narnia themselves hold, which could be overcome if they only got to know them better.... Just a thought I had.

Man, it bugs me that Philip Pullman should be so offended by the "proselytizing" nature of the Narnia books, when, FIRST of all, none of the books are FORCING anybody to believe ANYTHING, and SECOND of all, give the man a break, C.S. Lewis was a believer (and on top of that, a born-again believer, who are even more so what I'm about to say) and he wants to share the good news because he BELIEVES AND LOVES it, not because he wants to brainwash anybody, and THIRD of all, look how many flippin' fans of Narnia there are who are quite vocal about NOT being Christian... okay, it's hardly inaccessible or Un-universal. And if he's [Pullman's] trying to be anti-Narnia with the Dark Materials series well then he has no right to criticize Lewis because he's JUST DOING THE EXACT SAME THING FROM HIS POINT OF VIEW INSTEAD. Actually as a Christian I was pretty offended by a lot of the stuff in "Amber Spyglass," not because it was anti-Christian so much as it was anti-what-he-THOUGHT-was-Christian-but-he-seemed-to-miss-some-very-major-points-such-as-Jesus-already-DID-show-the-way-out-of-the-underworld-in-fact-he-seemed-to-leave-Jesus-completely-out-of-his-idea-of-Christianity; BUT on the other hand I thought the book and the rest of the series were incredibly well-written and suspenseful reads so I'm not going around calling Pullman evil or accusing him of brainwashing anybody. Nyeh. Actually this brings up a subject that has been bugging me a lot lately so I might just go rant about it in my own journal.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

WARNING! SPOILERS FOR THE NARNIA BOOKS, AND A FEW FOR THE HIS DARK MATERIALS TRILOGY, WITHIN!

But wasn't one of the heroes of one of the books... maybe Horse and His Boy, or maybe Silver Chair, or maybe both... from Calormen, anyway?

The main character in The Horse and His Boy was a Prince of Archenland who was raised as a slave to a lord in Calormen. Another principle character in the book, however, was Aravis, an actual Calormene noblewoman. There's also a sympathetic Calormene in The Last Battle, who ends up in the new Narnia.

I think you're largely right that the prejudice against Calormen is something held primarily by the Narnians, rather than by Lewis himself. And even if that WASN'T Lewis' intent, I think readers can interpret the books in multiple ways. There's definitely a sense that Narnia is Aslan's favored country, though. In fact, I don't know that we ever actually find out where the Calormenes come from. The original rulers of Narnia and Archenland were the descendants of the cab-driver from The Magician's Nephew, while Caspian's line comes from pirates who ended up in Telmar after being magically transported to the Narnian world. The presence of an ancient human civilization elsewhere in the world is a little hard to reconcile with the Narnia we see in The Lion, where humans are a rarity. Maybe Lewis explained it somewhere and I just don't remember it, though.

On the face of it, what I take to have been Pullman's original complaint against the Narnia series strikes me as being along the same lines as saying that kids who play violent video games will become violent, or kids who see drug use on TV will do drugs. Besides, I don't think kids will necessarily notice the Christian references unless they already have some background in Christian belief. I tend to agree with the people who suspect that Pullman is trying to gain notoriety and publicity through these comments.

I did notice that the Dark Materials books were pretty much devoid of New Testament references, and I'm not sure Jesus was mentioned at all. A lot of it DOES take place on an alternate world, though, so maybe Jesus isn't part of the Church's beliefs on that world? Just a thought.

I believe Metatron, who was essentially the main villain in the series, originated in Current Era Jewish apocrypha (3 Enoch, I think?), although I think he might have been adopted in some forms of Christian angelology. I know he's a major character in Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's Good Omens; and I seem to recall hearing that he appears in Kevin Smith's Dogma as well, but I've never seen that movie.

As for the world of the dead, Pullman's view seems to be that there is no afterlife, and this is actually a good thing. The Christian view is that some people will be able to live in Heaven after death, which is still a way out of the world of the dead, but a quite different one. If I recall correctly, Pullman's home for the dead resembled the Hebrew Sheol or Greek Asphodel more than the Christian Hell.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

Another principle character in the book, however, was Aravis, an actual Calormene noblewoman.

Yes, her, that's who I was thinking of!

A lot of it DOES take place on an alternate world, though, so maybe Jesus isn't part of the Church's beliefs on that world?
The world Lyra was from, yeah, but the other one... there was the character that used to be a nun and quit, she was definitely supposed to be an ex-Catholic Christian... which brings me back to the original point, yeah, somehow they had Christianity and no New Testament in that world....

I saw "Dogma" but I can't remember Metatron in it. Mostly because Jason and I started going out while watching the movie so I wasn't paying too much attention to it.