Mark Steyn reviews The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.
I saw the movie myself last week, and enjoyed it, though it’s a bit too tame for my tastes. I don’t want LOTR-style head-lopping, necessarily, but the battle of 1000s of creatures has fewer injuries than a battle with Cobra on the G.I. Joe cartoon. (You remember how all the Cobra jet pilots managed to parachute out of their planes in time because they saw the laser coming?) My parents and I have always disagreed about the portrayal of violence. They belong to the school which says that a film where a cowboy shoots 15 bad guys can be PG so long as every one of the baddies immediately covers the wound with his hand to spare us the sight of blood. I think battle has physical consequences and showing the realistic result of bullet wounds, stabbings and slashings is healthier.
As for all the non-Christians fretting about the story being a Christian allegory… I think it’s a bunch of hype over nothing. Anyone with any understanding of film knows what a “Christ figure” is. The mass-murdering computer hacker Neo in the Matrix is an obvious Christ figure. OK, he doesn’t care about anyone and is willing to kill pedestrians to save the hottie he loves, sure, but he is the savior anticipated by prophecy, etc. Speaking of Christ figures, how about Darth “virgin birthed by Midichlorians” Vader, the Chosen one? Lots of parallels there, but no one would confuse the youngling slasher with the Son of God. There are Christ figures all over our media.
When a movie has a vaguely respectful Christ figure and the production company thinks it will help sales to aggressively pursue a Christian audience to help their numbers, there is nothing wrong with that. Disney saw the dollars the Passion raked in by taking their show to churches and thought it would be profitable to get some of dat for themselves, so they used the same marketing firm and similar methods of outreach despite being very different films. Disney could use the appeal to a Christian audience after years of boycotts because of Gay Day at Disneyworld and other controversies. Promoting this film to Christians seems to be merely a sensible business decision, not one made out of a desire to proselytize. (I do think the Disney execs now saying “it’s NOT a Christian film” are being weasels.)
Production company Walden Media is a company on a mission, but it’s committed to family films of all kinds, not Christian films. (I linked to the assortment of upcoming films last week.) Most importantly, Aslan is a Christian allegory within a mythological fantasy family film; it’s nothing to be overly worried about. Sure, the Narnia books and films may result in some additional Christians (unlike Harry Potter which hasn’t led too many kids into witchcraft) if it is subjected to thought and analysis, but most people watching a fantasy film don’t hold discussion groups afterward. Cal Thomas was quite happy that the film wasn’t up to the preachy standards of Tim “Left Behind” LeHaye.
4 responses to “Steyn (and little ol’ me) on Narnia”
You make a good point about the hype about the Christian allegory. At first I had been firmly on the side of annoyance over hardcore religious folk using a film based on a book that was meant to introduce Christian themes to children. It was Lewis’s intention to provide such an avenue to Christianity, so I’ll let that one drop. As a non-religious type, I think my main, and possibly unjustified, irritation comes from the fact that I read the Chronicles of Narnia as stories, not as religious allegories, and I enjoyed them, so the fact that groups who’s views I disagree with are using the film as intended by the author irks me. This is irrational, of course, but there you go.
Regarding that Veritas piece, where does ” the Left ” say that they want to impose censorship on Walden, as the Veritas guy appears to say?
Does he expect the Ray movie to tell us every election that Ray Charles was alive for and who he supported ? (On the Veritas guy’s word of what Ray did, that’s all I know) How many movie biographies of people who are not politicians do that?
The #1 reason for the SBC boycott of Disney, and this was by their own words IIRC, was Disney’s paying partner benefits to GLBT employees’ partners not Priest or unofficial Gay Days at Disney parks. When the SBC called it off Disney had not reversed those benefits (or burned the negative of Priest or barred UGDs either).
The Veritas writer makes a big deal of movie studios donations to Democrats. And corporate donations to Republicans mean nothing? Yes I wager that the movie studios as businesses gave more to Dems than to Reps. I imagine many other business’ total was as much or more in reverse.
Regarding Anschutz:
He owns the San Francisco Examiner http://www.examiner.com and acquired the newspaper in mid-2004.
When the 2004 election happened the Examiner did not run an editorial endorsement for President a ” in the opinion of the paper ” one . That does not mean that they ran noendorsement , or ran a the Examiner gives no endorsement editorial .
It means that they ran an editorial that as talked about the two main candidates Bush and Kerry and, as I see it was very much in favor of Bush. As would be their right. But, it did not make a statement it tailed out before saying The Examiner endorses.
I think that they were wanting to endorse Bush but felt that they might get backtalk from doing so given SFs general political bente specially as an outside company having just bought the paper. I did think that the editorial was very much in favor of Bush – again their right – but they chickened out short of saying that for the reasons speculated above .
Isn’t that “chickenstuff” or “chickenbleep” as Joe Bob Briggs used to say? I spoke of this at Delphis Newspaper Comics forum then the then-moderator after reading the editorial (probably not up anymore) said that he saw my point but thought that perhps they just couldnt decide. Perhaps so but I do tend to think that they backed down from saying what they wanted for business rerasons. The next day the SF Republican Partys chairman had a letter to the editor congratulating the Examiner. I do no, once again , object to their endorsing Bush if they wish to but if that is indeed the case being chicken/backdoor regarding it. I wouldnt have stopped picking them up for endorsing B.
I won’t question your statistics but surely you know that all numbers can be sliced up and defined many ways.
Neither you or I said that the majority of companies give more to Reps or Dems. “plenty”, “many”…can be defined many different ways.