Weekly Non-Christian Opinion Roundup
What does the mainstream press care about? Not the movie itself, but what Christians have planned for the movie. In a classic case of the media "whisper game," this Reuters story about Christian UK tie-ins has been the basis of all sorts of misinformation. As this story originally reported, one church is giving away 10,000 British Pounds worth of tickets, not 10,000 tickets. A BBC News article gives more details on that particular story.
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The Scotsman (UK) is running a very nice article on the literary legacy of C. S. Lewis and Narnia. While it recognizes the role that Lewis' faith has played in making his works controversial, it doesn't dwell on it—making the piece well worth reading for any audience. The article observes, "It is perhaps the mark of the best writers that opinions will always be divided on their worth and influence."
Interestingly, this article reveals that recently publicized comments from author Philip Pullman were made in 2001—not in connection with the current media blitz. Recent articles quoting Pullman's critical comments have managed to leave out that little fact... Journalists are getting pretty sloppy these days.
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The Observer (UK) has finally taken the gloves off and told us why we should all hate the Narnia movie. Says Cristina Odone, "Christian dogma apart, Lewis's message is unrepentantly conservative, a 1930s vision of a hierarchical society where everyone - men and women, the middle classes and the proles - have their rightful place. Thus, we fall out of an enchanted wardrobe into Daily Mail land, where the golden-haired Narnians and Archenlanders are honest, upright, and hospitable; the working classes have warm hearts but need to be gentrified; and the countryside is the green and pleasant land of patriotic lore. Boys are brave and bossy, while girls cook, clean and are pure of heart."
She also notes that Christians should be offended as well. After all, she notes, conservative Christians "detest [Lewis] as an effete Oxford don with a malevolent influence on young innocents. There are more than 500 web sites knocking Lewis for his 'occult fantasy' or satanic propaganda, in which children are encouraged to drink wine, worship nature and sundry other horrors."
Isn't such vitriol refreshing, affirming and tolerant? Isn't my own sarcasm so much better?
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Leslie Baldacci of the Chicago Sun-Times, meanwhile, has written a nicely informative article about the Narnia and Lewis resources maintained at Wheaton College's Wade Center. What a nice change of pace!
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Reuters has also struck gold today by breaking a story about Lewis' previously unpublished comments about a possible cinematic adaptation of the Narnia stories. "Anthropomorphic animals, when taken out of narrative into actual visibility, always turn into buffoonery or nightmare," said Lewis in a private letter to a BBC producer in 1959. The Reuters story has already been picked up by a dozen other media outlets.
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The Sunday Herald (Scotland) is running a fairly obtuse article that confuses fanship with worship. As an example, the author says that Lewis' "personal effects – including his library, writing desk and, of course, his wardrobe – are venerated as relics and can be found in the Wade Centre, part of Wheaton College, Illinois, a Christian establishment." Now, it's certainly true that the Wade Center does have a collection of Lewis ephemera, including that celebrated wardrobe. But the collection is essentially a museum, as a well as a resource for researchers. To say this stuff is "venerated as relics" demonstrates a wild misunderstanding of veneration (and relics)—not to mention a complete disdain for Christians in general. What guff.
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The National Review, on the flip side of the coin, is running an article that details the political landscape of struggles over Lewis' legacy. Only subsrcribers get the complete article, but even the freebie excerpt is pretty good—and gives a pretty good basis for understanding that diatribe in the Sunday Herald.
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The Scotsman (UK) is running a very nice article on the literary legacy of C. S. Lewis and Narnia. While it recognizes the role that Lewis' faith has played in making his works controversial, it doesn't dwell on it—making the piece well worth reading for any audience. The article observes, "It is perhaps the mark of the best writers that opinions will always be divided on their worth and influence."
Interestingly, this article reveals that recently publicized comments from author Philip Pullman were made in 2001—not in connection with the current media blitz. Recent articles quoting Pullman's critical comments have managed to leave out that little fact... Journalists are getting pretty sloppy these days.
------------------------
The Observer (UK) has finally taken the gloves off and told us why we should all hate the Narnia movie. Says Cristina Odone, "Christian dogma apart, Lewis's message is unrepentantly conservative, a 1930s vision of a hierarchical society where everyone - men and women, the middle classes and the proles - have their rightful place. Thus, we fall out of an enchanted wardrobe into Daily Mail land, where the golden-haired Narnians and Archenlanders are honest, upright, and hospitable; the working classes have warm hearts but need to be gentrified; and the countryside is the green and pleasant land of patriotic lore. Boys are brave and bossy, while girls cook, clean and are pure of heart."
She also notes that Christians should be offended as well. After all, she notes, conservative Christians "detest [Lewis] as an effete Oxford don with a malevolent influence on young innocents. There are more than 500 web sites knocking Lewis for his 'occult fantasy' or satanic propaganda, in which children are encouraged to drink wine, worship nature and sundry other horrors."
Isn't such vitriol refreshing, affirming and tolerant? Isn't my own sarcasm so much better?
------------------------
Leslie Baldacci of the Chicago Sun-Times, meanwhile, has written a nicely informative article about the Narnia and Lewis resources maintained at Wheaton College's Wade Center. What a nice change of pace!
------------------------
Reuters has also struck gold today by breaking a story about Lewis' previously unpublished comments about a possible cinematic adaptation of the Narnia stories. "Anthropomorphic animals, when taken out of narrative into actual visibility, always turn into buffoonery or nightmare," said Lewis in a private letter to a BBC producer in 1959. The Reuters story has already been picked up by a dozen other media outlets.
------------------------
The Sunday Herald (Scotland) is running a fairly obtuse article that confuses fanship with worship. As an example, the author says that Lewis' "personal effects – including his library, writing desk and, of course, his wardrobe – are venerated as relics and can be found in the Wade Centre, part of Wheaton College, Illinois, a Christian establishment." Now, it's certainly true that the Wade Center does have a collection of Lewis ephemera, including that celebrated wardrobe. But the collection is essentially a museum, as a well as a resource for researchers. To say this stuff is "venerated as relics" demonstrates a wild misunderstanding of veneration (and relics)—not to mention a complete disdain for Christians in general. What guff.
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The National Review, on the flip side of the coin, is running an article that details the political landscape of struggles over Lewis' legacy. Only subsrcribers get the complete article, but even the freebie excerpt is pretty good—and gives a pretty good basis for understanding that diatribe in the Sunday Herald.
posted by Greg Wright at 29.11.05
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