![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
Dec. 11th, 2005 06:48 pmI had been looking forward to this movie since June, when I saw the promotional materials for it at the American Library Association. Jason and I went today.
It was the biggest disappointment of my movie going year. All of the evocative, cozy parts that I enjoyed so much in the book become settings or CGI in the movie, and what is left to be carried by the dialogue and the acting is all the parts I hated as a kid. As a feminist, and someone not unsensitive to the appeal of the Christian religion, I really have to wonder where Lewis's portrayal of Christianity in the Narnia books leaves room for women (as opposed to girls) to have any initiative? I know from reading the Last Battle that Susan doesn't come back to fight in what is basically Armaggedon because she's gotten interested in boys and makeup and stuff. Peter is older but gets to come back - what, at 18 he wasn't having any dirty thoughts about girls? Well, it doesn't matter, because girls get the original sin.
And girls aren't really supposed to fight. They're supposed to love people and have faith and be trusting and carry around the healing potion and keep vigil. And I know it makes sense that Lucy and Susan keep vigil (in an allegorical sense) because it was the women in the Bible who did a lot of the vigiling for Christ. And actually, the whole sequence from where Aslan meets with the white witch to where he is reborn was one of the least horrible parts of the movie for me.
Ah well. I'm glad I learned to read early enough that I could read the Narnia books before my brain got good enough to pick at them.
Tilda Swinton was a treat, but this is really a movie to watch if you're, oh, 8 yrs old or younger. Just as the books are really much better if read before you're ten.
ick ick ick. I've been depressed all afternoon and evening since watching it due to how horrible I found it.
It was the biggest disappointment of my movie going year. All of the evocative, cozy parts that I enjoyed so much in the book become settings or CGI in the movie, and what is left to be carried by the dialogue and the acting is all the parts I hated as a kid. As a feminist, and someone not unsensitive to the appeal of the Christian religion, I really have to wonder where Lewis's portrayal of Christianity in the Narnia books leaves room for women (as opposed to girls) to have any initiative? I know from reading the Last Battle that Susan doesn't come back to fight in what is basically Armaggedon because she's gotten interested in boys and makeup and stuff. Peter is older but gets to come back - what, at 18 he wasn't having any dirty thoughts about girls? Well, it doesn't matter, because girls get the original sin.
And girls aren't really supposed to fight. They're supposed to love people and have faith and be trusting and carry around the healing potion and keep vigil. And I know it makes sense that Lucy and Susan keep vigil (in an allegorical sense) because it was the women in the Bible who did a lot of the vigiling for Christ. And actually, the whole sequence from where Aslan meets with the white witch to where he is reborn was one of the least horrible parts of the movie for me.
Ah well. I'm glad I learned to read early enough that I could read the Narnia books before my brain got good enough to pick at them.
Tilda Swinton was a treat, but this is really a movie to watch if you're, oh, 8 yrs old or younger. Just as the books are really much better if read before you're ten.
ick ick ick. I've been depressed all afternoon and evening since watching it due to how horrible I found it.
