Meryl Streep Might Play Aslan… How Concerned Should We Be? | Talking Beasts
The aftershock of the latest casting report can still be felt in the NarniaWeb community: Meryl Steep is reportedly “in talks” to voice Aslan in Greta Gerwig’s upcoming Narnia movie. Following this report, our data indicates that fan enthusiasm for the project significantly diminished, with many questioning if they will go see the film at all. Is this being blown out of proportion? Listen to the podcasters process through the issue and then post a comment below!
Post-Show Chatter: Watch the podcasters talk about what was going on behind-the-scenes among the NarniaWeb staff as the report was breaking.
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Dear Mr. Douglas Gresham… where are you? We beg thee to return. Narnia may be in grave danger once again.
If they “nail everything about Aslan” other than Aslan’s gender, would it be okay? Absolutely not! This would be fundamentally disrespectful to the source material (i.e. Lewis). I don’t know that it is possible to get every other aspect right when fundamentally changing his identity. Like it or not, Lewis came at Narnia as an essentially orthodox Christian, and while orthodox Christian thought acknowledges that God is neither male nor female, God nevertheless typically reveals God’s self to humanity as a male figure. This would be either an intentionally deconstruction and transformative re-imagining of Aslan or (charitably) a lack of awareness on Gerwig’s part. It would be akin to Shift being regarded as the real Aslan throughout the film and new series.
Why wouldn’t Netflix say something if it’s not true? “There’s no such thing as bad publicity,” comes to mind. If they could get the fanbase stirring up attention and controversy (and clicks), have said fanbase sigh in relief when it turns out not to be so bad, and then have the placated fans be more forgiving toward other changes, it could all make sense. (And that’s likely wishful thinking on my part.)
This was such a therapeutic conversation. I’m glad to be a part of the NarniaWeb community — regardless of what happens with Netflix’s Narnia.
Further up and further in!
Sorry about my first post above. I edited it and forgot to change “intentionally” to “intentional.” Please forgive my oversight. It was … wait for it … unintentional.
Thanks for this episode. It was good to hear you work it all out with/for us.
I’m not religious at all so I don’t have an issue beyond wanting to stay faithful to the books. But if they get everything else right about Aslan, then I’d be silly to put up too much of a fuss about the fact the changed him to a female lion (with a mane)… But what are the chances they get everything else right when they get something critically wrong?
I do think it would be good for us all to chill out a bit on this whole Streep thing. At least until we hear more about what they’re planning. And besides, we’ll always have the books 🙂
I’m still mad, but I’ve just gotten to the point where I’m really just hoping it ends up being only part of the real story. Hopefully they’ll alter her voice or add others to make the character a bit more appropriate.
Thanks for breaking it all down guys!
Loved what you guys had to say at the end about the tone of the conversation changing for the worse and how we should aim to be a respectful and positive voice in the online space, even if we disagree. Thank you for this reminder and for helping me keep grounded.
You’re right, Aslan in the Walden movies, and especially Prince Caspian (2008) did feel lacking compared to the book, and the other Walden productions did not portray everything about him mentioned in the books. There are many things missing, like Aslan appearing to all the children, and bringing joy back to Narnia while he and the girls run around Beruna, and little changes in lines.
I don’t know if I could get used Aslan being a lioness. I did go to a play at an amateur theater once where a masculine Mr. Tumnus was played by a teenage girl. I didn’t really get used to that during the play because the girl did not have a low voice, but she was actually the most enthusiastic actress in the production. So, in that setting it worked.
I’m sure Greta Gerwig will make a cinematic movie that has a high-production quality if Netflix supports her. If Netflix has a certain vision for Narnia, well, scripts can be ruined by too many critics trying to change things, so I have not written them a letter. Yes, Aslan possibly being portrayed as female did shock me. I’m planning on dealing with the shock by making Magician’s Nephew concept fanart for myself which is what I used to do as a teenager when the Walden productions were coming out. I just am not dealing with this well internally because I’m holding disappointment inside myself.
I don’t have social media and if I did I would not want to encourage a backlash against Netflix. Rumors can injure productions. There was a teen classmate I had in 2005 who kept insisting that the Walden/Disney LWW was actually filmed R-rated and that they removed the blood with CGI, so it wasn’t meant to be a family movie. These kind of rumors can spread too easily, so we should be careful to only talk about this current rumor in situations where we can provide the full context.
I have not spoken with anyone except my family and this comment section about the probable rumor of Netflix changing Aslan. Remember when Douglas Gresham said we should be worrying about real world problems like caring for the earth instead of getting anxious about what happens in movies of our favorite books? We always have the books, Narnia fans.
What Gymfan said towards the end about the importance of the fun leading up to the Walden movies really resonated with me. I don’t like the VDT movie, but I have fond memories of the years leading up to it because of the anticipation (or dread 😉 ).
For years I have felt like, however the next Narnia movie turns out, I am at least guaranteed to have enjoyment leading up to and following the movie’s release. Possibly the most depressing part of the news is that it *felt* like that was no longer the case. This news feels like it has the potential to lead to much uglier discourse on the internet than the old fears of added battles and romances in the Walden days did.
I have seen several things that I love get dragged into the nasty, polarized “discussions” that have taken over social media (to the point where I have largely disconnected from the main social media sites over the last few years) and it broke my heart that Narnia is seemingly next on the list.
This podcast did give me some hope that, even if the discussion becomes mean-spirited and politicized on the wider internet, NarniaWeb at least will be a place to have fun talking about Narnia regardless of how this movie turns out.
As always, thanks for keeping things civil and respectful, guys. 🙂
This Aslan rumor has stirred up so many unpleasant reactions out of me that it’s made me question my willingness to stay involved on NarniaWeb going forward. However, even though my Hollywood pessimism persists, you did a good job of voicing the concerns of the community. And you did it without fanning the flames of fear and anger over something that, as of yet, we don’t have the full picture. I appreciate that.
Agree with @glumpuddle that Neeson was fine as Aslan, but I too was looking forward to a younger, wilder lion from Netflix.
Yes @gymfan, Walden’s Prince Caspian needs more credit – it’s way too long and not without flaws – but I appreciate it as a thoughtful adaptation.
And well said at the end… I so value the tone of conversation at NarniaWeb. It’s good that we can be honest about how we feel in a way that’s positive, while still showing care and respect. Great job, team.
Great episode! I really related to a lot of the things that were mentioned. Like what Impending Doom said about how he feels like even if everything about Aslan is just like the book except for the gender, he’ll still be annoyed by the change because it’s so unnecessary and it’s keeping some fans away from an adaptation they could otherwise love.
That being said, using the stages of the grief thing, I think I must still be in the denial stage because I’m not super sad or angry right now. I mean, part of me is sad and part of me is angry but another part of me is just sort of bemused and another part of me is still waiting for it be announced that this was all a mistake.
Part of the reason might be that I don’t feel as betrayed as some. It’s true that Greta Gerwig said all those things about respecting Narnia and C. S. Lewis but, looking at her movies, I had a hard time thinking of what, in her words, “profound ideas” Lewis could have had that influenced her unless they were really generic things like forgiveness being good, which she could have gotten from anyone. And when I first heard the rumor, my instinct was to look back at her quotes about Narnia to see if she referred to Aslan with male pronouns, but she didn’t really refer to any characters at all, which was strange since her movies tend to be like character studies. That was kind of discouraging. Still, that’s not to say I expected this. I really didn’t! In the words of Till We Have Faces, “the gods are cleverer than we and can always think of some vileness it never entered our heads to fear.” LOL.
I’m trying to keep an open mind but I’m still pessimistic. Even the best-case scenarios I can imagine seem bad to me. I think it’d be just distracting to hear Meryl Streep’s voice coming out of a male lion. Combining the voices of many different actors would also be weird and make it hard to concentrate on what he was saying. Having him-or, rather, her be one of those rare maned lionesses would confuse mainstream audiences and having a character express confusion and another explain that there actually are some kinds of lionesses that have manes would just come across as obnoxious. I’ve mentioned before that there aren’t any IMAX cinemas near where I live. Before this, I was thinking of saving up enough money to take a plane trip to see this movie. Now I’m thinking I’ll just wait for streaming. If I love the trailer though or if I hear part of the soundtrack and it sounds great, I still might go the expensive route.
The explanation from Gerwig that I would respect the most is that she wants Aslan to have the best voice possible and she feels Meryl Streep is the only actor, male or female, who could pull off the character. I wouldn’t actually relate to that since I think there are many actors and actresses out there just as charismatic as Streep, but I could understand the reasoning.
I love that quote from Glumpuddle’s friend about one nice exchange on the internet making up for five nasty ones.
Is the podcast ever going to go back to The Last Battle? I understand everyone wants to talk about all the movie news, but my favorite episodes tend to be the ones about the books themselves or about adaptations that have already been released. (The speculative episodes like this are great and everything but I seldom listen to them more than once.) And I was really enjoying the series about The Last Battle.
Part of me also feels sorry for Gerwig and Netflix. It feels like they’re alienating some old fans without attracting any new ones. From what I see online, there are people who are still going to see the movie, though with reduced expectations in many cases, people who were cynical about the movie and now feel justified in their cynicism, people who might have been interested in the movie and are now boycotting it and people who didn’t care about the movie before and still don’t care about it now. What I don’t see are people who weren’t interested in the movie but are now going to see it. (I suppose there are some diehard Meryl Streep fans out there who have gained an interest in the movie now but it’s not like they couldn’t have cast her in another role.) And this was all so unnecessary. Oh well. Maybe if the actress’s vocal performance is so great that everyone loves it, this will pay off in the long run.
This was very therapeutic to watch. And I’m so thankful for the Narnia community.
As a lot of you know, Lewis first began imagining The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, he didn’t have a full plot — he just had a few scattered images: a faun with an umbrella in a snowy wood, a lamp-post in the snow, and a queen on a sledge. It wasn’t until Aslan “came bounding into it” that everything started to come together.
Lewis later said that Aslan simply appeared, unplanned, and brought the whole story to life.
So in essence, Aslan is the cornerstone…the glue of the world of Narnia. If you change him. You fundamentally ruin/change Narnia itself.
It’s so great to hear fans (of any fandom) speak rationally about a decision they vehemently disagree with without resorting to political bashing, calling for boycotts, cries of religious persecution, or name-calling. The internet is flooded with nonsense right now, so this was very refreshing to listen to.
Hopefully, they’ll keep Aslan the way he is! It’s vitally important. There’s no way around it.
Thank you for the podcast! I was really looking forward to this. I liked hearing what you think about the whole thing.
I have nothing to add but really share the sentiment. Thank you, Talking Beast moderaters for handling this situation the way you do. It’s so wholesome and refreshing. No matter how the movie will turn out, I’m looking forward to all the respectful discussions here 🙂
It was good to hear someone say disappointed and deflated and depressed and in grief because yeah. I think I am just going to pretend it’s not happening and try to focus on the rest of the news.
There is no coming back from the brink if this is true, so hopefully we will get one good scene like we did in the Disney VDT.
I honestly thought it was just a rumour. I didn’t think they would change the original so drastically. Not only is it just gross, because Jesus is represented by Aslan, but it’s gonna be so weird to look on a screen and see a FEMALE lion next to, say, Peter or Lucy.
LEAVE ASLAN THE WAY C.S. LEWIS PORTRAYED HIM, PLS!!
Maybe she plays young Aslan? A lion cub? I know Aslan was always depicted as an adult lion but Jesus was once a little boy, too.
I’m reminded of the 1991 film “Prospero’s Books” in which John Gielgud voiced Prospero and all the other characters in Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”, his voice altered to various pitches using the technology possible at that time. Maybe Gerwig is planning something like that?
,,, But the fact is … we still know nothing for sure, and this rumour might not pan out. I will TRY not to comment on this matter until we know a few things for sure.
I am quite disappointed right now. When I see what Hollywood in general does, this raises loud alarm bells. In other films where they do things like this, it always is for the negative to me. Be it from mild annoyance to outright rejection of the whole film.
Up to now I really tried to give Gerwig the benefit of the doubt. With this I fear I am flipped to not wanting to give her that.
The discussion was very professional and tried to be positive in this all. Thanks for that.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this film will buck the trend I described. But I’m not hopeful.
I’m definitely not as optimistic as I was before hearing this news. You guys have probably read posts by me where I say “the book is always better” (whether here, in the forum, or in other communities I like to hang out with). No version of Aslan will ever match the Aslan we “saw” when we read the books. The same could be said of the Witch, or Digory, or Reepicheep, or Shasta, or any other character in the series, or any series. However… choosing a woman to play Aslan would be even weirder than choosing a man to play the part of the Witch, or a guy my age to play Caspian or something (not that they’ve never aged up Caspian, but I’m more like Miraz’ age, lol). But of all the characters they would think to gender-bend, they chose Aslan… I’m sorry but that feels like [MODERATOR REMOVED] baloney to me. Now I know there are those who believe that if there is a God, that God must be female… but C. S. Lewis was not one of them. He just wasn’t. Netflix, look at how Disney is bombing right now: [MODERATOR REMOVED]. I have a Netflix subscription I never use (though my parents do), so obviously I will watch the first episode or two. But if I see it go the way of Disney, I’m out. I’ll happily go back to my books. I’m really hoping it was an April Fool’s joke. 😀
Hi everyone! Long-time lurker, first-time poster here. Been reading NarniaWeb since the Walden Media days but finally decided to make an account with all these Netflix rumors swirling.
About this Meryl Streep as Aslan news… Look, I have tremendous respect for Streep as an actress, but I’m struggling with this potential casting. Liam Neeson brought a gravitas to Aslan that worked well, even if the book character is admittedly more powerful. At least Neeson approached the role understanding who Aslan represents.
I’m really trying to keep an open mind about Netflix’s adaptation, but gender-swapping Aslan specifically feels like it fundamentally changes the allegory at the heart of the stories. I’d honestly be more accepting of other character changes, but why mess with the central figure? It seems unnecessary and potentially undermines Lewis’s intentions.
Sometimes I wish The Chosen team or similar filmmakers who prioritize faithful adaptations were handling Narnia. The books don’t need reinvention – they need respect. The Walden films actually demonstrated this problem – they started strong but deteriorated as they drifted further from the source material.
What do you all think? Am I being too traditional here?
One of the last lines The chronicles-and as He spoke He no longer looked them to them like lion. Can’t say anything more
I know so far, these are a scrap of news we are getting regarding the project, but do you think they will reveal more on the following days because I have a feeling around this Easter Sunday (4/20) and Easter Monday (4/21), there going to be something that might come up, just having this gut feeling inside. Also, additionally the set date of Tudum, Netflix’s version of comic-con, where they reveal like certain projects, gives the vibe that around that time, more context will be open regarding to the questions most of us are having. Either way just wanted to say that in case if anything does pop-up.
Perhaps we might all be getting into a lather about nothing in particular? Or, to use an Australian expression, we are all “barking up the wrong tree”? Regardless of whether Aslan speaks through Liam Neeson, Stephen Thorne, or Meryl Streep, we never actually see the actor or actress, we only hear the voice, regardless of who is voicing the part. And how we hear the voice and associate it with the action & what we see, is so very much more important than the actual person who is enacting the part. Theatre shows might dress up Aslan in lion costumes or use a giant puppet with a voiceover. Did anyone try sitting in a life-size model Aslan, like some sort of Trojan horse, hiding the actor, whilst he/she pressed buttons or switched levers, using a microphone to speak into? Please do tell, when some on these forums have had much more experience of this sort of thing than I do, basically as a second-hand observer. I did see a performance of LWW with my family, years ago, in Sydney’s Lyric Theatre. The whole performance was like something of a dance, & definitely rhythmic, where the actors changed the scenery around (on swivels) as part of their performance.
Aslan, the character, has been on film in animated form in the 1979 animated version of LWW. For BBC, what did they use? CGI has made it easier to depict Aslan in Walden films. How is Netflix intending to depict Aslan, the character? Now, that is the 64-million-dollar question.
The Lord of the Rings won Oscars after Oscars when it was depicted in 3 parts by Peter Jackson. Andy Serkis who played Gollum in it, has told what he had to do, when sensors over his entire body enabled to get an accurate depiction of how the CGI Gollum character would talk, move, expressions of face etc. to marry up the actor to the character, to be depicted on film. That would be a real challenge for even experienced thespians, regardless of whether it is a man or a woman acting that particular character.
Any which way (to use an American expression?), I hope & pray that it will be all sorted out in the end, and the result is something that does Greta Gerwig’s plans & efforts so much credit. Smile
“If they get every other aspect of Aslan right”—with all due respect to your show and your passion for Narnia, I cannot help but express my disagreement. CS Lewis, [MODERATOR REMOVED], was a God-loving man who upheld what the Bible says about male and female: they are created differently with different responsibilities—not one superior than the other; but simply different. Lewis clearly reflected Christ through Aslan, who was a male.
As a writer myself, I cannot imagine a writer not basing his character’s behaviors off of its basic settings and identity elements. Therefore, the “every other thing” that Aslan did, was written based on the foundational setting that Aslan was a male lion, reflecting Christ who was a male.
However, the blame is on all of us who believed that Gerwig— [MODERATOR REMOVED] —would be respectful to Lewis beliefs.
If the Narnia Web team is serious about respecting the author’s original work, it should remember that the author had a clear, Biblical worldview going into writing these books, and that certain ideas must not be compromised for the sake of “respect”.
XVII century was Nicholas Jarry [fr].
It’s interesting to see so many commenters talking about “Lewis’ intentions.”
Lewis made it clear multiple times that the stories were never meant to be strictly allegorical. They contained Christian themes, and, yes, much can be seen as allegorical to Christ, but it was never meant to be *just* an allegory.
Who is to say that a savior can’t be female?
The only thing I see and hear is people who are all hot and bothered because fictional characters are being presented or portrayed in a different way.
If the story is told well, what does it matter if Aslan is presented in the movie as a lioness rather than a lion? Does it fundamentally change the story? Try answering honestly rather than giving some snap answer of “Yes!”
Interstate Daydreamer, it’s a fair question—but showing Aslan as female would indeed be a substantial change to the story.
1. Near the end of the series, Aslan appears to the protagonists (it’s strongly implied) in his human form—as the historical Christ. It’s unlikely that Gerwig would show this moment, but hypothetically, how would female Aslan appear in this scene?
2. People talking about “Lewis’s intentions” are spot on—Lewis was so explicit about the importance of Christ’s maleness that there’s no need to guess what he would have thought about female Aslan. For just one example: “Only one wearing the masculine uniform [that is, a male] can represent the Lord . . . for we are all, corporately and individually, feminine to Him. We men may often make very bad priests. That is because we are insufficiently masculine.” Google “Lewis female priests” and read his extremely clear opinion on the matter. He would not have shared your view that the Savior could have been female. He thought this alone would be enough to transform Christianity into an entirely different, non-Christian, religion.
3. As others have pointed out, so much about Aslan depends on his maleness—his mane, his distinctly masculine strength, his voice, the masculine solar (vs feminine lunar) imagery. A female queen lion could work wonderfully well in another story, in another role, exploring feminine aspects of the divine—but Aslan as a character, Aslan as actually written, is so thoroughly masculine that making him female would diminish rather than enhance almost every aspect of his presence in the stories.
“Only one wearing the masculine uniform [that is, a male] can represent the Lord”
One of the many reasons I, and many others, left/are leaving the Catholic Church…[MODERATOR REMOVED] Personally, I kook forward to seeing what Meryl Streep can offer the story as a feminine Aslan.
Because, as I already stated, Lewis was very clear that the stories were not meant to be strictly allegorical.
EVERYONE is up in arms and having fits about something of which we know NOTHING. It’s all speculation, jumping to conclusions, and casting judgment about a work of art that has not even been produced. We do not really know *how* Gerwig is planning to portray Aslan. It is premature and foolish and, frankly, intellectually shallow to be making any judgments at all at this point.
But more importantly, those who are insisting Aslan *must* be portrayed as a male are completely off track. Movie adaptations are NEVER meant to be, nor should they be, simply a rendering of the source material into a different medium. There is nothing artistic or meaningful about simple regurgitation. Peter Jackson’s LOTR films changed many things, and at the time, some of those changes enraged “fans” of the books. There is no point in adapting a work unless you are doing more than just “reading” it to an audience. All good adaptations – and I say this as a professor of literature and film – tell not simply the same story, but another version of the story.
All the people whining about “Aslan represents Christ and Christ was male” are, whether they like it or not, perpetuating patriarchal myths and stereotypes that have plagued the world since antiquity. Aslan does not represent Christ in our world, for one. He is the “Jesus” of Narnia, and the Jesus of another world could be a woman, an androgynous creature, or literally anything. God both has no gender and is all possible genders at once. There is no male nor female in the kingdom of God. It doesn’t really matter what exactly C.S. Lewis believed; this is a retelling of his story; yet I suspect that, were he alive today, he would be wise enough and progressive enough to not have a problem with an adaptation that may be trying to make a much-needed point about the nature of God, for all we know. (It is not unlike the ridiculous people who objected to God appearing as a Black woman in The Shack.)
There are all kinds of possibilities here. If Meryl is indeed the voice, the character could still be male. Or, perhaps, the character could appear in different forms (remember Aslan DID appear in different forms). It could also be that Aslan appears in whatever form is most likely to form a connection with others. We just don’t know. But at the end of the day, it does NOT matter. This is not C.S. Lewis’ Narnia exactly, just as the old cartoon in the 70s was not, or the BBC productions were not, or the Walden films were not. They were all the visions of other artists who were interpreting the stories.
But no one should be having a conniption until we see the darn film.
David, agreed that it’s too soon to freak out. But for all the supposed outrage (“conniptions”), I’ve seen very little of it — mainly anxiety, disappointment, and concern.
Lewis’s theological anthropology, and his philosophy of gender, weren’t carelessly absorbed from his era or from his church. His views were highly developed, and they were conservative even within the parameters of his own era. It seems odd to assume that his views today would be the exact opposite of the ones he took great pains to articulate and defend throughout the course of his long career.