This is the type of thing that gets me angry. If you think, from reading these posts, that you’ve heard what I sound like angry, think again. Two things have the ability to incense me beyond words: Religion and Politics. I’ve tried to back off. Really. I reached my cracking point during the last election when I found myself standing on a chair yelling at the TV set during the Republican National Convention. I just couldn't do it anymore. It was to the point where if I continued to pay attention I’d die of a stroke within a week.
Before I get into why making this out as a Religious Film pisses me off, let me just say this: Christians, if you think that this is the big Mainstream Cultural event that will bring millions to God, you’d better grab up some of those communion wafers and sit your robed fannies back down on the pews. You’re going to be waiting for a while. The movie was really bad. Essentially, it’s impossible to relate to any of the characters. Every single one is a two-dimensional card-board cut-out. It’s the kind of movie where you can tell inside of 10 seconds what each character’s role is. The plot plods along until it stumbles to an end with the battle scene everyone knew was coming. The battle scene pretty much sums up the film: characters we feel nothing for jumping through hoops that enforce why we hate them. You never get the sense that anyone in the film has any choice about their actions. They’re all one dimensional roles following their obvious paths.
I’m not surprised that Disney tried to market this as a Christian Film. Let it never be said that Disney is above pandering to religious groups to make money. I’m going to let you in on some advice: if you’re older than 8 and you can’t wait to go see the next Disney Film, kill yourself. Seriously. Thanks for calling. Make sure you get your whole head in front of the shotgun. We, as a culture, need to get you out of the gene pool as quickly as possible. Disney has really only ever made one film. All they do now is change the cast. Every single animated film is the same. Every single sports film is the same.
A lot of people think that I’m over-stating things when I say that Disney is evil. One of the few things I take very seriously is the importance of stories (I was an English major, for Christ’s sake!). Disney is on an unstoppable quest to kill all that is original, meaningful, and precious about our culture’s stories. If you’re one of those college girls who wears pink pajamas, has a thousand stuffed animals on her bed and rushes out to buy the re-release of each new Disney DVD, do the world a favor and take up a hobby: like chugging anti-freeze or sculpting nuclear waste. You might, in all seriousness, be the end of our species. You are the meteor of stupidity that ends the age man, reason and creativity. In my book of evil corporations, Disney ranks only SLIGHTLY behind Halliburton and FOX.
Now on to what really bugs me about the whole thing. The last time I read the Narnia books I was 6, so my recollection of the story is rather hazy. Now if you want to make the case that some of his story was inspired by the Bible, I’ve got no problem with it. The Bible is the single largest source of our culture’s stories. Every writer takes some of what’s out there before and uses it to make his own point. But making the step from saying, “Some of the ideas of this book were inspired by the Bible” to “This is a Christian Book” is insulting. Why is it that super-right wing Christian’s always seem to have trouble with subtly? Rather than saying that the Bible has some very enlightening and meaningful passages concerning philosophy, spirituality and our relationship with our inevitably fleeting time on this planet, you have to demand that everything in the book is totally one-for-one true. It’s not a contradiction to believe in evolution and the Bible. Christians, get this into those red-neck, republican, homophobic, misogynistic, racist, anti-Semitic, sheet-wearing skulls: there’s more to life than black and white. Shades of gray are acceptable.
But how dare you. HOW DARE YOU drag down the writings of C.S. Lewis, one of the greatest writers of the World War II generation. I’m not sure who sold the rights to Disney, but there should be a special place in Hell for him. When you start making claims about the intent of a writer who can no-longer defend his work, just to support your cause, you never really had a cause in the first place. The man did things that you never could. So stop trying to pull your Religion up by his coat-tails—because all you really succeed in doing is dragging him down to your level of raving, inbred fanaticism.
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