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.
Audio only:
Podcast: Play in new window | Embed
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.