Meryl Streep’s casting as Aslan in Greta Gerwig’s new Narnia movie has ignited a fierce backlash, with critics accusing the director of “profaning Christ” by giving the beloved lion the voice of a “queen.”
For generations of readers, Aslan has been far more than a magnificent fictional character in C.S. Lewis’s “Chronicles of Narnia.” Powerful, loving and untameable, he watches over the magical world while repeatedly guiding its inhabitants through battles between good and evil.
And for some people, his religious significance runs even deeper.
Lewis, a devout Anglican, rejected the idea that his seven-book series was simply a Christian “allegory.” Instead, he described the religious element as a “supposition,” imagining “what might Christ become like, if there really were a world like Narnia.”
That distinction is particularly important with Aslan. Lewis conceived the male lion as an incarnation of Christ within his fictional universe, with the character sacrificing his life to save Edmund in “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” before rising from the dead.
In “The Magician’s Nephew,” the book Gerwig is now adapting for Netflix, Aslan also serves as Narnia’s creator, singing the world and its creatures into existence.
That history has made Gerwig’s decision to give Aslan a female voice especially controversial among some longtime fans of Lewis’ fantasy novels.
‘Profound but not pretentious’
Previous screen adaptations kept Aslan male, with Liam Neeson providing his unmistakable voice across the three Narnia movies released between 2005 and 2010.
