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  • TUESDAY MARCH 8 2005 9:00 AM

'Narnia' to be très Chick?

Submitted by Jeff_Fries

Edited by Christopher

The Telegraph ran this piece yesterday claiming that Disney has hired a public relations company to market The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe directly to Christian organizations, with executives themselves attending private meetings to assure believers that the Christ allegory will be left intact.

Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ has taken than $600 million (£311 million) at the box office since its release last year, principally because of the large number of Christians who went to see the film. Similarly, the animated adventure The Polar Express, which received poor reviews, became a hit after producers emphasised its Christian credentials.

In an effort to ensure that the Narnia film reaches a similar audience, Disney has hired Motive Marketing, a public relations company that specialises in reaching out to faith groups and was widely credited with the success of The Passion of the Christ. It has shown clips from the film to representatives from church groups and religious media. The strategy has already met with enormous success.



My understanding of the novels was that Lewis came up with the characters first and later formed them into a Christian allegory, which is what made the Narnia books at least feel like more than just an Identikit petting zoo. Considering the recent track record of evangelical cinema, I doubt they'd jeopardize a $100 million production on anything too overbearing anyway; perhaps they're just kissing up.

Side note: I can't imagine a better actor in the world to play the White Witch than Tilda "Fahrenheit 9/11 is sophisticated cinema" Swinton.



Thankee: Portal of Evil News

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Comments
SomethingStupid

SomethingStupid

North Hollywood, CA
March 2004

MAR 09, 2005 12:38 PM

Blossom said:
It's a Christian allegory, the whole meaning to it is that it parallels Christianity in a subtle manner. The marketing is not being done by Christians for Christians it is being done by a public relations company who was hired by Disney so that they; Disney, could make a killing off the films. These people are "exploiting" the Christian element in the books and now the movies by showing them to various church groups and emphasizing the Christian element just to ensure that Disney gets MORE MONEY. Anyone who has ever read those books can recognize the Christian element in the stories but first and foremost anyone who has ever read those books and enjoyed them would most likely be willing to see the movie anyway. Lewis did put alot of the ideas of his day and his own personal ideals into the books and they may be ideals that we do not tolerate that's not the point in this discussion. I am so sick and tired of readin about how Christians are this and Christians are that and "greed is a sin" it's not the Christians who are exploiting; it is the idea of Christianity in this book that IS BEING EXPLOITED.


People exploiting Christianity to make money??? NEVER!!!!

If we're gonna start a crusade against that, let's just start with faith-healings, shall we? Pat Robertson still, every night, sits there with his eyes closed and says "There's someone out there...your left knee hurts...it could be because it's broken or maybe there's a cancer in there...anyway, God is taking that pain and removing it for you right now...in Jesus's name."

I don't care what you think it looks like in God's eyes, here on Earth there are degrees of sin. If you exploit Christianity to make people see a damned movie, that's not good, but it's nowhere near as bad as flat-out lies told to personally make you money. Let's start with one and then worry about the other. No one's lying; the books really are what they're saying they are.

EdmundOG

EdmundOG

I'm lost
July 2004

MAR 09, 2005 02:26 PM

Nefertari said:
I especially love the one about gays, the one about Dungeons and Dragons, and the one where they convert a Muslim man to Christianity in about 30 seconds.

Oh and the one with the cookie!



Everybody gets converted in 30 seconds in Chickworld. I love the dinosaur one...

Person 1- Who knows how long a day is to God?
Person 2- Well, He made plants before the Sun. They had to be real days, or the plants would have died.
Person 1- OH WOW! YOU'RE RIGHT!

It only would have convinced him if he believed person 2 to begin with.

Brinstar

Brinstar

Chicago, IL
September 2002

MAR 09, 2005 05:31 PM

Blossom said:
It's a Christian allegory, the whole meaning to it is that it parallels Christianity in a subtle manner. The marketing is not being done by Christians for Christians it is being done by a public relations company who was hired by Disney so that they; Disney, could make a killing off the films. These people are "exploiting" the Christian element in the books and now the movies by showing them to various church groups and emphasizing the Christian element just to ensure that Disney gets MORE MONEY. Anyone who has ever read those books can recognize the Christian element in the stories but first and foremost anyone who has ever read those books and enjoyed them would most likely be willing to see the movie anyway. Lewis did put alot of the ideas of his day and his own personal ideals into the books and they may be ideals that we do not tolerate that's not the point in this discussion. I am so sick and tired of readin about how Christians are this and Christians are that and "greed is a sin" it's not the Christians who are exploiting; it is the idea of Christianity in this book that IS BEING EXPLOITED.

Yes, the main point to this particular book is the fight between good and evil; but it's not just good people fighting evil it is in particular the epic struggle of one being who is the essence of all that is good fighting against another being who is the essence of all that is evil. Hence the Christian allegory. (there I said it)

[Edited on Mar 09, 2005 by Blossom]



I'm sorry but there is little "subtle" about Narnia. The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe is the passion and ressurection of Christ. The Magician's Nephew is the creation of the world, with the Adam and Eve story in it. Not just the metaphor of Adam and Eve in Narnia (though it has that too) but Aslan specifically speaks about Adam and Eve. The Last Battle is what will supposedly happen when Jesus Christ comes back. Even the other books that don't directly account for Christ's life are so steeped in Christianity that there is no avoiding it... period.

No big surprise since CS Lewis mostly didn't deal with fiction (all Christianity = fiction jokes aside) but was a Christian apolgist writer for the vast majority of his works. His only fiction was the Screwtape Letters (letters from the devil to his nephew... not very subtle) his sci-fi trilogy (about twice as steeped in Christianity as Narnia... dealt with Jesus directly and the forces of evil trying to keep him from returning to Earth) and then Narnia. I'm not sure why people think with the fact that everything he writes is heavily Christian that with Narnia he just decided to write a nice fairly secular fantasy story with only subtle elements of Christianity...

Like I said before, you simply can't over-Christianize his works. And of course they will be marketing the film to Christians... this is one of the biggest Christian works to hit the theatres since well... THE PASSION.

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