After an entire spring and summer of what could charitably called “Odysseymaxxing” — offering hot takes on a movie nobody had really seen from a director who definitely made what could be called some curious decisions in casting and interpreting ancient literature — I was not looking forward to a September of culture clashes over the Netflix “Narnia” remakes.
But, alas, here we are. Because yes, they do seem to be going in a woke direction; yes, this does seem like just the cultural trainwreck some had predicted; and yes, there’s a reason we should be concerned.
It’s just not the one everyone is talking about.
Specifically, if Netflix were to be true to C.S. Lewis’ vision regarding the whole of the “Chronicles of Narnia” series, it could never adapt the last book. Or, if it did so faithfully, the service would be banned in a wide swath of the world, specifically that swath which worships a god you can’t even draw or else you’d better get yourself the Salman Rushdie security special.
So, if you’ve been paying attention to social media culture wars over the past 48-72 hours, you’ve probably heard that Meryl Streep is going to be voicing Aslan, the lion in the “Narnia” universe, in director Greta Gerwig’s adaptation.
Meryl Streep is voicing Aslan in Greta Gerwig’s “Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew.” The lion’s new design is inspired by David Bowie (multicolored eyes and a red-striped face).
“I wanted someone who was profound but not pretentious, who had gravitas but not morose self-seriousness.… pic.twitter.com/Xuzj9ebYEt
— Variety (@Variety) September 17, 2026
If you’re unfamiliar with the books — and really, where the heck have you been? — there are subtle metaphors for many things contained in their pages, but the three things that Lewis was pretty unsubtle about were that, one, it’s an allegory about religion; two, the one true religion is Christianity; and three, Aslan is supposed to represent Jesus in a separate universe.
Ergo, making the Son of God a female is certainly disrespecting His pronouns, at least if you’re going by that other, more important compendium where He’s featured (66 books if you’re a Protestant, 73 if you’re a Catholic). And yes, I get that it’s an allegory in a separate universe and not really Jesus or God, but the representation also gives us a clue to Gerwig’s direction on the project, which was already questionable.
Gerwig, best known for directing the polarizing (if wildly successful, box office-wise) 2023 film version of “Barbie,” was put at the helm of the project in the same year. There is considerable debate over whether Gerwig’s oeuvre is woke feminist nonsense or covertly traditionalist; I will say that “Lady Bird,” her first film as a director, is actually quite brilliant in both artistry and message.
However, given that she’s working on an overtly Christian work by a man who was a fairly orthodox Christian, it’s worth noting that Gerwig’s own religious upbringing was in the highly liberal and heterodox Unitarian Universalist sect, which doesn’t even acknowledge the Bible as the one true source of sacred text.
This match of Gerwig as director and Lewis works as source material, in other words, had about as much of a chance of working out as a blind date between Matt Walsh and Jennifer Welch. But that might be the point for Netflix, which has no paucity of woke nonsense in its library already and wants the money that comes with the “Narnia” IP more than it wants anything resembling a faithful remake.
And I’m not just talking about the Meryl Streep voice. Let others Narniamaxx about that. Nor will I draw much attention to the fact that it’s being hyped as a rock opera take that apparently references David Bowie, because … why not? (Given my reading and listening habits, I’m sure that I’ve probably listened to a Bowie song at the same time I was reading some Lewis, but just because “Suffragette City” doesn’t clash with “The Screwtape Letters” doesn’t mean the two go together.)
Instead, I’m going to argue that Netflix couldn’t actually do the the original source material, if it plans to go all the way — because if it did, it would be called “Islamophobic.”
So, let’s fast forward to the end of the “Narnia” series — spoilers be darned, because if you haven’t caught up on the books in the past 70 years, that’s kind of on you.
In “The Last Battle,” the main antagonist is Shift, an ape, and Puzzle, his donkey companion. Shift convinces Puzzle to don a lion’s skin and portray himself as a false Aslan. He then fools the Calormenes — inhabitants of a land that has very strong elements of Middle Eastern and Ottoman culture. He convinces them that “Aslan” is just another name for their deity, the evil Tash.
Thus, the false god of “Tashlan” is established, with Shift as his emissary.
Sound, uh, a little familiar to you? The echoes of Islam, with Allah as its God and Muhammad as His prophet, are unavoidable.
In the final book of Narnia, The Last Battle, a donkey wears a skinsuit of Aslan & leads people astray.
This ‘False Aslan’ floods Narnia with a bunch of Muslims, who then slaughter all the native Narnians.
This was not merely a children’s story.
It was a warning. https://t.co/o8ju5KhLfY pic.twitter.com/4shwZutNn4
— The Conservative Alternative (@OldeWorldOrder) September 18, 2026
Even though the book was published 70 years ago — 1956 — it seemed to anticipate one of the hot-button religious issues of our time, and in a way that was uniquely biblical. Like the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, the “Narnia” books are more than explicitly Christian allegories: They also don’t play nice with issues that aren’t nice.
False gods, heaven and hell, sin: These are treated as the difficult and ugly things they are, not just glazed over. That’s crucial to why they resonate, and also crucial to why their millions of fans feel more protective over how they’re treated than other intellectual properties.
Perhaps, then, we shouldn’t be surprised that a series allegorically about the Christian God that also presents a false god who resembles the god of Islam is being handled, in the hands of Netflix, as a Bowie-inspired rock opera by the woman who brought us “Barbie.” In fact, we probably should have been more surprised — nay, gobsmacked — had the source material been adapted faithfully. No gobsmacking here.
And presumably, no trouble getting it onto the service in certain, ahem, countries. Netflix will never get accused of being called Islamophobic racists. That is, if it manage to get to the final book, given how this is already being received.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
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