The Narnia films are extremely good. The silver screen renditions of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe as well as Prince Caspian were faithful to the books. The most encouraging aspect regarding the filmmaker’s approach was how they didn’t even try to supplant the openly Christian theme with Hollywood social values. Somehow the movies would have lost their punch if the messianic nature of Aslan’s death and resurrection were turned into a scene from the Princess Bride where the hero was only “mostly dead.” There would also have been something missing if, after defeating the evil Witch, the great Lion uttered “Suck on that” instead of “It is finished.” The question with Narnia is how are they going to deal with the books in the series where the enemy is clearly Muslim in nature, rather than witches who look like they are from Eva Braun’s gene pool?
The Horse and His Boy is the third book in the chronology of the series and falls right between the books, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian. In this book the antagonists are a belligerent people called Calormene, who are determined to invade Narnia, and take control of it. The people of Calormene along with their society are described in a way that leaves the reader with no doubt that C.S. Lewis took his inspiration for these people from the Middle East. While there are no suicide bombers crashing unwilling griffons into the castle Cair Paraval, the description of the Calormene’s physical appearance, speech, architecture, and attitudes are all things that are easily associated with Muslim nations.
The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe is the second story in the timeline of the seven books written by C.S. Lewis. It is also, without a doubt, the most popular of the books. So the fact that this was the first novel in the series that was turned into a movie is absolutely no surprise. The order of the films mirrors the order that the books were published in. So it is reasonable to believe that the film producers are following that order.
If that is the case, The Horse and His Boy will come riding into theaters two movies from now. In other words, if they are to continue interpreting the books faithfully, they are also going to eventually have to confront the Islamofascist apologists in the media who are eager to attack anyone who dares to say anything negative about the “Religion of Peace” or anything associated with it. Anyone who doubts this should just ask Trey Parker and Matt Stone (the creators of South Park) about their experiences in the land of the PC police.
If the films continue to be a true reflection of Lewis’s vision, they will continue to be well received by the public at large (the latest Narnia entry, “Dawn Treader” has already reached $300m globally), but the producers will also inherit Mr. Lewis’s foes. The works of C.S. Lewis have been demonized in the past by the usual suspects on the cultural left. One of his biggest detractors is Phillip Pullman, a bitter atheist, whose books are less successful than Lewis’s, and the film based on his novel “The Golden Compass” was a box office bust here in the States. Pullman has described Lewis’s work as “racist and sexist”. While most readers in the United States are barely aware of this guy, his opinion is in line with the sort of people who run the film industry. Because of that fact alone, the producers of the Narnia films will undoubtedly face some world class peer pressure to “soften” the story when it comes time to bring the film adaptations of The Horse and His Boy (as well as the last book in the series, The Last Battle) to life.
Personally, I don’t think the producers will cave. They have been too faithful to the story thus far. But If they truly intend to skip or change various books for reasons of political correctness, that would be a shame. Narnia is not a collection of seven unrelated stories. Each book is a part of a bigger story; one with a beginning, a middle, and an end. If they completely ignore the two books where people of Middle Eastern descent are the bad guys, then they are depriving the audience of a chunk of that middle and taking the ending completely out of the mix.
Maybe it would be easier if we rewrote the antagonists as people of German origin. While that would make many in Hollywood happy, “Heil White Witch” just doesn’t have any sort of ring to it.
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