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rthstewart) wrote2018-10-03 09:45 pm
Chronicles of Narnia to be produced by Netflix
The streaming service is adapting the beloved fantasy franchise into new films based on the seven fantasy novels that launched in 1950 with C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The Chronicles of Narnia is the tale of four British children during World War II who escape into an alternate magical world.
“It is wonderful to know that folks from all over are looking forward to seeing more of Narnia, and that the advances in production and distribution technology have made it possible for us to make Narnian adventures come to life all over the world,” said Douglas Gresham, stepson of C.S. Lewis, in a statement released by Netflix. “Netflix seems to be the very best medium with which to achieve this aim, and I am looking forward to working with them towards this goal.”
It’s not yet clear how many pieces of content will be produced and what form they will take. Producer Mark Gordon describes “multiple productions” and “both stellar feature-length and episodic programming.” Gordon added, “Narnia is one of those rare properties that spans multiple generations and geographies.” ....
So of course we've been yacking about it all day on Twitter. Thoughts? Fancasts? Given Gresham's involvement, I'm assuming this is likely for younger audiences, family themed, and probably more Christian themed -- I guess Netflix does have a production line for that sort of content.
You know what I want to see -- True Beasts, adults in children's bodies, humor, politics, espionage, multiculturalism, and wild dryad tree sex. I think Bible Study is the more likely outcome but who knows? Someone on Tumblr pointed out that this likely means an influx to Tumblr fandom and AO3 of purity police, though maybe they'll stick to where most of them still remain on Narnia fansites and fanfic.net? And it will probably skew young, too. And even in fandoms that are definitely (cartoons, etc) adults still have room to play in the sandbox. And new original content and visuals does spur creativity.
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I have absolutely ZERO confidence that Netflix will be able to do ANY of that.
And, oh God, the last thing we need is more purity police ...
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Netflix... oh Netflix. It could go so badly. I have a tiny bit of hope, mostly because of The Good Place and Jessica Jones, but neither was entirely their creation, and then they went and did Insatiable and oh, wow. They're like lighting a wick that could be a candle or a firecracker.
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I started this journey in 2009 as a committed Christian who saw in the Chronicles the potential for a rich, joyous tapestry and important themes (which I identified as Christian but of course not exclusively so) of compassion, mercy, being slow to judgment, and a recognition of the importance of doing good in service to others. One reason some of my work is so very long (other than I just don't care about word counts) was that it was important to me to preserve Aslan as benevolent if a bit clueless and a stronger parallel for Jesus than I currently hold (For all my advanced age, I was very naive). I expected to find that goodness and hope in the fandom and in many places I did and I continue to marvel at the enduring friendships I've formed through fic.
In other parts of the fandom, I found a cesspool of hate, bigotry, homophobia, racism, purity culture, misogyny, sexism, anti-science, and a trail of broken women. And I saw many talented writers leave altogether bc they couldn't stand the hypocrisy of writing work popular with the Christian fen when they knew they would be despised had the readers known the writers were queer. I ended up leaving my own church during the process bc I couldn't stand any association with a male hierarchy and organized religion.
I don't get that very much anymore. I stopped posting and my immorality was so well known in those circles they just avoided me altogether as a near occasion of sin. Though about 2 months ago, I did a reader who hadn't gotten the memo who told me I was doing God wrong which especially pissed me off as it involved an OC a WOC on the spectrum whose grief was apparently not appropriately reverential to Aslan, or something. I still get nasty occasionally from a reader especially angered by Flee From Memory who told me to stop writing -- which I did for several years.
Ultimately my work was grounded in hope. And I lost it, in large part due to my experience with a segment of this fandom that I saw as becoming ascendant and confidently powerful in their hatred and intolerance. (based on this experience the 2016 election was no surprise for me -- I'd seen the rising deplorables for years in my reviews). It's been a long struggle to find that hope again.
But even if Netflix goes in a direction I really don't like, this is ultimately what fandom and transformative works are for -- to reclaim the narrative, to tell our stories using someone else's framework, and to build communities around them. New blood is good! New content is good!
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Their God is supposedly all things, so how can any way of doing Him be wrong?
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