Ready for some mild 36 year old culture war material? In 1988, BBC released their adaptation of C.S. Lewis' "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe". I watched this adaptation with my children this weekend, and having recently reread the Chronicles of Narnia series, I was surprised how little the script deviated from the book. Indeed, the essentially verbatim reproduction puts a spotlight on the few deviations.
In the book, the children meet Father Christmas who gives presents to ready them for the coming fight.
"And the dagger is to defend yourself at great need. For you also are not to be in the battle."
"Why, Sir," said Lucy. "I think—I don't know—but I think I could be brave enough."
"That is not the point," he said. "But battles are ugly when women fight."
The BBC adaptation follows the book word for word until the last sentence (as best as I can remember: I couldn't find the script online):
"That is not the point. But you will be needed after the battle."
The original reading was a powerful statement, even in the time that Lewis wrote the book, and fully in keeping with his complementarian perspective. In the BBC adaptation, the interaction with Father Christmas ends unsatisfactorily, without any larger point than to provide the children with tools. The scene is robbed of the emotion and power of the original text.
Of course, the Disney adaptation is even worse, making is seem like Father Christmas is giving Susan permission to fight, and possibly intentionally subverting the original text:
Lucy: Thank you, sir, but I think I could be brave enough.
Father Christmas: I’m sure you could. But battles are ugly affairs. Susan. Trust in this bow and it will not easily miss.
Susan: What happened to "battles are ugly affairs"?
Neither the BBC or the Disney is "rewriting history"; every adaptation has to make compromises to fit the medium. However I would desire that any adaptation treat the source with respect and not neuter or subvert it. In many ways, C.S. Lewis was and remains a counter-cultural force. Watering down his work to be palatable to modern audiences is a direct contradiction to his intentionally medieval outlook.
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Ready for some mild 36 year old culture war material? In 1988, BBC released their adaptation of C.S. Lewis' "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe". I watched this adaptation with my children this weekend, and having recently reread the Chronicles of Narnia series, I was surprised how little the script deviated from the book. Indeed, the essentially verbatim reproduction puts a spotlight on the few deviations.
In the book, the children meet Father Christmas who gives presents to ready them for the coming fight.
The BBC adaptation follows the book word for word until the last sentence (as best as I can remember: I couldn't find the script online):
The original reading was a powerful statement, even in the time that Lewis wrote the book, and fully in keeping with his complementarian perspective. In the BBC adaptation, the interaction with Father Christmas ends unsatisfactorily, without any larger point than to provide the children with tools. The scene is robbed of the emotion and power of the original text.
Of course, the Disney adaptation is even worse, making is seem like Father Christmas is giving Susan permission to fight, and possibly intentionally subverting the original text:
Neither the BBC or the Disney is "rewriting history"; every adaptation has to make compromises to fit the medium. However I would desire that any adaptation treat the source with respect and not neuter or subvert it. In many ways, C.S. Lewis was and remains a counter-cultural force. Watering down his work to be palatable to modern audiences is a direct contradiction to his intentionally medieval outlook.
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