#walden media

[artist-issues]

About Greta Gerwig, Little Women, and Narnia

Greta Gerwig should not be in the Narnia realm at all. As anything.

The Narnia stories are inseparable from Christianity. Greta Gerwig is a Unitarian Universalist. This means she, in her own personal life, doesn’t believe in the saving work of Jesus Christ, which is a core belief of Christianity, and a core theme in Narnia. Everything in the Narnia books hinges on this, from the character motivations to the structure of the fantasy world to the way the magic in Narnia works.

Additionally, the women in Narnia do not adhere to post-modern or even antique feministic values. They are celebrated for their love and tender-heartedness and faith, all of which require self-sacrifice. Aravis of The Horse and His Boy starts out a proud warrior escaping an arranged marriage and ends up a humbled lady of Archenland court marrying the Prince. Susan Pevensie is at her best when she’s tender-hearted and at her worst when she doubts and becomes more concerned about her own identity than others. The school that Eustace and Jill go to in The Silver Chair is derided for it’s feministic views. By contrast, modern feminism is opposed to self-sacrifice, and that is the kind of thing Greta Gerwig demonstrates belief in throughout all of her works.

Am I saying that no person who isn’t a Christian or some type of conservative when it comes to feminism can ever work on Narnia? Absolutely not. I’m not saying that. Lots of people on the Walden Media Narnia movie (the first one), which was great, were not Christians and did not believe in the saving work of Christ. But they stayed faithful to the source material, even if they didn’t believe in the source material themselves. So the story retained it’s autonomy and power.

Greta Gerwig can’t do that. She has already demonstrated that she does not know how to make a story that hangs on to it’s integral source material if she, herself, doesn’t agree with that source material. She can’t be objective, and therefore, she can’t be faithful to what Narnia is.

How do I know that? Little Women.

I don’t care if you liked the Little Women movie by Greta Gerwig. I don’t care if the acting was “amazing” and I don’t care if Timothee Chalamet and Florence Pugh are great in it. I said exactly what I said. Greta Gerwig made a great movie—but she made a terrible adaptation of Little Women.

It was not Little Women. She made changes to Little Women. What changes, you ask? Changes to the specific pieces of the source material that did not reflect Greta Gerwig’s personal views.

That’s the cardinal sin for directors of adaptive stories or remakes—to make changes to the core themes of a classic tale, because you don’t agree with those core themes. That’s called mutilation, not “updates.”

Here’s how she did it in two major ways in Little Women:

She cut out Jo’s humble response to Friedrich’s gentle rebuke of sensation stories, and replaced it with a feministic self-pitying outburst from Joe and s borderline apathetic, cool piece of feminist advice from Friedrich. That takes all the continuity out of it and warps the characters. That scene is so pivotal in the book. It’s Jo, respecting a man who is much older and excellent in character than any other she’s ever known, and feeling immediately humbled by him calling her out. She’d never have responded that way if Laurie called her out. They would have argued. But this scene was supposed to show what Jo needed from a future romantic partner. She needed someone she respected, someone who could be wise and gentle—two things Laurie is not. She needed someone who would help her take her eyes off of worldly success and herself, and onto eternal benefits to mankind, specifically, the effect her stories might have on children. His gentle, respectful, wise love (and the love of characters like Beth) turns Jo from a self-absorbed writer into a selfless mother, like her own Marmee.

But Greta Gerwig never wanted Jo to be a selfless mother. She wanted, and I quote, “Jo’s love to be her work, and her romance with Friedrich secondary.” You know why?

Because that’s what Greta Gerwig believes in. Greta Gerwig’s life is her work. Watch any of her movies, you’ll see the smudge marks of that wholehearted belief all over them. She can’t even be objective when the whole point of a character is to make work secondary, as was certainly the case with the character of Jo March. No. She has to twist up one of the best American heroines ever into an automaton of herself.

The second way she mutilated source material is with Amy and Laurie. In the books, Amy and Laurie grow to love each other out of the character deficiencies that they make up for in one another. At the start of their courtship, Amy is ambitious and Laurie is lazy. Amy wants to marry for advantage, and Laurie wants to make much of his spurned love for Jo by giving up on life. And that’s it.

It’s Amy who first wakes up to feeling something romantic toward Laurie, not Laurie, and Laurie is not the first to make a move on her. Laurie does not know he is in love with Amy until well after she knows she loves him. Then, he does not make the first outward advance on Amy. They both come to the same conclusion together; when they do, she does not resist. In Greta Gerwig’s version, he’s back to falling in love with a girl who’s resisting, because that’s where Timothee Chalamet’s emotional acting shines or whatever.

But that’s not the worst part. The worst part is that she adds a feminism speech from Amy, as a reason for her resistance, and she subtracts the scene where Laurie actually proposes. The scene where Laurie proposes, in the book, is so beautiful.

The two characters are in love, they know they’re in love, and neither of them is insecure about it. Amy has learned that she needs a life-partner who knows her and will protect her, like her old home-values did, and not some rich aristocrat or prince. Laurie has learned that he needs a life-partner who can stir him toward change, not through big explosive arguments and hope of conquered affection like Jo, but with gentle love and sheer inspiration, found in Amy.

So, in the most beautiful analogy for courtship that ends in marriage ever, he proposes to her while they’re rowing on a lake. She’s sitting next to him in the middle of the boat, she’s got one oar, he’s got the other, and she says, “How well we pull together, don’t we?” And he says, “so well that I wish we might always be in the same boat. Will you, Amy?” And she says “yes.”

That’s it. No argument. No big, passionate, sentimental explosion like he had with Jo. No wrenched and broken heart-strings. He didn’t have to convince her. She didn’t have to resist. Because entirely without force, and entirely without insecurity, they protected each other’s hearts and came to a conclusion that was based on something so much deeper and more eternal than fleeting passion.

Greta Gerwig cut that out and listened to Meryl Streep and put in another stormy lover’s-quarrel speech from Amy about why she couldn’t be with Laurie because she was in Jo’s shadow, and feminism and marrying for advantage, blah blah blah. It’s terrible. It’s mutilation. It ruins everything the original Little Women had.

it doesn’t matter if she got some of the characters right. It doesn’t matter if she got a lot of the quotes right. It doesn’t matter if all of Act 1 of the movie is mostly-book-accurate. If you change load-bearing themes or character motivations, you show that you can’t be objective and faithful to the source material.

It is fine if Greta Gerwig wants to make a movie about a woman who loves her work more than anything else. It is fine if she wants to make a movie about how women are under-appreciated for their minds and souls, and have characters that go on a journey to prove it. But it is not fine to use someone else’s story to say it. Make your own story, Greta Gerwig.

Oh, you already did? See: Lady Bird? See: Frances Ha? Then come up with something new. Don’t shoehorn your same beliefs into every franchise that is offered to you, like vomiting, then eating the vomit and regurgitating it over and over in new colors. Figure out how to tell someone else’s story in a faithful way, objectively, or else keep your stained hands off until you can clean them up. Especially, keep them off Narnia.

Greta Gerwig makes movies for Greta Gerwig, by Greta Gerwig. She can’t be objective, and for that, she can’t do Narnia. She can’t do it justice, she can’t do it faithfully, because she makes movies for herself, by herself.

[the-great-empress]

"It's just a family movie from a children's book"

The family movie from a children's book:

Me as a child and now as an adult:

[elijones94]

🐺 One of my favorite dramatic scenes from “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe” 🦁

[whitewaterpaper]

Vad tror vi @kulturdasset? Du som läst boken?

--

Länkar från kommentarerna:

[warrenwoodhouse]

What Font is used for The Chronicles of Narnia film franchise Logo? (Entertainment) (Narnia Blog) (Fonts Blog) (What Fonts)

Logo ©Walt Disney Motion Pictures, Walden Media, C.S. Lewis Publishing Rights & Warren Woodhouse

Article and Font by @warrenwoodhouse #warrenwoodhouse

The font that is used for the Disney film franchise of The Chronicles of Narnia is called Narnia Font (Also Known As: NarniaBLL) by @warrenwoodhouse as Ænigmate Productions (Bajo la Luna Producciones) for @disneystudios as Walt Disney Motion Pictures and for Walden Media.

[alltrekvarnews]

Russell Crowe, Rami Malek y Michael Shannon se preparan para el drama histórico de James Vanderbilt 'Nuremberg'...

[fancyhats-and-fennelsbuds]

Damn- ok

Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium (2007)

[houseofbrat]

I hate that reality is forcing me to agree with his point.

[wonderfulwest]

SHANE WEST on set of WALDEN (2023) 📸 olive_raine_drops

[movies-tv-more]

Movie Releases for April 16, 2024

[artist-issues]

You can laud Lord of the Rings all you want, but I’ll never love a fantasy soundtrack more than I do The Chronicles of Narnia; The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe’s (2005.)

[figofswords]

I started watching the last of us and I’m having a struggle because there’s the half of my brain that will do anything to watch some good found family and then there’s the other half of my brain which is: deeply squeamish. hypochondriac. freaked out by disease/epidemic (this far predates covid). freaked out by gore. freaked out by any plotline that involves people being eaten. can’t do horror At All. and dislikes almost all zombie media. I’m just sitting here watching this feeling increasingly stressed but unable to stop send help

[heir-less]

It is actually astounding how bad judges of character royals are.

[galavantmedia74]

Bridge to Terabithia (DVD, 2007) Josh Hutcherson, AnnaSophia Robb, Zooey Deschanel, Robert Patrick @ Galavant Media Emporium

[tarou-marus]

Anyways I need more stories where all the main romance subplots are wlw because last time I stumbled upon that I ended up finding priory and it is quite literally some of the best literature

[redgoldsparks]

Hi, I just read your book gender queer and wanted to tell you that i have never felt more seen by a book in my life (or any media for that matter). Im also genderqueer and somewhere on the aro/ace spectrum and your book put into words alot of things I’ve never known how to express. Thank you for putting yourself out there!

(also do you have any other comic book recommendations?)

Hello anon! Thank you for this kind message! I very much do have comic book recs. In no particular order, here are some favorites. Not all of these are books are queer, but many are. If you want queer specific recs, here are some other asks I've previously answered- books about nonbinary identities, nonbinary mostly fiction

Memoir/Nonfiction 

Fun Home by Alison Bechdel

Relish: My Life in the Kitchen by Lucy Knisley 

March Trilogy by Senator John Lewis, Nate Powell and Andrew Aydin

The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui

Fetch: How a Bad Dog Brought Me Home by Nicole Georges 

You & a Bike & a Road by Eleanor Davis 

Tetris: The Games People Play by Box Brown

The Called Us Enemy by George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott and Harmony Becker

Feeding Ghosts by Tessa Hulls 

Hey Kiddo by Jarrett Krosoczka 

Almost American Girl by Robin Ha 

Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang 

Dancing at the Pity Party: A Dead Mom Graphic Memoir by Tyler Feder 

Banned Book Club by Kim Hyun Sook, Ryan Estrada and Ko Hyung-Ju 

Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton 

Homebody by Theo Parrish 

The High Desert by James Spooner 

Fiction

Prince of Cats by Ronald Wimberly 

This One Summer by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki

Skim by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki

Seconds by Bryan Lee O’Malley 

Nimona by ND Stevenson 

The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang 

The Hard Tomorrow by Eleanor Davis

On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden

This Was Our Pact by Ryan Andrews

Grease Bats by Archie Bongiovanni

The Chromatic Fantasy by H.A. 

Salt Magic by Hope Larson and Rebecca Mock

Beetle and the Hollowbones by Aliza Layne

Kiss Number 8 by Colleen F Venable and Ellen Crenshaw 

Finder Library Vols 1 & 2 by Carla Speed McNeil

Castle Waiting: The Lucky Road by Linda Medley

The Deep and Dark Blue by Niki Smith

Across a Field of Starlight by Blue Delliquanti 

O Human Star by Blue Delliquanti 

Snapdragon by Kay Leyh

Cyclopedia Exotica by Aminder Dhaliwal 

Woman World by Aminder Dhaliwal

The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen 

A Frog in Fall by Lisa Sterte 

Thieves by Lucie Bryon 

The Great Beyond by Lea Murawiec

Short Stories

The Amazing Screw-On Head and Other Curious Objects by Mike Mignola 

Other Ever Afters: New Queer Fairy Tales by Melanie Gillman