Meryl Streep Role in C.S. Lewis Film: Obliterating Distinctions Between Sexes Rebels Against Nature

Director Greta Gerwig’s announcement that a woman — Meryl Streep — will voice the role of Aslan, “the Great Lion” in Narnia, in her adaptation of C. S. Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew is not merely another scuffle in the culture wars.

At its core, it is a deliberate, primal revolt against the religious beliefs that laid the foundation for Western civilization: an understanding of the nature of God and the created order that stretches back nearly 3,500 years. The glaring irony here is that the outlook animating Gerwig’s progressive vision of sexuality is precisely what Lewis excoriates throughout The Magician’s Nephew: namely, the impulse to use the tools of science (or magic) to manipulate nature in the selfish pursuit of power.

About the Author

Joseph Loconte

Joseph Loconte is the director of The Rivendell Center in New York City and the author of The War for Middle-earth: J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Confront the Gathering Storm, 1933–1945. He serves as a senior fellow at the Sagamore Institute and as the C.S. Lewis Scholar for Public Life at Grove City College. He is at work on a documentary film about the impact of war on the lives of Tolkien and Lewis.

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Director Greta Gerwig’s announcement that a woman — Meryl Streep — will voice the role of Aslan, “the Great Lion” in Narnia, in her adaptation of C. S. Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew is not merely another scuffle in the culture wars.

At its core, it is a deliberate, primal revolt against the religious beliefs that laid the foundation for Western civilization: an understanding of the nature of God and the created order that stretches back nearly 3,500 years. The glaring irony here is that the outlook animating Gerwig’s progressive vision of sexuality is precisely what Lewis excoriates throughout The Magician’s Nephew: namely, the impulse to use the tools of science (or magic) to manipulate nature in the selfish pursuit of power.

About the Author

Joseph Loconte

Joseph Loconte is the director of The Rivendell Center in New York City and the author of The War for Middle-earth: J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Confront the Gathering Storm, 1933–1945. He serves as a senior fellow at the Sagamore Institute and as the C.S. Lewis Scholar for Public Life at Grove City College. He is at work on a documentary film about the impact of war on the lives of Tolkien and Lewis.