Tea at Trianon: Greta Gerwig’s Sincere Subversion of Narnia

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, October 18, 2026

Greta Gerwig’s Sincere Subversion of Narnia

From Further Up:

Even putting aside the Streep-casting, there’s something odd in the way Aslan appears in the trailer to be made of stars. It’s visually striking, yet it suggests the blurring of a boundary between the stars and their Maker. The posters giving a first look at Aslan’s more solidly incarnated appearance aren’t very reassuring, as his face looks like a patchwork quilt of fur, feathers and even scales. His eyes are also differently colored, an apparent nod to David Bowie’s illusion of heterochromia. What this is all meant to add up to is confusing, to say the least. Perhaps there’s some reassurance in the fact that Gerwig used male pronouns for Aslan throughout her interview, and in the fact that it appears he will at least have a mane and a terrifying roar. But there remains the impression that Aslan’s image is an admixture of elements, an entity bound up and fused with nature in ways that are decidedly not aligned with Lewis’s vision.
This brings me to Led Zeppelin, who made the historic choice to give Gerwig their blessing for “Stairway to Heaven” to be used in the trailer. Most takes have focused on the rock anthem’s bizarre tonal clash with a Narnian oeuvre. It is indeed bizarre, but if you look at the lyrics, you can begin to see Gerwig’s creative logic, which is not entirely crazy. (Read more.)