Feminism, commercialism, authorial sensibility

 This Sunday's New York Times Magazine cover article confirms my worst ideas about blogging.  It also proves once again that the paper has a weakness for both unsubstantial "lifestyle" articles (like most of the ones about student life at at the Ivies) and interesting "lifestyle" topics that are written by the wrong person.

But this isn't the main topic of this post.  I saw "Prince Caspian" yesterday, which is in keeping with my fascination for literary adaptations.  There was much to be mourned, a little to be celebrated, and a trope that left me bemused and uncertain.  

In keeping with the movie franchise's aggressive commercialism, the film greatly expanded on battle scenes Lewis mentions briefly or in passing.  I was sad that many of the novel's delightful details were omitted-- like when the kids and Trumpkin have to slaughter a bear and keep "squashy" packets of bear meat with them--and the whole Susan-Caspian near romance was terrible and terribly acted.   I've always found the novels' lack of teen-romance undertones positively refreshing.  On the other hand, I thought the movie's exploration of certain psychological issues (it sucks to be a kid in London after being a king) a nice expansion of issues Lewis touches on or flat out ignores.

What struck me most about the movie, though, was the role of Susan as teen-warrior extrordinare.   Lewis resolutely keeps the girls in his novels far away from actual battle.  Susan is a good archer, but as far as I can remember, she never shoots to kill.  In fact, in the first novel Santa Claus (of all people) tells the children explicitly that women shouldn't fight in wars.  Lewis's female protagonists are resourceful in other ways, but the author's sensibility is resolutely old-fashioned: all of his children-heroes ultimately cleave to strict gender divisions. 

The feminist in me like the idea of an arrow-brandishing, man-bashing character.  But the New Historicist scholar in me feels like it's a ridiculous corruption of the author's entire novelistic vision.  Can you really appreciate Lewis unless you also understand his whole postwar, nostalgic, Christian philosophy?  For me, his portrayal of girl heroines is part and parcel of that: courageous Girl Guide types who nevertheless know their place.  As much as I chafed against Lewis' proscriptions while reading the books as a child, the myth(os) crumbles without them.  Why must we try to modernize the antiquated in order to make it acceptable?

My ever-practical husband observes that the point of the movies isn't to explore Lewis' philosophy but to sell cereal boxes to impressionable 10 year olds.  He's right, of course, but that just depresses me further.