Greta Gerwig's decision to cast Meryl Streep as the voice of Aslan, the lion C.S. Lewis wrote as the Christ of Narnia, has drawn sharp criticism from Christian fans who call the gender swap a deliberate affront to the source material.
Streep, 77, will voice the mythical lion king in Narnia: The Magician's Nephew, a Netflix production that Gerwig is writing and directing. The film marks the first screen adaptation of Lewis's sixth Narnia book, billed as an origin story for the fantasy world. It is scheduled to hit theaters on February 12, 2027, with a Netflix streaming release to follow on April 2. The Daily Mail reported that it reached out to Streep's representatives for comment but had not received a response.
The backlash centers on a straightforward objection: Aslan is male. Lewis wrote him that way on purpose. The lion dies and rises again in the Narnia books, and Lewis himself insisted the character was not merely a symbol for Christ but the embodiment of "the second person of the Trinity" as he might appear in a world of talking animals and living trees. Handing that voice to a woman, critics say, strips the character of the theological identity Lewis built into every page.
Political commentator Isabel Brown was among the most vocal critics. She posted on social media that Lewis's intent left no room for ambiguity:
"In case there's ANY confusion, CS Lewis literally intended Aslan to be the incarnation of Christ inside the world of Narnia. Aslan is more than an allegory for Christ, he *is* how the creatures of Narnia experience Christ in their world just as we experience Jesus Christ as an incarnate MAN in ours."
Brown went further, calling the decision "a slap in the face to the genius of Lewis, but also a deliberate mockery of Christianity that is 100% intentional. So deeply disappointing."
She was far from alone. Anonymous users on X piled on with similar objections. "Aslan is based on the story of Jesus. Jesus is male, and Aslan is obviously a male lion. What's this about?" one wrote. Another warned Streep directly: "They are using you and your good name to blaspheme Christians. Is this what you want to be remembered for?" One user compared the move to other recent Hollywood misfires: "Bold decision but the type that could destroy buzz for a story with a strong Christian influence. Feels very Snow White-esque."
Several declared they would simply skip the film. "Can't wait not to watch," one user posted. "You know what would be unique these days? A faithful adaptation."
Gerwig, who previously directed Barbie in 2023 and Little Women in 2019, laid out her casting logic in an Empire magazine interview:
"I wanted someone who was profound but not pretentious, who had gravitas but not morose self-seriousness. Someone who could communicate depth and pathos as well as joy and delight. I wanted someone who was older than 70, so there was a wisdom of experience, but who also had the capacity of fresh wonder, like a child. And also to be one of the greatest actors to ever do it. That list is not a long one."
In a separate statement published through Netflix, Gerwig described reading The Magician's Nephew as a child and said she "fell in love with the gorgeously improbable but completely brilliant concept of a cosmic lion singing the world of Narnia to life." She called the project "the honor of a lifetime."
Gerwig also cited David Bowie as one of the inspirations behind her version of Aslan and the film. Breitbart reported that the redesigned Aslan features multicolored eyes, feathers mixed with fur, and red stripes, a look closer to a griffin than the realistic lion audiences remember from the earlier trilogy. That design has only deepened the sense among critics that the new adaptation is departing from Lewis's vision in ways that go well beyond the voice casting.
Notably absent from the conversation: any public response from Streep herself. Neither she nor her representatives have commented on the role or the criticism.
The theological weight of the objections is not manufactured outrage. It rests on Lewis's own words. Author Louis Markos, writing in A To Z With C.S. Lewis, explained the distinction in an excerpt published by The Gospel Coalition:
"Though many readers assume that Aslan, the lion king of Narnia who dies and rises again, is an allegory for Christ, Lewis himself disagreed. According to his creator, Aslan is not an allegory for Christ but the Christ of Narnia. The distinction is vital."
Markos elaborated that Lewis understood Aslan as "what the second person of the Trinity (God the Son) might have been like had he been incarnated in a magical world of talking animals and living trees." That framing, Aslan as Christ himself in another form, not a literary stand-in, is precisely why the gender of the voice matters to the critics. If Aslan is Christ, and Christ is incarnate as a man, then a female voice is not a creative flourish. It is a theological revision.
Gerwig told Time magazine, as the New York Post noted, that she was "interested in embracing the paradox of the worlds that Lewis created, because that's what's so compelling about them." But fans pushing back on the casting argue that Lewis's world was not built on paradox for its own sake, it was built on a specific Christian framework, and the paradoxes within it serve that framework, not the other way around.
The earlier Narnia film trilogy, released between 2005 and 2010 with Liam Neeson voicing Aslan, grossed roughly $1.5 billion worldwide. That commercial success was driven in large part by Christian audiences who embraced the films as faithful to Lewis's vision. Those are the viewers now signaling they may sit this one out.
"Stripping the Christian themes out of Narnia leaves you with something that is a complete different story," one X user wrote. Another put it more bluntly: "Typical Hollywood. They want Christian art but without the Christ. It doesn't work like that."
The Washington Examiner framed the casting as a broader commentary on modern culture's relationship with religion, noting that to reimagine Aslan as Meryl Streep amounts to "a wealth of commentary on the place of Christ in the world."
At least one user on X expressed openness to the casting, writing that "Meryl Streep voicing Aslan with a David Bowie inspired design" was "a wild combination" worth seeing how Gerwig "pulls it together." But that voice was a clear outlier in the public reaction.
Netflix has not responded to the criticism directly. Gerwig's public statements focus on her childhood love of the books and her admiration for Streep's range. Neither has addressed the core objection: that the audience Lewis wrote for, and the faith Lewis wrote from, treated Aslan's identity as something more than a casting variable.
Hollywood keeps learning the same lesson the hard way: when you borrow a story that millions of people hold sacred, they notice what you change, and they remember why it mattered.
