The Lion King

I have distinct memories of The Lion King, which was released in 1994. Just before it opened in the summer, I was hosting a visitor from England. She had a young son, and was looking for something to buy him and take back. The toy stores were full of Lion King stuff, but she didn't get anything but she said he wouldn't know the characters, as the film hadn't opened yet in England. I'll bet a few months later he did, as the film exploded and for a while was in the top five of movie earners.

I saw the film that summer, but don't think I saw it all the way through again until this week, when I showed it to my sixth-grade students. I did see pieces of it often, as my twin nephews, when they were about three, couldn't get enough of the film, and watched it incessantly. Their favorite song was "I Just Can't Wait to Be King," which they would sign and dance along with, over and over again.

The Lion King was actually suggested to show from the textbook, as it is a great example of plot structure. It has a very simple structure of exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. The conflict is easy--who gets to be king. But it would also be useful to high school or even college English students--identify the Shakespearean motifs within. Of course there is Hamlet, as a young man's (lion's) uncle kills his father and takes over as king (thankfully, in this film, Scar does not marry Simba's mother). Then there's Henry IV, Part I, with Simba similar to a louche Prince Hal, hanging around with ne'er-do-wells Timon and Pumbaa, who are the stand-in for Falstaff. Finally, Scar is a very close approximation of Richard III, a villainous king who, according to Shakespeare at least, had two princes murdered.

The Lion King came at the height of Disney's renaissance in feature animated films, which began with The Little Mermaid five years earlier. It was unique that it was not based on an existing source, even though it called to mind other works. It had some great songs by Elton John and Tim Rice, and the phrase "Hakuna Matata" is still a household phrase. Nathan Lane, long a Broadway hoofer, found a new audience as Timon ("What do you want me to, dress in drag and dance the hula?") and James Earl Jones made another iconic voice performance. My favorite thing about it is Jeremy Irons' performance, which he almost didn't do because Scar was a little too close to Klaus Von Bulow. Instead they made an inside gag, when young Simba calls Scar weird. "You have no idea," Irons says, echoing his line from Reversal of Fortune. There is also a great inside joke about "It's a Small World."

Most of my kids had seen the movie, but I got a kick of how they enjoyed the last fifteen minutes, when Simba and Scar fight each other. I hadn't remembered that some of the fight was in slow motion, which the boys loved. It's really well done, even if it is cliched--a fight to the death while a fire rages around them.

There are some criticisms of the film. Some found the depiction of the hyenas objectionable, for wildly different reasons. That the hyenas who spoke were played by minorities (Whoopi Goldberg and Cheech Marin) disturbed some, while naturalists were aghast at the negative portrayal of hyenas. I showed the kids some real videos of hyenas, including that sinister laughing noise they make, and it seemed to me fairly accurate. They are not a cuddly animal.

The film also makes an attempt not to sugarcoat the fact that lions eat other animals, but I find the monarchy of the savanna interesting. Animals that are eaten by lions bow down to them. Also, given that Scar ruins the kingdom during his reign, perhaps a parliamentary system was in order. I also found the romantic scenes between Simba and Nala a bit uncomfortable. She gives him a look that cleary says, "fuck me." He returns in kind. One of the boys in my class later said that "Nala has moves."

This was perhaps the pinnacle of the Disney animation boom, as Pixar would soon eclipse them. So, of course, Disney bought Pixar. I don't think Disney really came back with their own film until Frozen, which isn't as good as The Lion King.