Child’s Tale Really Aimed At Grown-Ups
“The Lion King” seems to be on everything. It’s on soft drink cups, it stares at me from rows of stuffed lion cubs and warthogs. What is it about this myth that has so captured adults? Why is it a bigger hit with parents and grandparents than Aladdin? Is this just masterful marketing? Or is it easy marketing because we buy the popular thing? We don’t notice the message.
Myths are legends or stories that represent our belief systems (“The Little Engine That Could”). Myths allow us to create a group framework for both our conscious and unconscious reality (religions). Myths are cultivated by a community, religion or government for a purpose. These purposes are often positive (God the wise father); they can be negative (women as witches).
Myths become the collective truth of what reality seems to be at the time of their creation. They fade as the times change. The ability to understand the myths we hold and to notice when they are losing their power is an important skill when change is as rapid as it is now.
“The Lion King” cheerfully reminds adults of what we once believed, but what does it offer our children besides a good story? I liked “The Lion King,” it was simple, charming and colorful. I just couldn’t help balking at the basic message and the marketing.
First of all, Prideland is a monarchy with the big carnivore at the top. The lion is the executive class and no other specie need apply. The thinkers, in the form of a parrot and a baboon, are presented as basically silly because violence dominates intelligence.
Power belongs to the head lion. When the tough guys are at the top there is always intrigue and violence so the king dies in tragedy trying to save the life of Simba, his son. There is no one left, then, to save the kingdom because the only possible good leader is the closest genetic duplicate of the king, Simba, and he is too young.
Simba, frightened by the violence and his guilt over his father’s death, runs away and becomes a vegetarian. We know right then that he has fallen on hard times because he dances around, happy with two new vegetarian friends, a warthog and a meerkat, eating grubs. Vegetarians can never save a kingdom, they only know how to have a good time. Their peaceful ways are irresponsible.
Prideland, without a lion as leader, falls into misery. Not one of the other species can offer a hint of leadership. Even the other lions, particularly the females, just lie around depressed - harmony requires a king. I wanted the elephants to organize a new government.
To make it worse, just beyond the borders there is great evil, foreign species in the form of hyenas, waiting to consume the population of Prideland with the collusion of Scar, Simba’s bad uncle.
That’s an interesting message now that so much of our future is international. It is the ancient message that there is danger beyond your land, in the form of evil “others.” When I grew up in Spokane, people had their suspicions about people who lived in Idaho.
The remaining lions finally decide they must call back Simba, now grown, to save them, to restore order and the “way things ought to be.” Nala, once his playmate, now a lioness, sets out to find him. When she does she reminds him of his responsibilities, his heritage, the usual female stuff, nag, nag, nag. You must avenge your father’s death.
Simba wants to play and eat grubs, but Nala offers him more. She rolls around in the grass with him most of the night and Simba falls in love. But when he gets amorous Nala says, “uh uh,” no nookie until you come back and save the kingdom.
Simba hesitates, but hormones, guilt and the legacy of his dead father win out and he returns to Prideland, battles the evil forces, which include his uncle, and restores peace and prosperity to Prideland. The film ends with the new King on Pride Rock again, surveying his land.
Sweet, comforting, but, “Help!” No one votes, no one tries diplomacy or containment. No one offers an equitable IQ test to the other species, Nala doesn’t wonder if she could be an executive, there isn’t a jury trial for the uncle, powerful males are very good or very bad so they must fight, and it is still dangerous to cross the border.
I know you are saying, “Jennifer, where is your head? This is a fairy tale.” Yes it is, and I’m only playing with it in the same way I play with other belief systems. Children look to adults for translations of old myths to new times. What are you telling your Simba groupies about the future?
The children prefer “morphing,” changing states to old monarchies. They want to be mutants. They are becoming vegetarians. They are listening to the philosophy of Splinter and Obewankenobe. They voted for “Star Trek’s” Jean Luc Picard for president in 1994. They aren’t just eating with warthogs and meerkats, they’re planning to marry them. Remember Lisa Marie?
Little girls want to offer more than guilt and sex to boys. Little boys want to be more than a carnivore standing on a rock having vanquished the enemy. Enjoy the Lion King stuff but remember this story is for you, not your children.
The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Jennifer James The Spokesman-Review