The Lion King
| State of body | Father is dead, but child is still alive and kicking. |
|---|---|
| Detail of inspection | The kids put it on autorepeat for days at a time! |
| Forensic Investigator | marco |
| Comments | Child appeared dead, but had just gone away for a little hakuna matata. |
Although I view this movie to be a typical Disney kids animated movie, and not really a “serious” movie, its sheer general popularity make it a movie that people house-sitting for you would want to watch it, if you only hadn’t taken it in the car with you for the kids. Of course the completely unbelievable combination of a warthog and a meerkat, make for the humerous, relaxed interlude of “no worries” which the kids tend to gloss over as boring – in between the Violent plot to take over a throne, and the just as violent return of the rightful king to reclaim it and save the kingdom. Of course this wouldn’t be a kids movie if the hero’s father didn’t have an agonising death sequence early on in the movie. Felicia (5) would certainly pick “the one where Mufasa dies” as her favourite of the three Lion King Movies. The obvious educational aspect would be of the circle of life, and that good leadership counts for a lot both in a family and for a country.
I kind of think that the “good vs evil” is a bit over done in films, and I would have loved to see the hint of Scar having a good side to him. Not only does he disregard life in his plans for power. He extends to not having a single good intention shown in the whole movie. Even for the Hyena’s.
All in all, its got some nice violent bits for the kids, and some great comedy for the adults – therefore making it one of the only DVD’s we have which visitors lust for. “Hakuna Matata” – “Its our Motto” – What’s ‘a motto – why nothing, what’s ‘a matto with you??
March 18th, 2005 at 2:30 pm
Ever notice that ‘The Lion King’ is almost a perfectly straight ripoff of ‘Hamlet’, but without the downbeat everbody-dies ending? From an FF point of view, I would have gone with the warthog and the meerkat share the same fate as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, their conceptual forebears.
I agree that Scar needed to be a little more sympathetic, but that’s not the way that Disney movies tend to go… Also, I tend to get really offended by the Nuremberg Rally hyena sequence, but perhaps that’s just me.
March 18th, 2005 at 2:41 pm
Yeah, I thought the Hamlet ripoff was pretty obvious too. ‘The Lion King’ irritated me rather a lot, partly because the plot was so simple and linear but mostly thanks to the aforementioned Nuremberg sequence (and the cliche of hyenas & other scavengers being evil), and the idea that Simba (or whatever his name was) deserved to be king because his father was king. Still, that’s fairy-tales for you.
One great moment: when the cra-aazy Hyena realises he’s chewing on his own leg, and doesn’t stop.
March 19th, 2005 at 12:56 pm
I have realised I am never going to provoke you into saying anything on my own blog, Andrew, so I thought I would wander over here and make a nuisance of myself!
I don’t think the Lion King is anything like Hamlet. It shares certain archetypal similarities, but that is only because of its rudimentary plot. The ‘withdrawal and return’ paradigm is absent from Hamlet, and there is absolutely no moral quandary for Simba in the ‘Lion King’, while this is the whole crux of Hamlet. There are no characters analogous to Polonius or Fortinbras. Simba never talks to any of the bones in the elephant’s graveyard, and Nala doesn’t make any crass jokes about phallic flowers. In fact, the only similarity is that they are both about a dead king and his son, like 86% of all art created before the French Revolution.
The ‘Lion King’ is simply the age-old myth of the God King, whose personal qualities are reflected directly in the prosperity of his land.
Why did the Nuremberg sequence disturb youse? Don’t you think it’s a good thing to mock Nazis? Do you think it is showing them too much respect to compare them to a bunch of hyenas? And, how can you be sure it was a Nuremburg sequence and not a May Day in Moscow sequence? Or a march past of King Alexander’s army in Belgrade sequence? They all look the same to me.
If you had trouble with Simba having the right to become King because his father was King- if this alone was enough to impair your enjoyment of the movie- then you are deeply, sadly, parochial and monocultural. Look beyond the narrow confines of your 21st century yuppie culture. Do not expect films that embody traditional Chinese values or archetypal Near-Eastern myths to conform to your expectations of storytelling or character motivation.
And, I thought Scar was way sympathetic. That’s why I got this cool Scar tattoo- hang on, are you saying the ‘Nuremburg scene’ was bad because it provides Nazis (or Commies or Yugoslav monarcho-fascists, whatever) with spurious legitimacy by linking them with such a sympathetic villain? I shall concede your point. Mind you, I think all Jeremy Irons characters are sympathetic. I would probably go see ‘Vera Drake’ if Jeremy Irons was in the title role.
March 20th, 2005 at 9:27 am
Well, both Hamlet and The Lion King are about a King murdered by his wicked brother, who then takes the throne, and the fact that the King’s son is a bit upset about it. And I think that’s enough – sure, there are lots of characters missing – you mention Polonius and Fortinbras, but we’re also missing Ophilia and Gertrude. Doesn’t matter. The Lion King is a very simple film; it’s Hamlet lite, with a happy ending. Sure, it could be another less-well-known pre-20th Century story, but Hamlet is the one that people remember.
I agree that the Lion King also draws on the myth of the God King. I just don’t happen to like the myth of the God King.
Regarding my objections to the Nuremberg sequence – it just made my eyes roll, ‘sall. I don’t think they’re mocking the nazis with the sequence, more showing what nasty, nasty bad guys we have. They’re so bad – they’re like the nazis! That’s bad! And of course, it is, and they could have shown Scar and the hyenas tying helpless virgins to the railway tracks, while twiddling their mustaches and cackling, or throwing their enemies to the sharks, but it’s all lazy Bad Guy dynamics. And of course the sequence was intended to evoke Nuremberg. It could be the others, just as the plot could be intended to evoke a lesser-known work than Hamlet, but Nuremberg is the best-known reference point.
Regarding your concluding button-mashing – nice try.
March 23rd, 2005 at 9:22 pm
Nuremberg? You saw Nuremberg in that movie? Call me dumb, but I missed the entire connection with Nazis. Mind you, I was looking at the movie from a child’s perspective!
June 2nd, 2005 at 5:07 am
Kids watch this movie? Oh,man.
November 28th, 2006 at 12:00 am
well,
i’m no fan of that fascist Disney, but there clearly are more than spurious parallels between hamlet and lion king, in terms of narrative structure and archetypes.
what doesDr clam mean by the ‘withdrawal and return’ paradigm is absent from Hamlet! it’s the key narrative device in the play!
anyway, the really interesting parallel is between lion king and the Bush presidency: fixed moral antinomies….legitimised violence if conducted by the good guys….remind you of anyone?
December 4th, 2006 at 5:47 pm
I don’t subscribe to this postmodernist take on the ‘withdrawal and return paradigm’ where you don’t actually go anywhere, Protagoras, so I reject its application to Hamlet. Categorically, yey.
And I think the U.S. Presidential parallels in the Lion King are clearly Woodrow Wilson, not Bush.
December 4th, 2006 at 9:46 pm
…and that’s where the political bit of this thread goes to email, thanks!
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:23 pm
but it’s not post-modern if the withdrawal actually takes place: Hamlet does in fact leave the scene and then returns in the play; which is crucial to the narrative. am i missing something?
i can see the paralleles with the Wilson administration….i’m going to concede that point- i just like to have a go at Bush whenever i can.
what do is it mean when the “political bit goes to email”? i’m new to this site, not sure about the protocol….
January 24th, 2007 at 11:08 am
I just don’t think ‘hanging around near the castle pretending to be mad, then getting better’ really qualifies as withdrawal and return- Hamlet does not leave his original milieu to engage with and be transformed by the Other, then return to apply his transforming insights, Perhaps I have forgotten what actually happens in Hamlet, and there is a bit where Hamlet ducks out for a spot of enlightenment. Or perhaps I am interpreting Toynbee’s ‘withdrawal and return’ paradigm too unimaginitively…
(As for the email bit, I think Androo was afraid I was going to start some Neoconservative rant, when in reality I was just being silly…)
January 25th, 2007 at 2:21 am
i think your reading of the withdrawal/return paradigm is correct, and it can be applied to Hamlet. it makes for uncomfortable viewing, but the transformation he’s undergone is to thoroughly embrace the notion of physical and spiritual annhilation. at the start of the play, he’s flirting with this, but by the end it has become not a philosophical conundrum to be explored but a suffocating reality to be effected. he has finally become ready to act, this is why he comes back to the castle- as such this fits perfectly into toynbee’s archetype. hamlet begins by toying with the notion of ‘not-being’, the key Parmenidean dichotomy (being/not-being) that later gets satirised by the sophist Protagoras (“man is the measure of all things, of those that are, that they are, and those that are not, that they are not”), but ends up in a deadly spiritual morass that cannot be expressed in words. the only route is through self-destruction: hamlet clearly returns having resolved his journey- it does not make happy viewing, but the language that takes us there is inexpressably beautiful. this is what makes hamlet the best piece of writing in the english language: it it is the perfect marriage of style, substance and artistic intent, all three reinforcing the whole seemlessly.
you know, i’m prone to lefty rants myself- so anytime you want a target you’ll find me a willing foil….
January 25th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Hamlet the best piece of writing in the English Language? How could you have forgotten the lyrics to the Cockroaches’ ‘She’s the One”?
I will accept the ‘withdrawal and return’ paradigm as central to Hamlet and will redeploy to the assertion that Hamlet’s journey to embrace physical and spiritual annihilation is the antithesis of Simba’s journey to embrace traditional veldt values, and hence ‘The Lion King’ is in its essence the antitype of Hamlet.
Parenthetically, my postmodernist hat allows me to say that, even if you consider yourself to a sophist and your words to be satire, “man is the measure of all things etc…” is still a profound image of truth.
January 26th, 2007 at 10:32 pm
i like the idea of simba as the anti-hamlet. i suppose it makes disney the anti-shakespeare, which i approve very much……
i couldn’t agree more about Protagoras, i take his thinking very seriously as an advance in moral philosophy. on a serious note, i did some research in this area, and ended up re-framing protagorean thought as a practical philosophy aimed at engaging actively in social and political life in order to transform the public arena for the better. it all hinges on Protagoras’ use of the words “metron” (measure) and “poiesis” (make) in the original fragments that remain of the language he used- in pre-classical greek culture they carry strong connotations of active engagement with a moral purpose. in later interpretations filtered fron Plato and Aristotle, Protagoras always comes out entailing a weak relativism and/or nihilism, when if you go back to the original words and interpret according to pre-Platonic thinking you get a far richer reading that fits in with the modern pragmatism of richard rorty, for example.
March 2nd, 2007 at 6:54 am
well i think the LK was pretty good, me and my gf are enjoy it.. g/j DIney !!! we need you eh!!
April 28th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Regarding the discussion about the Nazi symbolism, I think the scene where the hyenas parade past Scar is closely modeled on scenes from Leni Riefenstahl’s film Triumph of the Will. Now this is a pretty famous movie in cinema history so I’m sure the intention is just to make an arch quotation that will be picked up by the film buffs and missed by the children. Still, I have to admit (as I’m watching the movie at least once a day with my 2-year old) that it makes me queasy that it maybe trivializes the Nazis. Not that they don’t deserve mockery, but that it makes them seem like comic bad guys instead of genuine, adult evil.
September 3rd, 2008 at 11:54 pm
Yes – they symbolism was clearly just a visual pun, and one I’d attributed to a similar parade scene in “The Wall”, which was almost certainly also derived from the same source.
I suspect all genuine evil becomes mocked over time, no matter how bad it originally was. Pirates, for example. It’s interesting that the defence mechanism of overcoming fear of evil also leads to complacency.