The Lion King Review

There is no doubt that a critics review of a film can impact the films performance at the box office. However, does a critic’s review influence the way an audience will feel about a film? Author and critic Margaret Lazarus certainly tries to influence readers of her article, Al’ls Not Well in Land of The Lion King, by stating that the Disney movie is a prime example of the stereotypes that are typical among todays society. Lazarus implies that there is an underlying meaning to the movie. She believes this meaning is exuded in the portrayal and actions of particular characters. I believe her accusation that Disney is trying misguide young children through a subliminal message in The Lion King to be completely absurd. My question is, why does Lazarus feel the need to slander The Lion King by trying to cite examples that are empty statements without anything to support her argument?

Lazarus gives a brief overview of the film in her article but she also tries to twist The Lion King into something that it is not. She first claims that there are two specific and distinct places that the animals inhabit. The Pride Land is a happy place where all is good and animals live together in supposed harmony (Lazarus 1). The other place, known as the elephant graveyard, is a dark and drab land where evil lurks. The problem with this is that in society it is not black and white like Lazarus tries to illustrate. Sure there is some bad in society but along with the bad usually comes good and vice versa. Nothing is as clear cut as Lazarus tries to imply when she describes the habitats of the characters. Lazarus then describes the characters that live in the Pride Lands. She depicts the animals in the Pride Lands as being good natured.

Lazarus describes the king of the Pride Lands as a beautiful golden lion whose son, Simba, will succeed him as king. This is a stark contrast when compared to the description that Lazarus makes when she references the characters that live in the elephant graveyard. She writes in her article that the leader of the elephant graveyard is Scar, who is the kings brother. Scar is depicted as an evil black lion whose loyal subjects are the hyenas. The hyenas, also dark in color, are malicious towards Simba and the other animals that inhabit the Pride Lands. Lazarus, already in the beginning of her article makes the distinction that there is the good and the bad in the movie in her description of the Pride Lands. It is Lazarus that stereotypes the movie through her descriptions and not Disney.

Lazarus then goes into further detail when she describes how she thinks each character in The Lion King is stereotyped by Disney writers. Lazarus feels that Scar is presumably gay simply based on the way he speaks. This is the only reasoning that she gives to support her assertion that he is homosexual. After viewing the movie for the second time, I can honestly say that I did not come to the same conclusion that Lazarus did in her article. In no other way does Disney show that Scar has homosexual tendencies. Lazarus might have said that Scar seemed to be a bit on the feminine side in the movie but even that is proven to be untrue because Scar is the bully of the movie and ends up killing Mufasa. These are not the characteristics of someone who is feminine in nature. Furthermore, Lazarus fails to even mention the one questionable moment in the movie when Scares sexuality could be debated. In the film, Simba says that he thinks his uncle Scar is weird. Scar then replies to Simba, you have no idea, (The Lion King) but what does that really mean? That line can be interpreted in many ways depending on who is viewing the movie. Is it political correct to say that simply because one states that they are weird it makes them gay? Lazarus contradicts herself by stereotyping Scar as gay just because of speech. She clearly fails to support the assumption that she makes in her article.

Lazarus believes that Disney has made Scar out to be gay but then she takes it a step further by implying that the hyenas are portraying the underprivileged people who supposedly live in the ghetto. She proves that she thinks the hyenas are from the ghetto because they are black and also based on the voiceover for one of the hyenas. She states in her article that, One of their voices is done by Whoopie Goldberg, in a clearly inner-city dialect (1). Again, Lazarus assumes that just because one hyena sounds inner-city all the hyenas sound that way and that the conclusion must be that inner-city is ghetto. Lazarus doesnt define what that term means in her article, she just relates inner-city to the ghetto. In our society inner-city means that you are from an area in the city that is centrally located (inner-city,Wikipedia). It might mean you are from a poorer area or it might mean that you are from a more affluent area depending on who you ask. This definition proves that hyenas are not necessarily ghetto just because they are inner-city. Lazarus tries to give the term a negative connotation with out providing any reasoning to support her argument.

In The Lion King, Mufasa is killed and Simba is run out of the Pride Lands by Scar. Scar then anoints himself as king and makes the lionesses his slaves. Lazarus claims that the lionesses are subordinate to Scar and the hyenas and are helpless until Simba returns to retake the Pride Lands from Scar. It is true that the lionesses are slaves to Scar but only because they are forced into being slaves. Lazarus makes it sound like they chose to be submissive because they did not fight back. Disney writers could not have let the lionesses overtake Scar because it would change the whole story line. After all, the movie is called The Lion King and not The Lionesses. This movie is all about the Lion King, who just happens to be Simba. And if there is any question about who the king is, all one needs as proof is to refer back to one of the opening songs which Simba sings, I just can’t wait to be King. Lazarus declares that The Lion King corrupts children by giving them an underlying meaning that only the wealthy and powerful will be influential and be able to establish change. What The Lion King really establishes is that through perseverance and belief in one’s own abilities, anything is possible.

The Lion King is about Simba’s ability to overcome the challenges and difficulties that he faces. It is clearly not about stereotypes. If it was, the possibilities for questions that would stereotype characters would be endless. There could be a question arising about why Simon is skinny and why Timone is fat just because he’s a pig. Are all pigs necessarily fat? Would it then be possible to say that Disney is stereotyping overweight people too? This is just one of the questions shows that Lazarus’ conclusion that Disney writers are trying to give The Lion King an underlying meaning is simply ridiculous. The examples that Lazarus uses in her article don’t have anything to support them. They are more or less statements of her opinion and not anything that she can prove because she has no facts to base her arguments on. Continuing to over analyze every aspect of the movie as Lazarus is doing in her article just miss construes the propose of the movie. The true propose of The Lion King is to provide entertainment, it is not to corrupt the minds of young children.