Devon Wolfe: Lion King!

Last year, after having a lot of free time (post-getting into Duke!), I was at dinner with my dad and the topic of the Lion King somehow came up. I mentioned how I no longer catch the references to the movie, since I truly didn’t remember anything about the movie. The next weekend, we went to the Broadway musical (perks of living in New York). It was not only an excuse for my dad to spend alone time with his daughter, but also an opportunity to be a kid again. In the theatre, we were surrounded by other families - only I was double the age of every child in the movie. Yet the play was truly incredible. It was culturally rich, colorful in design, and entertaining to watch. 

Watching the movie again brought me the same joy. I also liked that I came into watching the movie with an understanding of its origins - Sundiata: The Lion King of Mali. Disney did a great job of adopting some of the key themes, like kindness, growing-up, power dynamics, etc., while also making the plot more eventful in order to engage the audience.

I genuinely don’t have anything bad to say. Even after reading a movie review by Jeremy Gerard from 1994 (immediately after the movie’s release), I still question some of his critiques of the film! He criticized the Lion King’s songs as lacking the same “charm and subtle wit of the Alan Menken/Howard Ashman tunes for "The Little Mermaid" and “Beauty and the Beast””. Did he even listen to the Lion King soundtrack? Circle of Life, I Just Can't Wait to Be King, and Can You Feel the Love Tonight, are just a few of the regulars on my Spotify car playlists. But thankfully, Gerard comes around! He says the film has a screenplay “that handles shifts in tone with considerable grace”, so all is right with the world! I also read a few criticisms of the movie and feel nothing but frustration:

More specifically, in "The Representations of Gender, Sexuality and Race in Disney’s The Lion King", Georgia Vraketta criticizes Disney for its limited representation of females and race. She first mentions how lionesses adopt a secondary role to the lions, since all they are considered useful for is hunting. I, unfortunately, agree with the idea that the Lion King does not spend much screen time on women - since much of the movie revolves around father-son relationships and Simba's coming-of-age. In addition, she talks about how wondering how race is portrayed is extremely important, since Disney was trying to "represent race in a healthy way". She criticizes the Circle of Life by touching upon how it is proof of Disney's inability to "represent Africa [and] masks the less loudly proclaimed reluctance to represent black people as people at all". She also mentions how the song begins with African vocals, while the instruments that can be head have western origins (and it was also created by white musicians). As an audience member who is emotionally touched by the music, and a huge fan of the plot and characters, I acknowledge that I have less of a critical lens. Therefore I can acknowledge and respect her points, but still proclaim myself as a hardcore Lion King Fan!