Rooney Gooding-Williams & Morton

While I understood the bulk of Gooding-William’s argument and do believe he made valid and strong points, some of his ideas I do not agree with. I found his analysis of the “Euro-centric picture of Africa” interesting, as well as the point that the depiction of the circle of life as “endless” might “reduc[e] Africa to the endless reproduction of a natural and pre-historic course of life”, devoid of cultural, political, social, etc development. However, The Lion King is about animals and not people. Morton’s point that “Africa thus becomes the repository for timeless values, although that does not mean that the place itself is without history” articulates that the writers employed the circle of life to impact social values (that are undoubtedly western) but it never broaches actual African history (or the history of the specific region that the Lion King takes place in because Africa is not a country nor does it have one ~history~).

I also didn’t totally agree with his analysis of Scar- primarily that “the future he envisions would not entail the persistence of a form of life that ‘has always been’, but the creation of a utopia that has not yet existed. Scar fails, because his will to create utopia creates dystopia”. I would not say that Scar ever aimed to create a Utopia, rather his own ideal dystopia. I don’t think he fails at this except that he destroys the ecosystem, though his goal was never to preserve the circle of life. Morton argues that “it does not strike me that Scar and the hyenas represent a victory of history over the timeless ‘circle of life’”- Scar’s rise to power is not the one historical event given to ~Africa~. The Circle of Life is instead used as a metaphor for “law, order, and enlightened hierarchy”, and Scar merely disrupts it momentarily.

Finally, I don’t agree that the writers of The Lion King were going for a metaphor for American Inner City. While there are absolutely elements of this, primarily with the Elephant Graveyard representing the inner city/slums/projects/poor part of town, and that element was likely intentional whether consciously or unconsciously, as a whole, I don’t see it. The Elephant Graveyard and the accepts/portrayal of the hyenas is problematic or racist or classist. Yes. But rather than an intentional and explicit commentary, this likely was a product of the unchecked biases of the creators as they tried to portray evil.