this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2023
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okay but Scar is actually cool and good tho
if you haven't seen lion king in a long time, rewatching as an adult it's legit the story of a proletariat uprising told from the perspective of the bourgeoisie. It can also be argued as same for the feudal structure/divine right of kings.
Everyone has their place. The rich and privileged lead while everyone else lines down below them. If this is ever threatened, the world will literally wear down into wasteland hellscape. See the pride lands before and after the "natural order" is disrupted (Mufasa/Simba v. Scar/Hyena's rule).
I remember making an incredibly long and deranged post about my interpretation of The Lion King. But the gist is that The Lion King is a royal chronicle that heavily pushed a Simbaist line when Scar should've been king under the then Pride Rock traditional line of succession through agnatic seniority instead of male-exclusive primogeniture, which was forcefully imposed by the Simbaists when Scar was overthrown. Some points:
Mufasa wasn't actually killed by Scar. He was killed in a peasant revolt led by wildebeest peasants. Even the Simbaist distortion of truth called The Lion King admits this since Mufasa ultimately dies at the ~~hands~~ hooves of the wildebeest, not Scar.
Scar's supporters being exclusively hyenas is just a way for Simbaists to tar Scar for only having support from a marginalized community who were forced to live in squalid ghettos under the Mufasa regime. In fact, Scar had support among multiple sections of Pride Rock society such as the above mentioned wildebeest who killed Mufasa. Scar emancipated the hyenas, and the vindictive backlash of hyenas such as numerous Simbaists-led pogroms is reflected in The Lion King.
Pride Rock suffering from a drought when Scar was king is just transparent "Pride Rock had a drought because Scar didn't receive the Mandate of Heaven to rule Pride Rock." By all accounts, rain levels were slightly higher under Scar than the previous Mufasa and subsequent Simba regimes. But more importantly, Scar's reforms such as cutbacks on lavish leonic displays of gluttony allowed the beast peasantry much needed respite.
Scar wasn't a tyrant. If anything, most animals in Pride Rock saw Scar as a moderate and lesser evil who was willing to bring about much-needed reforms for the sake of kingdom stability. Meanwhile, the Mufasa and Simba regimes both uphold leonic supremacy expressed through a harsh caste system where lower castes needed to know their place in the so-called "Circle of Life."
All this is to say The Lion King is Simbaist propaganda and Simba is a tyrant who must be overthrown.
Down with the tyrant Simba!
Down with the Simba regime!
Down with Simbaism!
Down with leonic supremacy!
Down with the Circle of Life!
Long live Pride Rock!
All power to the hooves and horns!
Is it proletarian? Or is it one faction of bourgeoisie overthrowing another with the populist support of the hyenas?
Does Scar replace it with more monarchy or is it really proletarian?
It’s monarchist propaganda, so of course the commies are power hungry and corrupt
I disagree Scar is very much of the ruling class and uses and exploits an underclasses anger at the status quo to gain personal power.
Like how Cortez turned a rebellion against the aztecs into a conquest
The movie was widely written by Black South Africans, only 4 years after the release of Nelson Mandela. Many of the writers on the film say that Scar is supposed to represent imperialist interests, Mufasa is the traditional African rule, while Simba represents Nelson Mandela coming back from prison and exhile to rule and overthrow the imperialists and rule their world better. I usually hate looking at author's intent, but I find it to be essential to understanding the Lion King.
The Hyenas represent the imperial core, starving and doing terrible under the rule, but also having hopes of being as powerful as Scar. Scar is a good representation of facism when you REALLY think about it.
that really seems like a stretch especially as the film far closer follows the themes of macbeth or hamlet or any other propaganda about divine right of kings
the patriachal care along with predation offered by Mufasa is almost exactly the feudal ideological role of the nobility and his speach about the circle of life is the feudal notion of everyone having their assigned role, rights and responsibilities. Scar by killing Mufasa goes against the natural order and thus the entire system is upset. The divine right of kings espouses that when a king is killed or usurped there will be storms and nature will be thrown out of balance - as depicted in Macbeth. Then upon the return of the rightful king the natural balance is restored. So the plot of the film very closely follows the doctrine of divine right of kings
As a metaphor for apartheid it just doesn't fit very well only so far as Mandela good, racism bad. The film makes great emphasis on Simba personally coming from a royal lineage which really doesn't fit Mandela. If the plot is about Mandela or apartheid why doesn't it in any meaningful way touch upon those themes or ideas
Both of you can be correct. Lot's of anti imperialist movements and regimes are steeped in bad ideology/class politics. You can oppose a imperial overlord because you believe you should be the overlord. You see this alot in liberal nationalist movements.
^^^^^^this. I'll write a more detailed response, but this is completely true. I DO NOT like Iran or Russia politically whatsoever, they objectively fucking suck and I'm not willing to debate that. However, much of this board's support of both of these nations is based in just how destructive the counter-forces are to the rest of the world. I do not believe people on this board saying that Russia invading some of the most economically important parts of Ukraine is just "freeing them from Nazis". The Russians in Ukraine DO deserve protection, however it's delusional to think the Russian state is giving protection on solely moral grounds.
However as flawed as Russia and Iran are, even in their overall ideology of what I'm about to praise, they believe in some form of national self determination that leaves the people of Donbass or Palestine infinitely more prepared for succeeding if they win the fight. Supporting these nation's overall support of national self determination over overwhelming foreign influence is good, even if the people use their self determination for bad.
Where are you getting this council of black African writers from? IMDb say it was written by Irene Mecchi, Jonathan Roberts, and Linda Woolverton all of which are white Americans.
Musicians who also wrote on the Lion King.
So people who had nothing to do with the plot or themes, got it. It’s Disney monarchist propaganda regardless of what some minor musical writers thought
I think it's kinda short sighted to assume that minorities who got lesser credits had no impact on the story. We're literally talking about a musical, where the music is key to the themes. Lyric writers are essential in musicals.
So yes, they are authors who are able to have an opinion on what their collective work means. It's art, there is no correct interpretation of it. Their opinions on their own work are worth considering, regardless of how much you want to write off lyricists in a musical. It is a clone of Macbeth, and has all the flaws that come with that, maybe Disney even intended those flaws. But that doesn't take away from how essential lyrics are in a musical, and how those people can have specific intent for the story.
Do you have a source (or names?) for the claim about the movie being "widely written by black South Africans", because as others here have noted, the 3 credited screenwriters are all white Americans. I briefly looked up about half of the "Story by" credits, and they all seemed to be white Americans. This feels like an apocryphal story.
Check the video I posted in my comments, it has the sources.
common red scare trope. Scar didn't get a chance to correctly portray the uprising from his perspective. you only saw the bourgeoisie's side/telling of it
Scar made a deal with foreign power (hyenas). He got power and they were allowed to steal natural resources.
hyenas are local to africa they are not a foreign power idk why you are fighting for the divine right of kings through simba so hard , he didn't even wear eyeliner like scar did
Different region. Scar also simply did a palace coup and used foreign armed forces to solidify his power.
This is how all communist revolutions are framed by the right. They don’t think real communism exists, it’s always a bad faith cover for a power grab
whilst that is a common anti-communist trope scar is not a communist nor is there any indication whatsoever that he is meant to represent communism
He explicitly tells the starving hyenas that they will be seizing all of the kingdom and distributing it amongst them, that they will never go hungry again. That the “natural order” with lions at the top will be upended permanently. He is coded as a leftwing revolutionary, as gay, as dark skinned and “other” and the marching in “Be Prepared” is based off red square parades
no it's not it's a shot for shot reference to triumph of the will. Even the lighting is an effect from nazi rallies
watch it again Scar is clearly not concerned with the wellbeing of the hyenas nor does he value their inteligence or input. The hyenas are a pretty obvious analogy to the brownshirts or freikorps given the explicit fascist imagry of Scar's song
Neither does Stalin in anti-communist propaganda care about the worker. Remember you seem to keep forgetting this is monarchist propaganda told from the perspective of a reactionary who believes all leftwing leaders are Machiavellian self-interested monsters. Scar is portrayed how the right sees communists. You keep using the text to try make a point while ignoring that the text has bias
Monarchists/Liberals also love conflating fascism and communism as the same thing, so the mixing of fascist and communist themes is deliberate.
You aren’t gonna make me think your Disney monarchist Hollywood propaganda is woke
I don't think it's woke to have nazis be the villains in the movie that was very standard behavior at the time. Indiana Jones is not woke
Scar is not real the Scar of the text is the only Scar there is. And the Scar of the text is a royal dissatisfied with not being head of the monarchy who recruits disaffected hyenas (animal type is a big theme in lion king the hyenas are predators just like lions and that is relevant here) his offer to hyenas to eat all they want is analogous to offering to let his supporters kill and rob all they want. Again fitting the hyenas being a freikorp stand in. There are no communist themes scar offers nothing to the Hyenas that you couldn't find promised on a nazi propaganda poster
I have already pointed out how monarchist the film is but Scar is not supposed to be a communist.
Frankly it makes more sense to say Long John Silver is meant to be a communist or even Scrooge in fact here we go "Scrooge's ruthlessness and the way he forces people to live in draughty houses with no food is a clear reference to anti-communist tropes, Scrooge is meant to be stalin all the stuff about him being a capitalist is just the state capitalism allegation".
You can't just take a villain in a tv show and say "they're a communist all the explicit textual evidence portraying them as clearly not a communist is just propaganda"
I will never forgive the Royalist gazelle for bowing to their opressor in the opening scene
https://www.irishmetabolicrifts.com/marx-on-the-colonization-of-irish-soil/
The question is, where are the sanctions and warfare made against Scar's rule?
the grass not growing is a metaphor for cuban sanctions
I recognized it as that old ass trope of a prince killing his evil uncle who killed his father for the throne (Jason and the Argonauts, Bhagavata Purana, Hamlet, Bahubali, etc.)
The trope is about divine rule or enlightened kingship, that I agree with. But overthrowing feudalism is a bourgeois revolution fueled by similar idealist humanism about how society should be set up. Not a communist, proletariat revolution which stems from a materialist philosophy.
I think an anti-feudal bourgeois revolution can be portrayed as symbolic of communist proletarian revolution, but only as a loose metaphor, so very hard to pull off. Tbh I don't think this trope does it though. There are better ways, like Robin Hood like figures or historical peasant revolts in which the peasants struggled against feudal lords or kings that work well IMO
also it's far more throwing off the old king in favour of a new king. It's a feudal revolution against an unfavourable feudal order
Yeah, and it's kind of hard to map the factions involved to any sort of real-world analogue. Maybe if there was discussion of the Lions having rights that Scar was stamping on, you could argue that he's supposed to be some sort of centralizing autocrat and therefore a force for historical progress ala Stannis, but the only difference between the regular lions and Scar and the Hyenas is that the regular lions believe in the circle of life.
Maybe you could identify that with more liberal rights for the peasantry (IE, Britain vs France/Russia) but that's kind of a stretch.
Well, don't mean to sound rude, but real life analogues from the Lion King can be easy to draw based off author's intent. Obviously not all of the authors are, but many were South Africans that left Africa after Nelson Mandela's arrest in 1960. I have other comments in this thread going into more detail, but the Hyenas are explicitly meant to represent European colonizers, Mufasa is traditional African rule, while Simba is supposed to represent Nelson Mandela returning to South Africa and freeing the nation from its colonizers
Mufasa and Simba are supposed to be flawed. Domestic rule before Nelson Mandela WAS very morally questionable. Nelson Mandela came back and freed the nation from imperialists, but was also an extremely flawed leader that had plenty moments that were morally ambiguous. However this isn't necessarily a negative. I love Mao, but he (along with China as a whole) 100 percent have had morally ambiguous moments throughout history, and that's totally fine. Revolutionaries don't need to be "heroes", they need to unite a people against the oppressor. Those people can fix those issues on their own once someone isn't fucking with them, foreign entities only ever harm these moral quests. Even with all of Simba's flaws, he should still be the ruler of the pride lands. Because as flawed as the circle of life is from a representative view, the circle of life is also the flawed logic that keeps the pride lands functional. Keeping the gazelles eating and functioning. Even if Simba/Mufasa are awful leaders, they're still better than Scar because they have genuine interest in keeping the pride land's ecosystem functioning.
The best way to explain this logic is under Simba, the gazelles could hold some sort of "strike". The gazelles could just decide to run off the lands and let the lions lose their food. If it happened, the lions would try to fix the issue that makes the gazelles leave the pride lands because the gazelles being successful and having their own culture within the pride lands is essential to the lions eating. Even though it isn't as much as the lions, the gazelles still have some power in a society under Simba. But when the goal of the Hyenas is just to eat everything in the area and move on to a new area (like the West), the gazelles running away only have the power to choose where they're hunted. In the analogue, this is the option for Black South Africans to choose total assimilation, or to lose their homes just to be "hunted" in whatever nations they leave for. People who either submit to the death of their people and culture, or people that fight to maintain their way of life even though if they fail, they will definitely die.
I said this in another comment as well, but I widely welcome alternate interpretations of Lion King, so you could respond to me and totally dunk on this comment and it'd be cool. People's different interpretations is what makes the difference between a good piece of media, and a truly great piece of media. By this metric, Lion King has so much unintentional subtext that it's one of the greatest pieces of media of all time. Even if a piece of media is flawed, the ability to discuss serious ideas over a cartoon is GREAT. I can't think of any other piece of media close to as popular as Lion King that's so morally ambiguous.
I go into this in another comment in this thread.
But the plot does depict an ideological struggle it's just an extremely feudal one and the circle of life is almost exactly the ideological doctrine of feudalism and divine right of kings. Everyone has their assigned place and that place carries social rights and responsibilities. Circle of life is just divine right of kings. Especially considering that in feudal concepts the will of God for feudal roles was considered an aspect of nature. Scar as feudal usurper who upsets the natural order who is replaced by the true king restoring the order and thus putting nature back in balance is a very obvious theme
Personally I thought Stannis was meant to be a depiction of Cromwell that had the flaws of not understanding or caring to understand anything about Cromwell's background, motivations, or why people liked him and thus didn't really work. Some aspects of his personality are very clear allusions to Cromwell such as his exact legalism, obsession with order and the manner of his justice for example his insistence on both punishing and rewarding Davos for the onion stunt. But he just doesn't have the ideology which makes him incoherent.
I have conflicted feelings on this reading of the Lion King. While I understand where you're coming from, I think listening to some of the writers on Lion King kinda shake this up. Lion King had a lot of black South Africans writing it. Here's a video that goes into Lion King's accidental implications extremely well. I'm not saying your interpretation is wrong by any means btw. Normally I kind of ignore author's intent, but I feel that if author's intent adds enough to the conversation to actually be interesting, it's worth discussing at least. They don't know what they subconsciously wrote, so interpretations that ignore author's intent are completely valid. Different story interpretations is what separates good from great stories imo.
BUT with that being said, let's go into what the authors have said. Simba is supposed to represent Nelson Mandela, while Scar and the Hyenas are supposed to represent the colonizers. The writers weren't trying the convey that it was "natural order" that kept the world in check (although I will agree that certain parts of the movie certainly do), they were trying to convey how South Africa was flawed before the Europeans took over, but it still generally worked. Even with oppression that was present in pre-colonial South Africa, every single person in their ecosystem has a place, every person has a stake in their world where they do care about what happens. The lions may literally kill their subjects because hungry, but the lions also want the other groups of animals to actually succeed because they don't want to just move to find another food source. Regardless of how problematic the lions in the movie are, they still care about their society and culture.
The Hyenas and Scar are supposed to represent fascist colonizers (hence the imagery being uncomfortably Nazi). The Hyenas do really want to eat, but they also want to be as powerful as Scar is, and their avoidance of wider society is in hopes of getting as powerful as Scar. The Hyenas do not want to find their place in the rest of society, they want to drain said society until there's nothing left because they like laying around all day and consuming the value of the prey without thinking about it. The Hyenas are the imperial core, perfectly content with eating nations like Iraq, but even hungrier than before after their bloody feast.
They may stand where Mufasa used to stand, but do not care about keeping the society running, they just want to do the eating (aka the aesthetics of power) I think the grey skies were a bit dramatic and uncommunicative, but also think it would be too harsh for a Disney movie to have the Hyenas begin a genocide against the native population. I feel like Lion King is critical of the "natural order" at times, with Simba depending on Timone (canonically, extremely Jewish) and Pumba although the natural order says he should eat them. Idk, with author's intent, I see Lion King as the allegory of Nelson Mandela being exiled, imprisoned, and using that time spent with "the lesser" to come back strong enough to see true revolution for his people. Mandela was transformed from being a dedicated but young and questionable revolutionary to one of the most effective revolutionaries through his time in prison, just like Simba's time in exhile.
The reasons I consider author's intent so heavily in this case are two-fold. A. It's just an interesting conversation. You can read everything I just wrote and disagree with every word, but I'm sure you're at least thinking about it. B. This isn't just a story of a revolution, this is an extremely personal story to many of these writers. This movie released in 1994. Mandela had just been released from 30 years of prison in 1990, after being sentenced to life in the 60's. Mandela was taken away from his people for decades, but still came back as one of the most important leaders in modern history. To the South African writers of the film, this was extremely recent history, and extremely important history. Mandela/Simba weren't necessarily supposed to be brought back into leading because of the divine right of kings, rather because their homes have been ruined by foreign invaders and someone with enough influence had to come back and try to restore their homeland. Cult of personality, as bad as it can be, has proven to be absolutely essential in revolution.
Maybe these South African writers do have absolutely batshit conclusions in politics, but it just makes their point stand even more. Regardless of how flawed Mandela may have been, he actually had a stake in the nation and wouldn't have just let the nation fail. Maybe he would have commited a few atrocities or abuses of power, maybe (not really, think hypothetical since Lion King was built for Western audiences absorbed in anti-mandela propaganda of the time) Mandela actually commited some serious human rights abuses during his rule. The Europeans would have let every person in the country die for a few million dollars because the survival/death of south Africa simply didn't matter enough to be built into an actual colony. I think that's the ultimate point of the film. It doesn't really matter how fucked up we see the circle of life professed to the animals of the area, foreign powers with no understanding of the land will kill the land because their plans don't require the land to survive, they want as much profit as possible as fast as possible. Africa (yes, switching to all of Africa right now because the history of imperialism is borderline universal) doesn't have enough important resources to actually be developed by capitalists, but they do have enough important resources to be consistently subjugated by capitalists. The only way to protect Africa is by letting its citizens run its own nations.
Africans imitating British people laughing
did it tho? wasn't the whole thing concepted in the 80s by my little toaster guy after borrowing heavily from kimba the white lion jungle emperor?
regardless, yah i see that perspective. it easily has merit. especially if coupled with some of the writer's intent and/or interpretation/motivation for writing.
There was an interpretation I was once linked to on Stormfront (literal Stormfront not Reddit) that interpreted the Lion King as about apartheid South Africa (Lions=whites).
After reading this thread, I've become a Lion Ling centrist. There are so many cool interpretations of that movie's events that it's impossible to pick just one.