"don't get her started on The Lion King."
I will bet anything that this is something my students say to each other. “Dude, trust me: do not get her started on The Lion King."
So since I was planning to go out dancing tonight and hurt my wrist and elbow so badly that I don't want to drive, and seeing as how I am on pain killers anyway, I figured I would just stick this out there on the inter-webs.
Disclaimer: this was probably a lot better when I typed it up the first time, before I exhaled into my dictation microphone and it somehow erased absolutely everything.
I'm sure some of you have already heard these arguments before, but you probably haven't heard them from me.
I probably wasn't disposed very well towards this movie when it came out. They were playing “Can You Feel The Love Tonight “ over and over at my gym for months before it was released. To this day, I cannot hear that song without screaming.
Maybe you have to be my age to be startled by the way The Lion King rips off Kimba The White Lion. My mother certainly hadn't heard of it; I don't think they show it on television now. But when I was a kid in the late 1960s (pause for you to do the math), there wasn't a lot of choice when it came to children's programming. You watched what was on. That's how I wound up watching The Jim and Tammy [Faye Bakker ] Show, because there were puppets and beggars couldn't be choosers. Cartoons were cartoons; they weren't for grown-ups. Japanese cartoons weren't "anime" yet; there weren't any conventions and there wasn't a fan base that I know of. There were just Japanese cartoons that little kids watched on TV. And this is what I remember:
(Admit it: it's cute.)
So I remember being very startled when I first saw The Lion King:
(Wait, what? Was that Pride Rock?)
Apparently when they asked Matthew Broderick to do the voice of Simba, he said “hey cool! I totally loved that cartoon as a kid!"
Look, there's nothing wrong with borrowing things, but at least admit you're doing it. Don't insist that it's all a total coincidence and that you're really basing it on Hamlet. Don't insult my intelligence. And it wouldn't matter so much if Disney was a little nicer about other people borrowing their things, but these are people who insist that they own Winnie the Pooh. This webpage lays it out better than I could.
The other thing that bugs me is the way they depict hyenas. Apparently when they were making the movie, they went to visit a hyena research colony. The person they talked to, Laurence Frank, asked them if they were going to do a negative portrayal the way hyenas had been depicted in the past, and they said “nah, nah, of course not." Which of course was total bullpucky.
Hyenas get a very bad press, and they always have. They're witches, they're grave robbers, they're hermaphrodites, they're greedy, they steal from noble animals such as lions.
Let's face it: "cute" is probably not the word we want here. Here is a great article on hyenas, and here is a great quote from it: "The climax of the hunt is dramatic but not pretty. While lions and cheetahs are equipped to suffocate their prey, hyenas don’t have the physiology or inclination. Instead, they just start feeding. I had to admire their gory
simplicity - your prey can’t run away if you’ve just eaten its legs." Well, maybe that isn't pretty, but my ham sandwiches don't try to make a break for it.
Long article on the portrayal of hyenas. Warning: it's really long!
Hyena funfax:
They're matriarchal. Normally you would not see three hyenas living all by themselves, but if you did, Whoopie Goldberg the adult female would totally be in charge. If a male hyena really wants to “feel the love tonight,” he'd better be really submissive to a female hyena.
They're very communicative, and they're very well organized. The laughing and whooping and yips are part of the way they hunt.
They actually do most of their own kills. If you see a bunch of hyenas "skulking" around a noble lion eating his prey, it's just as likely that the hyenas did the work and the noble lion scared the hyenas off to eat their food.
( Predators stealing food from each other. "It's the circle of liiiiiife. . .mm, mm, good.")
Notice also that the Lions are lionesses. That's because lionesses do most of the hunting, which The Lion King also got wrong.
The sexuality thing is actually true. It's hard to tell which hyenas are female and which are male just by looking at them, because the females have huge clitorises that they actually give birth through. Naturally, lots of people have found this objectionable, from the ancient Greeks to Teddy Roosevelt to Papa Hemingway, because God forbid that you can't tell a male by his equipment or that it doesn't constitute a huge social advantage.
(Oh look! It's hyenas goose-stepping and taking orders from a lion, exactly the way they don't in real life!)
Look, animals are interesting the way they are. you don't have to make crap up. And I find it really distracting when a kid's story or movie gets something really wrong. Right now, one of my guilty pleasures is re-reading the jungle book: not the Disney movie, but the actual Rudyard Kipling book. I know it is colonialist like whoah, but I think it's cool because Kipling is pretty good at depicting animals. For example, it sounds too good to be true that Shere Khan the Tiger could possibly have Tabaqui the jackal as his sidekick. After all, don't villains always have sidekicks? He must have made that up. But evidently, lone jackals do sometimes hang around with Tigers. The jackals attract the tiger's attention to prey and get to share in the snacks.
( Because I love it, and because videos are fun, here is the Chuck Jones version of "Mowgli's Brothers." You'll notice that Tabaqui looks a lot like Wile E Coyote.)
This is a much better book on hyenas. Go ahead and click on the “look inside” link. The pictures are very cute!
Anyway, I'm sure that was much more than you want to know, but at least it's off my chest now. And now some of my students will be very happy that they don't have to listen to all of this all over again in the future!
So since I was planning to go out dancing tonight and hurt my wrist and elbow so badly that I don't want to drive, and seeing as how I am on pain killers anyway, I figured I would just stick this out there on the inter-webs.
Disclaimer: this was probably a lot better when I typed it up the first time, before I exhaled into my dictation microphone and it somehow erased absolutely everything.
I'm sure some of you have already heard these arguments before, but you probably haven't heard them from me.
I probably wasn't disposed very well towards this movie when it came out. They were playing “Can You Feel The Love Tonight “ over and over at my gym for months before it was released. To this day, I cannot hear that song without screaming.
Maybe you have to be my age to be startled by the way The Lion King rips off Kimba The White Lion. My mother certainly hadn't heard of it; I don't think they show it on television now. But when I was a kid in the late 1960s (pause for you to do the math), there wasn't a lot of choice when it came to children's programming. You watched what was on. That's how I wound up watching The Jim and Tammy [Faye Bakker ] Show, because there were puppets and beggars couldn't be choosers. Cartoons were cartoons; they weren't for grown-ups. Japanese cartoons weren't "anime" yet; there weren't any conventions and there wasn't a fan base that I know of. There were just Japanese cartoons that little kids watched on TV. And this is what I remember:
Click to view(Admit it: it's cute.)
So I remember being very startled when I first saw The Lion King:
(Wait, what? Was that Pride Rock?)
Apparently when they asked Matthew Broderick to do the voice of Simba, he said “hey cool! I totally loved that cartoon as a kid!"
Look, there's nothing wrong with borrowing things, but at least admit you're doing it. Don't insist that it's all a total coincidence and that you're really basing it on Hamlet. Don't insult my intelligence. And it wouldn't matter so much if Disney was a little nicer about other people borrowing their things, but these are people who insist that they own Winnie the Pooh. This webpage lays it out better than I could.
The other thing that bugs me is the way they depict hyenas. Apparently when they were making the movie, they went to visit a hyena research colony. The person they talked to, Laurence Frank, asked them if they were going to do a negative portrayal the way hyenas had been depicted in the past, and they said “nah, nah, of course not." Which of course was total bullpucky.
Hyenas get a very bad press, and they always have. They're witches, they're grave robbers, they're hermaphrodites, they're greedy, they steal from noble animals such as lions.
Let's face it: "cute" is probably not the word we want here. Here is a great article on hyenas, and here is a great quote from it: "The climax of the hunt is dramatic but not pretty. While lions and cheetahs are equipped to suffocate their prey, hyenas don’t have the physiology or inclination. Instead, they just start feeding. I had to admire their gory
simplicity - your prey can’t run away if you’ve just eaten its legs." Well, maybe that isn't pretty, but my ham sandwiches don't try to make a break for it.
Long article on the portrayal of hyenas. Warning: it's really long!
Hyena funfax:
They're matriarchal. Normally you would not see three hyenas living all by themselves, but if you did, Whoopie Goldberg the adult female would totally be in charge. If a male hyena really wants to “feel the love tonight,” he'd better be really submissive to a female hyena.
They're very communicative, and they're very well organized. The laughing and whooping and yips are part of the way they hunt.
They actually do most of their own kills. If you see a bunch of hyenas "skulking" around a noble lion eating his prey, it's just as likely that the hyenas did the work and the noble lion scared the hyenas off to eat their food.
( Predators stealing food from each other. "It's the circle of liiiiiife. . .mm, mm, good.")
Notice also that the Lions are lionesses. That's because lionesses do most of the hunting, which The Lion King also got wrong.
The sexuality thing is actually true. It's hard to tell which hyenas are female and which are male just by looking at them, because the females have huge clitorises that they actually give birth through. Naturally, lots of people have found this objectionable, from the ancient Greeks to Teddy Roosevelt to Papa Hemingway, because God forbid that you can't tell a male by his equipment or that it doesn't constitute a huge social advantage.
(Oh look! It's hyenas goose-stepping and taking orders from a lion, exactly the way they don't in real life!)
Look, animals are interesting the way they are. you don't have to make crap up. And I find it really distracting when a kid's story or movie gets something really wrong. Right now, one of my guilty pleasures is re-reading the jungle book: not the Disney movie, but the actual Rudyard Kipling book. I know it is colonialist like whoah, but I think it's cool because Kipling is pretty good at depicting animals. For example, it sounds too good to be true that Shere Khan the Tiger could possibly have Tabaqui the jackal as his sidekick. After all, don't villains always have sidekicks? He must have made that up. But evidently, lone jackals do sometimes hang around with Tigers. The jackals attract the tiger's attention to prey and get to share in the snacks.
( Because I love it, and because videos are fun, here is the Chuck Jones version of "Mowgli's Brothers." You'll notice that Tabaqui looks a lot like Wile E Coyote.)
This is a much better book on hyenas. Go ahead and click on the “look inside” link. The pictures are very cute!
Anyway, I'm sure that was much more than you want to know, but at least it's off my chest now. And now some of my students will be very happy that they don't have to listen to all of this all over again in the future!