'The Lion King' Is Pro-Monarchy Propaganda
You’ve probably seen ‘The Lion King’. It’s a childhood staple for basically everyone under the age of 30. And rightly so, it’s a fantastic movie. The songs are amazing, the characters are well-developed, and the art is wonderful. It’s a cultural giant.
Unfortunately, it’s also pro-monarchy propaganda designed to trick unsuspecting children into supporting unjust hierarchies.
Let’s just look at the set-up of the movie. Simba is born, the lion prince of the Pridelands, son of the king. He is taken to the top of a big rock and all the animal kingdom bows down, worshipping him, the new member of the lion monarchy. The sun shines dramatically down on him, a symbol of nature itself joyously celebrating his birth. Everything in the movie tells us that Simba’s birth, and, by extension, the monarchy into which he is born into, are ultimately good things for all the animals.
This, however, is utter rubbish. What gives lions the right to rule over other animals? Why do all the animals worship them? Why would an antelope be celebrating the birth of a creature that eats it?
Sure, we are given the “circle of life” explanation, telling us that, actually, it’s ok for lions to mercilessly consume prey because when lions die, they turn into grass, which other animals then eat. But this ignores the fact that this still means that lions will live much longer than other animals, and that every animal’s body turns into grass when it dies, so the whole justification means nothing. The circle of life exists purely to trick the viewer into seeing monarchy as sensible.
We can also see the movie trying to propagandise us about the hyenas. They are othered, portrayed as evil and incapable of fitting in. They are lit in greens and reds, giving a sickly and malicious feel to them. Some shots of the crowds of hyenas seem reminiscent of shots from Nazi films about their soldiers. What, I wonder, could ‘The Lion King’ be trying to tell us by doing this? We are told that the hyenas are excluded from civilised animal society because they… eat too much? Keeping in mind that a vicious predator species is the ruler of this society, this reasoning is nonsense.
And the nonsense reasoning is the entire point. ‘The Lion King’ is not interested in justifying its unjust power structures. All it needs is hand-wavey mysticism and a vague ‘feeling’ to explain the reasons for how society is organised. This is exemplified in Scar’s rule of the Pridelands: the colour palette switches to darker browns, reds and greys, contrasting with the bright colours of happiness at the beginning; the animals become discontented because the wrong lion is ruling over them; a drought comes out of nowhere, once again using nature as a symbol, this time for the innate wrongness of Scar’s rule and the implicit endorsement of Simba’s rule to come. And, of course, all of this is reversed when Simba retakes his rightful place on the throne in the closing minutes. The movie would seem to suggest that Simba’s direct family have an unimpeachable right to rule over all the lesser races of the plains.
So. There you have it. ‘The Lion King’ is dangerous propaganda, arguing unashamedly for the continuation of unjust hierarchies. And you enjoyed it. You terrible, terrible human being.