Wrong and Not Strong
By
Matthew Landstrom
A response to Margaret Lazarus’s article
“All is Not Well in Land of the Lion King”
Matthew Landstrom
February 20, 2007
Professor Jaqueline Bradley
English 1302
What is gay? What is racist? What is politically incorrect? Is society offended by something so little? What are we trying to teach our kids? Margaret Lazarus brings up some interesting ideas regarding the content of the movie The Lion King in her article, “All’s Not Well in Land of The Lion King”. Lazarus makes claims that The Lion King intentionally hinted at gay and racist material to point out problems with the society that currently exists. Lazarus presents an argument that relates the movie to being a negative influence on the children who are brought up watching it. In her article, Lazarus takes a poor argumentative stand against The Lion King, calling it homophobic, racist, and wealth biased story, but gives poor evidence to why this is so.
Lazarus claims that The Lion King uses Scar, “seemingly a gay caricature” (Lazarus 1), as the main antagonist. Scar “speaks in an effeminate, limp pawed, British style” (Lazarus 1). She relates Scar to being the bad guy and tearing apart the Pride Lands, because of his homosexuality. Scar also has “no lioness or cubs”, which also could lead to him being gay. It is also customary for strong male antagonists to not show or have shown compassion for anything or anyone, which means that he would not have a family. Scar is only “seemingly gay” though. There are other caricatures that he could be entailing. A British mastermind, with class and style is a very probable alternative to a homosexual character. The evidence that Lazarus gives isn’t sufficient enough to make the bold claims of the Lion King being homophobic. There are so many alternatives to what these character traits could allude to instead of solely to homosexuality.
While the main antagonist is said to being portrayed as gay, the other bad characters are also trying to be portrayed as blacks. The hyenas make up a large part of the movie, and lead to downfall of the Pride Lands. The three main hyenas, one of them played by black actress, Whoopi Goldberg, are in Lazarus’s, seen as blacks that tear apart the community. Whoopi Goldberg speaks “in a clearly inner-city dialect” (Lazarus 1) according to Lazarus, which is another reason why the “ghetto” is shown through on these characters. The hyenas live “outside the kingdom, in a dark, gloomy, and impoverished elephant graveyard. They live dismally jammed together among bones and litter” (Lazarus 1). According to Lazarus, the elephant graveyard is a ghetto, where the black huddle together and live poorly among themselves among the dead, and trash. They are “dark – mostly black – and they are nasty, menacing the little lion prince when he wanders into their territory” (Lazarus 1). Lazarus presents the hyenas and very foul way. Yes, they are mischievous and yes, they are dark colored, but this could also be in effort to keep with the reality of what hyenas actually look like. This is a very poor observation and connection between blacks and how the hyenas take place of them. The hyenas are merely just characters that are black, and one of them happens to be played by a very renowned black actress. Lazarus also explains how the hyenas taking over The Pride Lands as being symbolic of blacks infesting white communities. While in the Pride Lands, “the hyenas over-populate, kill all the game, and litter the once-green land with bones” (Lazarus 1). These are still weak arguments about how the black stereotypes are related to in the movie. The hyenas are merely bad guys that take over the land and make it into a wasteland like they’re used to. In no way were property values and the blacks deteriorating them a connection to the movie.
While the blacks are taking over the pride lands, the privileged and inherited animals of the kingdom ultimately are victorious. Lazarus classifies the kingdom as only catering to those who are wealthy and privileged. Like any kingdom, “the first-born male returns to reclaim power” (Lazarus 2). The new lion king also, “send the hyenas back to the dark, gloomy, bone-filled ghetto. Order is restored and the message is clear: Only those born in privilege can bring about change” (Lazarus 2). Lazarus is claiming that only the privileged can bring about change. Change is very vague. Scar brought about change, even though it was for the worse. Simba brought about change, and it was for the better. Privilege has nothing to do with the ability to change something, as evidenced in the movie. It is also very presumptuous to associate any animal shown in the movie to having privilege or not except for the lion prince. Lazarus’s connections here also put another mark on how the (black) hyenas are seen, as they are forced out of the Pride Land by the “golden-maned” (Lazarus 1) prince. Her argument is weak, because this is just showing how good triumphs over bad, and is not hinting at any societal stereotypes, of white over black, and rich over poor.
Lazarus speaks about how these images are detrimental to the youth who see this movie. She thinks that it will implant ideas about society that will leave them worse off, and technically all of us worse off, because of how our world is being viewed. Lazarus is very complimentary though of children, in expecting that they would pick up on racist insights on the world, from a movie about lions. Lazarus’s arguments are probable but not persuasive enough, because so many other wonderful movies have these same images of white and black, but are not criticized for being racist. The Lion King is a great movie and is a wonderful medium for our youth to consume.
Works Cited
Lazarus, Margaret. All's Not Well in Land of the Lion King. Lion King Article. 2 Feb. 2007 <faculty.smu.edy/jbradle/Lion%20King%20article.htm>.
The Lion King. Dir. Roger Allers. DVD. Disney, 1994.