First year essay analysing the narrative, genre and gender roles in Disney’s first “The lion King” . Enjoy, Share and Comment.
The Lion King – Narrative and Genre Analysis
Angelica Ourri
Word count : 1640
Introduction
The following essay will be the narrative and genre analysis of the film “The Lion King” (1994 ) with focus on the gender roles and the patriarchal nature of the film . The selection of this film was because of the fact that is a film that has had an impact on generations and is still one of the biggest successes of Walt Disney Picture. It was also Disney’s first original animated film , meaning it was not based on a pre existing story.
Characters and Female roles in the film
To start with, the genre of “The Lion King” is classified as a hybrid of animation , drama , adventure with some comical features . Like most of Disney’s animated films, it follows typical codes and conventions, like the main characters, although they are not human , and the setting.
The movie is set in a kingdom with the main characters being “Mufasa”, the king, “Scar”, his brother, “Simba” his son, “Nala” Simba’s best friend and later on wife, “Rafiki” the Saman, and the sidekicks, “Timon” and “Pumba” on Simba’s side and the Hyenas on Scar’s side.
Vladimir Propp (1983, Introduction”) established a number of characters types and events/functions associated with them. Those character types are found in “The Lion King” as well; there’s the villain who creates narrative complication, “Scar”, The hero that saves the day, “Simba”, the donor who gives the hero something that helps in the resolution of the narrative, “Rafiki” and “Mufasa”, the Helper who aids the Hero in restoring the equilibrium, “Timon” and “Pumba”, the princess that has to be saved by the hero and dispatcher that sends him on his task, both portrayed by “Nala”. These selection of character roles is used in a majority of disney films. Moreover, the women of the film have very little voice, and the main heroine, Nala acts mostly as a manic pixie dream girl, a term coined by Nathan Rabit (2010,p.4) quoting his definition ,this movie character “exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.” Nala’s character serves the purpose of joining and encouraging Simba in his adventure in the forbidden elephant graveyard and encourages him to go back to the kingdom, and be a hero towards as her and the rest of the lioness are in danger, damsels in distress one might argue , under the power of a Male, Scar. The only other purpose Nala serve in the film is to create the love story, as the love factor is a typical convention of Disney films. Other female characters with a substantial role portrayed in the film is Mufasa’s wifes, that mainly acts as a mother, and the female hyena, who although is shown as slightly superior of her 2 brothers, is still below the male leader , Scar. It’s not until the very end of the movie that female lionesses are shown with some power as they engage the fight to retrieve their kingdom.
Furthermore, one could argue that Disney in this film has a pro-homosexual nature, as Timon and Pumba , both males, raise Simba from a young age, this can be seen as a same sex couple raising a kid. It’s also worth noting that Timon is played by a gay actor, Nathan Lane. Also in “Lion King 1 1/2” (2004) Timon is an outcast of his tribe and finds happiness when he meets pumba, the 2 have an unlikely friendship as they are 2 different species and could be argued that they give the “vibe of being a long-time happy couple” (thedarklordkeisha,2011)
Male Hierarchy
Despite the limited voice and stereotypical roles of the females in the film there is also a strong patriarchal nature to the film.The leaders on both sides and the main roles of the film are portrayed by males, also, the saman who although is played by a female in the stage production , is shown male in the film one. Moreover, as Medhurst (1995) argues, stereotypes provide an easy access for the audiences,as explained in the “A2 Media Studies” book (2005, p.108), so in order to really understand the film and the reason of it’s success it’s important to go back and analyse the characters closely. Claude Levi Strauss suggested that all narratives are driven to conflict that is caused by opposing forces, calling this theory binary opposition as explained in the book “Media Studies: Media History, Media And Society” (2001,248). In “Lion King” the binary opposition between good and bad was made clear and straightforward from the very beginning using colour code, appearance and even music. The antagonist Scar, was outcast the king’s brother like other villains including Ursula from “The Little Mermaid” (1989) . In contrast to his brother, Mufasa, he has a darker colour code and a black ,silky and combet back mane to separate from the other lions. Those characteristics along with his scar resemble an outsider and make it obvious the audience that he is the villain. One could argue that Scar’s darker skin tone could also be a negative representation of black people as Alvarado argued in his book “Learning The Media” that one of four stereotypical representations of black people is dangerous.The binary opposition is also created by the eye colour of Scar, as like many animation villains, including “Maleficent” from “The Sleeping Beauty” (1959) and “Rasputin” from “Anastacia” (1997), their eye colour green. This is not the only similarity Scar has with other animation and Disney villains, in various cases, the antagonist has been presented with some physical or mental abnormality/disability, such as Scar’s scar, Rasputin’s anorexic nature, or Jafar’s psychotic character in Aladdin (1992).
However, Scar does not only share similarities with animation villains but also with a historical figure and leader many would consider an anti hero. In Scar’s musical piece , “Be Prepared” the hyenas can be seen goose stepping n a parade as he stands at a higher level and promises them a new era in which he is in control and his followers will never go hungry. The particular scene has been compared to a scene from the movie “Triumph Of WIll”, a 1935 Nazi propaganda film and one could argue that Scar represents Adolf Hitler in the particular scene.(Côté, 2014)
Plot and Narrative
Furthermore,the typical iconography applies to the basic plot and narrative of the story as well.
To start with, The film follows a linear structure in a chronological order while at some points it also uses parallel action.. As Todorov argues (1990, p.29) the story starts with an equlibrium, , then a disequibrium is created, and the movie ends with the restoration of the equilibrium. This basic narrative is even better explain using freytag’s pyramid, as explained by Kenneth Kobre (2012, p.6); The movie starts with the introduction, the birth of the prince, Simba who is later on shown his kingdom by his father, then the inciting incident happens as Scar begins to feel jealous of Simba as he realises he is not anymore next in line to be king and tries to set him up in a plan to murder him in which he fails. The movie continues with the rising action as Scar sets up another plan to have both Simba and Mufasa killed , He succeeds in killing Mufasa, and convinces Simba it was his fault this making him run away. The rising action continues Simba meets Timon and Pumba who raise him and introduce him to their carefree lifestyle, they are also the comical characters of the film. As the primary audience of this Disney picture productions, is children, and also one of the expectations of animation movies by the audience is comedy, the plot moves on quickly from Mufasa’s death to an uplifting turn to the plot and the introduction of the comical characters, to meet with audience’s expectations. However, The climax occurs as Nala finds Simba after years of separation and encourages him to go back and claim his kingdom that has now been taken over by Scar and the hyenas, and this leads to the second part of the climax as Simba fights Scar on pride rock. After the climax, the falling action occurs as Simba wins the fight, and turns the Hyenas against Scar. As the movie ends , the equilibrium is restored with Simba reclaiming his land and the final stage of freytag’s pyramid , denouement, is reached as Nala and Simba have a child together.
Moving on, “The Lion King” uses different technical codes (The Media Student’s Book, 1996, p.38)in order to connote to the audience a meaning There is a lot of use of long shots typically used for landscapes, to capture the culture of african lands, something that could link back to cultural verisimilitude in order to make the film look more authentic, a typical convention of many hollywood film,as argued by Barry Keith Grand (1986, p.180), also when pride rock is shown there is high key lighting that connotes something positive, in the contrary when showing the part that does not belong to pride rock and is consider bad the lighting used is low key to connote danger.
Conclusion
Concluding, “The Lion King” is one of the most successful and highly influential Disney films, and along with “Aladdin” is one of the first Disney animations to portray another culture, in contrast to Disney’s early movies like “Snow White” (1937) or “Cinderella” (1950), with arguably some of the most interesting characters and personalities like Timon and Pumba.However, one could argue due to the time it was made, male hierarchy and stereotypes are highly used , resulting to a misrepresentation of females, something that has changed in Disney’s more recent productions like “Frozen” where females are shown with far more power.
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Disney, Gender and Schizophrenia 