Disney's `Lion King': Same Old Sexist Jungle Out There

Jul 10, 1994

Neil Chethik

Walt Disney Co.'s new animated feature "The Lion King" is a box-office triumph and a solid artistic and dramatic accomplishment. It's also a fundamentally sexist film. While paying lip-service to new gender roles, the movie strongly reinforces the stereotypes of men as power-driven competitors and women as helpless, hapless victims.

The story centers on the life of a young lion named Simba, who is the son of Mufasa, the benevolent king of a land called Pride Rock.

The early father-son sequences are actually among the movie's least offensive. Mufasa is very active in his son's upbringing, playing affectionately with him, watching over him protectively, but giving him freedom, too.

The treatment of female characters also seems enlightened in the film's early scenes. When Simba wrestles with his best friend, Nala, for example, the female cub gives him a good fight before pinning him.

But we soon learn that this image of female strength is fleeting. Shortly after the wrestling match, Nala and virtually all other female characters disappear from the movie, and Simba finds himself in a violent battle for the throne of his murdered father.

His opponent is his Uncle Scar, who wins the first battle in the power war, sending Simba out of the kingdom and enlisting local hyenas to enforce absolute rule over the female lions.

When Nala finally discovers Simba living a relaxed, worry-free lifestyle many miles from home, she has trouble persuading him to return. "You're our only hope," she tells him, and Simba finally relents. In an epic battle with Scar, he destroys his rival and assumes power.

What are the gender messages a child takes away from such a film? Boys learn that a male is responsible for protecting females and ruling over them. Girls learn that they should depend on male heroes. Both messages, reinforced as they are by other children's books, TV shows and movies, serve to limit the vision and options of each gender.

Most disturbing, these messages are the kind that support our nation's suddenly visible problem of violence in the home. When we tell boys that they should expect one day to rule over their homes, what do we expect them to do if they meet resistance?

Some parents will say that "The Lion King" is just a cartoon. It couldn't affect a child's view of life. This attitude is naive. Children learn gender roles by absorbing the culture around them. And in this era of the VCR, when children watch the same images again and again and again, "The Lion King" and other children's movies are very powerful forces.