Hi kids!
Today I wanna talk to you about the Disney classic The Lion King (or, as the Germans call it, Der König der Löwen).
Now, Lion King and I, we go way back. It was one of the first movies I watched in the cinema, and the first time a movie was an event rather than a timewaster on a rainy day. I remember getting up early, putting on some nice clothes, and then driving all the way to Brussels (the capital of Belgium, and, as far as my seven year-old mind knew, THE WORLD!) to attend the film’s premiere.
I was stoked. I had gotten a Donald Duck magazine subscription a few months prior, my sister had gotten me a Goofy hat from Euro Disney, I had a Dale plushie and an Aladdin poster… I was a Disney fanboy, hardcore to the bone.
Needless to say: I loved the shit out of the Lion King. And for years to come, I loudly proclaimed it one of the great Disney classics. The music! The art direction! The story!
What a masterpiece!
21 years passed – a little something like this:
2015. Saddam Hussein was dead, Facebook had taken over the world, and I found myself in Hamburg, on a boat across the Elbe, on my way to watch the stage musical version of, you guessed it, The Lion King. I was excited. This was going to be epic.
Only it wasn’t.
Now, the musical was great! Brilliant performances. Great costumes. Incredibly creative design.
But what the fuck, Disney?
This isn’t a story about heroism, or growing up, or taking up responsibility and finding your place in the philosophical Circle of Life.
This is the story about asshole lions who rule the land – “everything the sun touches”, so pretty much everywhere liveable – by preying on their powerless citizens and rationalize their debauchery by saying “it was meant to be”.
The Lion King is 18th Century France.
And Simba is the Sun King.