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Media perpetuates and reinforces certain ideologies to its audience, and Disney, as a leading entertainment industry, takes part in communicating such ideologies, whereby the company has gone through (and still goes through) controversies and criticisms regarding representations of racial and ethnic Others and White supremacy in its texts. Thus, this post will explore the significance Disney Company texts have in contributing to racial stereotypes and sustaining White ideologies within the motion picture, The Lion King (1994).

With films targeting the masses, it is important to note that the audience becomes subject to being influenced by the ideologies the visual texts portray. Therefore, color symbolism should not be dismissed in Disney films (and other cinema production alike). A common color symbolism found is the binary opposition of black and white used to represent good and evil. One of Disney’s most profitable movie, The Lion King (1994), is a text that clearly demonstrates the use of this binary opposition, where white is associated with goodness and black depicts evil. The motion picture is also a significant text that carries layers of meanings in representing the Other. In terms of color symbolism, there is an evident distinction made between the lions. The protagonists, Mufasa and Simba, have a light color coat, as opposed to Scar, the antagonist, who has darker fur. Characters of color are often presented as villains, and Scar is no different. Furthermore, Disney texts are renowned for the use of caricatures, where specific characters represent certain racial groups. Disney has been criticized heavily for negative representations of non-dominant cultures, where in The Lion King, the hyenas depict the poor, lower class that constantly complain about the lions holding power. The hyenas mimic the inner-city minority stereotypes as sinister and thieving, and are often referred to as stupid in the film.

Likewise, there are clear distinctions made in the geographical landscapes in which the characters inhabit; the ‘good’ characters live in bright, colorful sceneries while the villains live in dark tone terrains. This distinction is significant when translating the two areas in political terms. Hence, it is important to note that the movie demonstrates Disney’s Africa as an allegory of Disney’s America. Like many other Disney texts that explore foreign land, The Lion King, likewise, only borrows the geographical landscape. This is evident as the movie fails to reflect any African historical time. The allegory implies the hyenas and Scar are outside of the ‘circle of life.’ Thus, when Simba and Nala find themselves in the dark elephant graveyard outside the kingdom, they are in the American inner city. The distinction is made as the speech of the hyenas reflects Black English and Latino slang, done through the voice of Whoopi Goldberg and Cheech Marin. Therefore, the surroundings outside the kingdom represent Black and Latino American space that is denied in American society. In other words, America’s circle of life excludes the lower class Black and Hispanic groups, as the “polity would be polluted and rendered uninhabitable by the hyenas’ presence.”

Moreover, the film carries a Euro-centric picture of Africa, where Africa is ‘Unhistorical’ and Negroes are incapable of development or culture. Thus, “Disney’s image of the circle of life reduces Africa to the endless reproduction of a natural and pre-historic course of life” and the antagonist, Scar, is one that thinks historically. Scar dreams of uniting lions and hyenas together to revolutionize the existing, natural, never-ending ‘circle of life.’ Thus, Scar’s plan that disrupts natural order comments that Africa’s utopian state is one away from history. Therefore, The Lion King exemplifies hidden messages within the characters and narrative, whereby the hyenas represent the minorities. While some argue the key message of the film is that differences, like that of Timon and Pumba, can be overcome by shared values and characteristics that lead to unity, the hyenas are depicted as a intolerable group that will eventually corrupt the ‘circle of life.’ Thus, this highlights Disney reinforcing socio-political and ideological values of White supremacy. Hence, it is important as us as the audience to learn to critically assess the stereotypical codes that are presented in media and the ideologies they project, which may be harmful or problematic to society.

References:

  • Gooding-Williams, Robert. “Disney in Africa and the Inner City: On Race and Space in The Lion King.” Social Identities: Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture 1, no. 2 (1995): 373-379.
  • Haddock, Shelley A, et al. “Images of Gender, Race, Age, and Sexual Orientation in Disney Feature-Length Animated Films.” Journal of Feminist Family Therapy (2003): 19-42.