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Stephanie French

Dr. McManus and Dr. Judd-Pucella

LEAD 294

15 July 2009

The Lion King: Simple Children’s Entertainment or Insight into Deeper Messages

Hamlet. Racism. Good. Evil. Symbolism. Leadership. Although not the first

thing to come to mind when these words are heard, these are all depicted in the Disney

movie The Lion King. It is made for children, but there is some deep meaning in the

movie. Unknown to many people, there are different leadership techniques and a wide

variety of metaphors used throughout the movie that are waiting to be found. In this essay

I will address different forms of leadership used throughout The Lion King. I will also

use metaphoric criticism to analyze how the movie relates to Shakespeare’s Hamlet,

explore its relation to society’s ideals of class separation and political transformation,

examine its symbolic usage of the archetypal metaphor of light and dark throughout the

film.

The Lion King is a Disney animated classic, portraying a young lion cub named

Simba going through tough times being born into royalty. With his father Mufasa

successfully ruling their kingdom of Pride Rock, everything seems peaceful at first. But,

the jealous uncle, Scar, plots to kill both Mufasa and Simba so he can be king. He uses a

gang of hyenas to carry out his plan by starting a stampede to trample the king and young

prince. In the stampede, Simba survives and Mufasa is killed by Scar. Scar convinces

Simba that the death was all his fault and that he should run away. As Simba is running,

Scar sends the hyenas after him to finish the job. But, unbeknownst to Scar, Simba

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escapes and starts a new life in a tropical paradise with his new friends Timon and

Pumbaa.

While Simba is growing up in the African paradise without any cares, Scar and

his band of hyenas are destroying his home. They eat everything and treat the lionesses

poorly. Eventually Simba’s old friend Nala goes looking for help and finds him. He at

first does not want to return and neglects his duties. Then, he is eventually convinced and

Nala, Timon, and Pumbaa come to help him take his kingdom back. With a dramatic

finish, Simba unveils that Scar was responsible for Mufasa’s death. He then banishes

Scar, but the hyenas kill him because he tried to blame them. Finally, Simba becomes

king and Pride Rock is restored to its original state.

The Lion King was and still is a very popular Disney movie. The film

grossed $42 million in the first weekend it opened in 1994 (Schwalm). According to the

Internet Movie Database, it was the highest grossing movie that year worldwide and

second in the United States behind Forest Gump. It is still popular and remains the

highest grossing traditionally animated film in history. It has been nominated for a

multitude of awards and has won several, including an Oscar for Best Music and Golden

Globes for Best Motion Picture, Best Original Score, and Best Original Song. It has sold

a tremendous amount of merchandise and been rereleased to VHS and DVD several

times. It has even been made into a Tony Award winning Broadway production also,

which continues to run today (The Internet Movie Database). In addition to being a very

popular movie and play, it can also has a lot to do with leadership theory.

Several different leadership theories can be related

to the various characters in the movie. First, the three most obvious leaders in the film

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have their own bases of power, as identified by J. French and B. Raven (Wren). Mufasa

displays all five of the bases throughout the movie. He uses coercive, reward, referent

power to lead Simba into growing up and eventually taking his place as king. He uses

coercive power because Simba always has a little fear of what a punishment may be if he

misbehaves. But, he also uses reward power with him because he controls the food and

other positive things Simba can receive. Simba also looks up to him and admires him

because he is his father and the king of the Pride Land, which is an example of referent

power. In order to lead the kingdom, Mufasa mostly uses expert and legitimate power.

Since he was born into the position of king, he legitimately obtains his power and the

other animals must listen to him. He has also been in the position for a long time and has

gained expert knowledge on how to run things (Wren).

Scar runs his kingdom a bit differently. He mostly

uses coercive and reward power. Throughout the movie, the hyenas and other animals

are obviously scared of what Scar might do to them; so it is clear that he has a great deal

of coercive power. At the beginning, he provides the hyenas with food and then controls

all the food when he is king. Therefore, he also rules with reward power, because the

hyenas will do whatever he says for the food reward they receive in the end. But,

Scar lacks teamwork with his followers and misuses his authority by taking advantage of

all the lionesses. He makes them hunt until there is no food left and he refuses to move

somewhere else. He also misuses his power because he forces everyone to never say

‘Mufasa’ and punishes him or her if he or she compares him to Mufasa. Along with

misusing his power, he has no clear goals for his kingdom and nearly causes everyone to

starve. He also lacks communication with his followers and the animals rarely

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understand what they are supposed to be doing; such as, when the lionesses run out of

animals to hunt and neither them nor the hyenas know what to do. He also totally lacks

trust within his group because he does not trust the hyenas to do anything right and he

betrays the hyenas in the end (Hartwick Classic Leadership Cases). He betrays them by

telling Simba that it was all the hyenas’ fault that Mufasa was killed.

Although the audience does not see much of

Simba when he is carrying out his duties as king, he uses reward and legitimate power

with his friends. Timon and Pumbaa need Simba’s protection from other predators in the

forest, so in a way that is his reward power he has over them. Simba is also born into the

position of king, so he possesses a legitimate power to rule when he returns to Pride Rock

(Wren). Unlike Scar, Simba has very good teamwork as a leader. He has a “climate of

trust and support among team members” with Timon, Pumbaa, and Nala when they are

on their way to get the kingdom back (Hartwick Classic Leadership Cases). He

established this team sense by working with Timon and Pumbaa as he was growing up to

protect them and help them get food, so it was as if they were a family team. He had also

developed a sense of camaraderie early on with Nala as they were going on adventures

when they were cubs and continued on when they found each other again. Along with

displaying many different leadership techniques, the film also contains several

metaphors. The usage of metaphors in movies is

popular among directors. According to Michael Rabiger in his book Directing: Film

Techniques and Aesthetics, “What makes the cinema so powerful is that settings, moods,

objects, and actions often function as a revealing backdrop for a particular issue or as

metaphors for the inner experiences of the main characters” (Rabiger 117). So,

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metaphors are incorporated in many different ways such as through characters or

backgrounds. They are often used to compare something in the movie to something in

the real world or to add meaning, whether it is intended or not. Metaphors are in a way

used to create “the underlying universal structure, which needs to be expressed and

revealed, [they are] the things that are hidden and unknown, and the unique combination

of real things you use to create the world of your story” (Bonnet). Therefore, metaphors

create meaning to an entire story and they are not always obvious, sometimes they have

to be carefully pointed out. One metaphor

that is a basis for the entire plot of The Lion King is its relation to Shakespear’s play,

Hamlet. Like The Lion King, Hamlet is about a young prince who needs to take on

responsibilities earlier than expected. Just as Mufasa was killed by his jealous brother,

Hamlet is also killed by his brother Claudius and it is unknown to the other characters.

Claudius then takes over the kingdom and marries Queen Gertrude; similarly to how Scar

uses Sarabi when Mufasa is gone. Then, both Claudius and Scar take advantage of their

power. Claudius has a multitude of parties and eventually has to prepare his country for a

war. Correspondingly, Scar has all the lionesses hunt nearly all the food and destroys the

Pride Land. Both destroy the peaceful kingdoms that were established by their

predecessors and both stay in power until the rightful kings return and do something

about it (McElveen). Young Hamlet

is like Simba, who is naive and believes he can do whatever he wants in the beginning.

Both Hamlet and Simba run away from their problems in a way and they need a little

motivation from the ghosts of their fathers to get back on their life track. While “neither

Hamlet Sr. or Mufasa tell their respective sons directly to destroy their murderers,

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although Hamlet Sr. does name the perpetrator directly,” they both take action on their

own (McElveen). Then, both stories end in a dramatic fight. Simba actually fights Scar

himself, but does not actually kill him, the hyenas do. In Hamlet, Claudius has Laertes

fight young Hamlet in a sword fight and Hamlet ends up killing Claudius in the end

(Hamlet Summary). Another difference between the two is that Claudius tries to repent

for what he did wrong, but Scar seems to almost antagonize Simba about it. But, in both

stories, the villain ends up dead. Other similarities

between the two stories are the relationship of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to Timon

and Pumbaa and between Gertrude and Sarabi. Both pairs of Rosencrantz and

Guildenstern and Timon and Pumbaa give relief from the main storylines. Timon and

Pumbaa were more of comic relief for the audience and got Simba to relax and forget his

problems temporarily. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern remind the audience that young

Hamlet has a life besides the expected throne (McElveen). Both pairs in a way, remind

the princes of their fathers and where they should rightfully be. Rosencrantz and

Guildenstern literally bring Hamlet back to Claudius and Timon and Pumbaa remind

Simba in smaller ways of his kingdom. For example, when they are discussing what they

think stars are (McElveen). Gertrude and Sarabi also evoke feelings in their sons to come

back and stop their evil uncles. Prince Hamlet is angered by the way Claudius treats his

mother and Simba gets very angry when he sees how Scar is treating his mother. Overall,

the two stories share related plot lines and their characters have parallel qualities.

Another metaphor

used in The Lion King is the relation to today’s ideals of separate classes. Pride Rock is

presented as a peaceful kingdom except for a dangerous area where the villains live. In

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their animal world, as in the real African world, the lions are at the top of the food chain.

Then, the scavenging animals like hyenas are at the lower end. Overall, Pride Rock is a

very bright place and it is made up of everything the light touches. Then, there is an

elephant graveyard within the kingdom that is enclosed in darkness and is known as a

dangerous place. Although Disney may not be trying to establish this, it is as if Pride

Rock is a thriving city or kingdom and the elephant graveyard is the ‘ghetto.’ So, the

lions are the upper, ruling class and the hyenas are the lower, criminal class. The hyenas’

actual voices in the film are presented as African American and Latino with Whoopi

Goldberg acting as Shenzi and Cheech Marin as Banzai. These races are stereotypically

placed in the lower class, so this can be looked at as a way to establish their subordinate

positions. The kingdom remains a peaceful

place until a corrupt animal from the upper class, Scar, helps the lower class rebel and

gain control of the city. This act of betrayal is a demonstration of how there is “good and

bad in all –not least of all in those at the very top” (Morton). As the hyenas and Scar

obtain power, the Pride Land turns into a dark place, similar to what their original home

in the elephant graveyard resembled. They ate all the food and drank all the water in the

area, which caused other herds of animals to move to different places. This occurrence in

the film is similar to “the ongoing reproduction of urban poverty” in real life (Morton).

Sometimes, it has been known to happen that when people from inner cities and

ghettos enter a peaceful city it can change things. It causes crime rates to go up and like

the animal herds in The Lion King, it causes people to relocate to create a new peaceful

home. In relation to the hyenas, Timon and Pumbaa

are also lower on the food chain than the lions. But, Timon and Pumbaa are seen as “a

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childlike image of the working man, happy and cheerful in the meritocracy because he

knows his place and sees the advantages of staying there” (Morton). They are presented

in the movie as less intelligent than the lions but they enjoy their lower status due to the

lack of responsibility. But, they still work for their food by gathering assortments of bugs,

which sets them apart from the lower hyenas. The hyenas only seem to scavenge

whatever is left over from Scar’s meals. Timon and Pumbaa are also different because

they live in another bright, peaceful place where they are friendly and welcome Simba

when they find him. The hyenas unintelligent and rude and they try to kill Simba

multiple times throughout the film, which classifies them as criminals.

The Lion King can also be looked at as a

political metaphor. The casting of specific actor’s voices could even “suggest a transition

from an original Africa, through (corrupt) British colonialism, to contemporary

democracy” (Morton). This is observed because in the film, the first ruler of Pride Rock

is Mufasa, who is played by the voice of an African-American actor James Earl Jones.

He would represent the original Africa. Scar, played by an “aristocratic-sounding

Englishman,” Jeremy Irons, is second to rule and represents the corrupt British

colonialism (Morton). Finally, Simba represents contemporary democracy because two

white Americans, Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Matthew Broderick play him. Relating

back to the class issue, Simba also has Pumbaa and Timon standing with him at the

presentation of his child at the end. This represents how the movie has come in full

circle, but there is greater equality. In the beginning, only the royal family and Rafiki

where permitted, but with Simba ruling the middle class is more equal to the upper class.

It also demonstrates the teamwork between the two classes to ultimately triumph over the

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lower class. One final metaphor found in

The Lion King is the usage of the archetypal metaphor of light and dark. Often the case

with archetypal metaphors, the usage of the dark and light comparison is timeless and can

be used to target any culture. Therefore, the audience can pick up on the metaphor

regardless of what age group or culture they belong to (Osborn). The audience can also

sometimes pick up on them and be influenced how to feel without even knowing because

“archetypal metaphors are grounded in prominent features of experience, in objects,

actions, or conditions” (Osborn). The Lion King displays several different versions of

the light-dark metaphor throughout the film. One way the light-dark

metaphor is used is to differentiate which characters are good or bad. All of the lions

have light colored fur, except for Scar, who has dark brown fur and a black mane. While

Scar already sets himself apart from the other lions, his color further alienates him. The

hyenas also have a dark, ugly color for their fur. Nearly all other characters in the film

have bright, colorful fur or feathers except for them. The color of their fur also may go

back to trying to make them appear as minorities, seeing that many minorities in the

United States have darker skin tones. Plus, some may say that it is implying that

creatures or humans with darker skin tones are bad and the ones with lighter skin tones

are good. Another prominent

way the light-dark metaphor is used in the movie is the relation to the sun. In the first

scene of the movie, the audience sees the sun rising. This new dawn symbolizes the

beginning of the movie and the beginning of the new prince’s life. Mufasa also tells

Simba that their kingdom is everything the light touches which suggests “qualities of

goodness” to the land (Osborn). Then, there is also a dark area, which Simba is not

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allowed to venture into. This suggests that the dark area is a bad and dangerous place.

The darkness unconsciously evokes a cold, scary feeling in the audience. But, the rest of

the bright kingdom, which is filled with warm oranges and reds, evokes a safe feeling in

the audience. The sun also goes down when Simba is preparing to fight Scar in the final

scenes. This symbolizes the end of Scar’s ruling of Pride Rock.

The ‘circle of life’ is a

large theme throughout the movie. Since light and dark relates to the daily cycle of day

and night and the passing of time, the circle of life is also an example of the light-dark

metaphor. In the movie, Mufasa tells Simba about how the lions become the grass when

they die and the antelopes eat the grass and the lions eat the antelope. He is speaking to

him how all the animals are related together in life and occurs naturally through time.

Then, as time passes through the movie it also has the “symbolic conceptions of the past

as dark and the present as light or the present as dark and the future as light” (Osborn).

For example, when Simba first speaks with Timon and Pumbaa, he believes his past is

dark and his new future with them is light. He had just been convinced that he was

responsible for his father’s death, but it was in the past. Then, Timon and Pumbaa

convinced him that you cannot change what is in your past and that he should just forget

about it. His future in the newfound paradise seemed to be very bright. But, when Nala

found Simba and they returned to the Pride Land, he realized he was going to have to

work to get his kingdom back to how it was. It is brought to the audience’s attention

when Timon, Pumbaa and Nala are looking over Scar’s Pride Rock and Simba says,

“This is my kingdom. If I don’t fight for it, who will?” (The Lion King). This realization

made his past seem bright and his future seem dark. Finally, when it was all over Simba

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had his new child and regained his throne, so his future seemed to be bright again and it

was as if the movie came in full circle because it ended with a new prince being born.

Edmund Burke also

illustrates that “a final potential of sun metaphors [is] based upon the eclipse

phenomenon” (Osborn). This implies that the darkness can be short-lived and not

permanent. It represents the darkness as “a period of misfortune in national life [that]

may be only transitory, and that the nation will emerge again quickly into its former

brightness” (Osborn). But, part of the brightness must remain in the darkness in order for

it to survive. The Lion King applies to this because Scar’s life as king did not last very

long. While it did last all of Simba’s adolescent life, the lionesses remained to keep

somewhat of their old home. Just as the darkness was about to consume the whole

kingdom, Simba came back and restored it to its original state.

One final way the light-dark metaphor is used in the film is through fire.

Fire is “the most active, most rapidly changing of nature’s elements, it can represent

youth and regeneration” (Osborn). Fire can also stand for the destruction or purification

of something. In the final scenes of The Lion King Simba and Scar have a dramatic

battle over the kingdom, while entirely surrounded by enormous flames. In these

scenes, the flames can have a number of different meanings. In one way, the flames are

destroying the kingdom that Scar has created. This is also purifying the kingdom of the

evil that Scar and the hyenas ruled with and preparing it for Simba to take it over. They

represent Simba’s youth and how he is going to take the newly purified kingdom and

regenerate it into the paradise that it had once been. Then, rain washes the ashes away, as

if baptizing the land and new life begins to sprout. According to Christians, baptism is

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washing away sins or purifying someone with water. So, as it rains, it is cleansing Pride

Rock and washing away all of the bad things that Scar had done to the land.

The Lion King possesses a large variety of metaphors and

different leadership techniques. Some of the metaphors include the relation to

Shakespear’s Hamlet, others relate to the class and political structure of today’s society,

and several of them pertain to the different light-dark metaphors. The metaphors

analyzed in this paper could also be thought of in different ways. Some think the class

and political metaphors are exaggerations, but it all depends on the person viewing the

film. There is also a plethora of other metaphors that give more meaning to The Lion

King just waiting to be brought into the light.

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Works Cited

Bonnet, James. “Metaphor is King.” Movie Outline: Create Your Screenplay Step by

Step. 2008. 27 June 2009. Movie Outline.

www.movieoutline.com/articles.

Hartwick Classic Leadership Cases: Participant Guide for Glory. “Leadership and

Teamwork.” Oneota: The Hartwick Humanities in Management Institute,

2001. 17.

Hartwick Classic Leadership Cases: Participant Guide for Dead Poets Society. “Misuse

of Authority.” Oneota: The Hartwick Humanities in Management

Institute, 2001. 20.

“Lion King, The.” The Internet Movie Database. 2009. Amazon.com. 26 June 2009.

www.imdb.com.

McElveen, Trey. “Hamlet and The Lion King: Shakespearean Influences on Modern

Entertainment.” 1998. 27 June 2009. www.lionking.org.

Morton. “Simba’s Revolution: Revisiting History and Class in The Lion King.” Social

Identities 2.2 (1996), 311-317. AcademicSearch. Marietta Coll. Lib.

Marietta, Ohio. 26 June 2009.

Osborn, Michael. “Archetypal Metaphor in Rhetoric: The Light-Dark Family.”

Quarterly Journal of Speech. EBSCO Publishing (2003).

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Rabiger, Michael. Directing: Film Techniques and Aesthetics. 2nd ed. Boston: Focal

Press, 1997.

Schwalm, Karen. “Patriarchy in the Pride Lands: A Cultural Analysis of The Lion

King.” 26 Apr. 1995. 25 June 2009. glory.gc.maricopa.edu.

Wren, J. Thomas. The Leader’s Companion: Insights on Leadership Through the Ages.

New York: The Free Press, 1995. 340-347.

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