Review Assignment: A Mighty King (an essay with option 1, a story)

In my opinion Nala would make the ideal ruler of Pride Rock.  Unlike Simba, she never runs away.  In fact, she criticizes Simba when he tells her that he intends to run away, saying "I thought you were brave."  When she meets Simba in the jungle, she tries to persuade him to return to the Pride Lands, telling him that the Pride Lands have become a wasteland, but he refuses until Rafiki shows him Mustafa's spirit urging him to take his rightful place as King of the Pride Lands.  These examples show that, while Simba is morally superior to Scar (and who isn't?), Nala is morally superior even to Simba.  Finally, she is physically more powerful than he is: she defeats him twice in a wrestling match, once when they were cubs and once when she meets him in the jungle.  The relevance of physical superiority is that Simba reclaims the kingship from Scar by defeating him in combat.  It would have been easier for Nala to defeat Scar than it was for Simba to do so; so a higher percentage course of action would have been for her to challenge Scar herself and become the Queen of the Pride Lands, with Simba as her consort, rather than trying to persuade Simba to challenge Scar, hoping that he was up to the task.  Unfortunately the succession rules wouldn't have allowed her to become Queen without Simba becoming King and her becoming his mate, because she wasn't born into the royal family, and besides, she's female.

But now, let's suppose that Nala had challenged Scar, defeated him in combat and proclaimed herself Queen of the Pride Lands, and that Simba was content to be her consort.  At first, her subjects welcomed her, considering her to be the ideal ruler because she was brave right from the outset and she rid them of that evil Scar, but very soon a crisis occurred: the drought continued; so the grass didn't grow, the herbivores didn't return to the Pride Lands and the lions continued to be hungry.  It soon became evident to all the lions that it wasn't Scar's villainy that caused the drought; it was that he had challenged the established order of things.  He did so explicitly when he admitted that he was in the "shallow end of the gene pool" in terms of physical strength but claimed that he was nevertheless more fit than Mustafa to be King because he was smarter.  By replacing Scar as ruler of the Pride Lands, Nala didn't reestablished the "proper" order of things, because she's not Mustafa's "rightful" successor – Simba is – and besides, she's female.  Some of the lions demanded that she abdicate in Simba's favour in order to appease the gods who had made the rains stop, while others recommended that they explain to the gods that the established order isn't necessarily the best one and pray to the gods to bring back the rains.  Being a true democrat, she took the matter to a vote.  Out of love for Nala, the majority voted for the latter alternative, reserving the former one in case the gods refused to answer their prayers.  Fortunately, the gods saw the light and allowed the rains to return to the Pride Lands, bringing life there back to normal.

Well, not quite normal, because the hyenas were still in the Pride Lands.  Some of the lions recommended that the hyenas be driven out of the Pride Lands so that the lions would have a monopoly on the prey, while others argued that they be allowed to stay as long as they contented themselves with scavenging the meat left over by the lions after they had eaten their fill: by stripping the leftover meat off the bones before it rotted, the hyenas would serve to eliminate a source of disease.  Again, Nala took the matter to a vote, and again the majority voted for the latter alternative.  The deal was struck with the hyenas, life returned to better than normal, and Nala was universally recognized as the ideal ruler of the Pride Lands.

I think it should be obvious now that I see some problems with this movie: it seems to be saying that any challenge to the established order of things necessarily makes things worse.  In my opinion this film is a step backwards from Disney's recent films despite the presence of a strong female character because it doesn't let her assume the leadership she deserves, and it also tends to lend support to those who oppose immigration.  Since this film was made in 1994 instead of 1954, I don't believe that this was the intention of Disney Studios, but I still consider it unfortunate.

Review Assignment: To King or Not to King (prompt 2 without Hamlet, with a song)

In 1917 the Russian Czar Nicholas II (the analogue of Mustafa) was overthrown by Kerensky, who in turn was overthrown by Lenin (the analogue of Scar) and his band of Bolsheviks, who killed the Czar's entire family and favoured the proletariat (the analogue of the hyenas) over all the other social classes.  They also nationalized all foreign business interests without compensation and set an example to workers all over the world, forcing their employers to make concessions to their workers to avoid revolutions in their countries.  In response, the Western policy makers did their best to institute a change of government in Russia, from the intervention of 14 foreign countries on the side of the Whiteguards to the economic blockade that lasted until the Great Depression forced them to seek trade with any willing partner (the analogue of the rains stopping when Scar overthrew Mustafa).  Just as it wasn't Scar's villainy that made the rains stop, so too was it not the villainy of Lenin or his successors that made the Western powers continue to punish Russia – after all, the U.S. slapped an economic boycott on Chile and supported a fascist coup there when Allende, a democratically elected president, nationalized the American owned copper mines – it was that Russia, like Chile and so many other countries, challenged capitalist rule just as Scar had challenged Mustafa's rule on the grounds that he was smarter, albeit not as strong.  The economic drought was resumed by Ronald Reagan's decision to impose a crippling arms race on Russia, and as a result the established order of things – i.e. capitalism – was restored in Russia by Boris Yeltsin (the analogue of Simba).

Here is a song that expresses what the new capitalist class might have felt about the change that took place in Russia.  It is sung to the tune of Joy to the World.

Joy to the world, the Reds have gone.
Our country's now for sale.
Let every foreign businessman
Come here and purchase what he can
And you and I will gain
And some poor folks might feel pain,
But we don't give a damn for all those creeps who fail.