Examples Of Sexism In The Lion King

Disney's Lion King is one of the most famous and controversial animated movies of all time. The movie contains some very important aspects of 20th century American culture such as capitalism, racism and sexism. The hidden messages of these delicate aspects for the society make the movie very controversial and criticized in different ways. Antelopes eat the grass and lions eat the antelopes. When lions die, they become the grass. It’s the circle of life, the beautiful simplicity of nature. (Allers & Minkoff, 1994) The message of capitalism is being given clearly by king Mufasa to his son Simba from the very beginning of the movie. Basically, what they want to say is that big fish eats little fish. In this case, lions are the powerful class and they own the lower classes such as antelopes and grass. Although all of the animals live in the same kingdom, decisions are only made by the boss, Mufasa. Racism is also another important hidden message of the movie. Whereas all the good lions are light-colored, the only bad character among them, Scar, is dark-colored. Besides Scar, hyenas can also be seen as a clear representation of racism. They are dark-colored too and they live in the elephant graveyard. Simba …show more content…
The issue of sexism is firstly stressed in the title of movie which is “The Lion King” and not “The Lioness Queen”. The movie naturalizes and maximizes the ideology of males ruling a place; while it minimizes the role of female lions in the social structure of actual prides. (Benshoff & Griffin, 2009) Female lions are only seen as trivial characters who only brush their children and go hunting. They can’t make any kind of decision since this matter belongs to only male rulers. The kingdom is ruled by patriarchal privileges. When the king dies, his son becomes the new ruler automatically and has the right to govern the property of his