A Review of the Animated Cartoon Movie - The Lion King. A Lion’s Dominance in the Animal Kingdom

I didn’t intend to review this movie until a Hubber on HubPages prompted me to do so after a positive comment on my avatar. Going back to the day when I watched the animated cartoon movie “The Lion King”, I got inspiration for my avatar as a cartoon lover.

Courtesy of the Internet Movie Data Base (IMDb), the cartoon movie “The Lion King” which was written by Irene Mecchi and Jonathan Roberts was launched in 1994 under the directorship of Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff. The key actors were Matthew Broderick (Adult Simba’s voice), Jeremy Irons (Scars’s voice) and James Earl Jones (Mufasa’s voice). The Lion King rose to became an instant hit among both the young and the old alike. It gained a popularity Meta score of 84 out of 100 points.

The movie was based on the story line of a lion that was deceived into believing that he murdered his dad and was driven by guilt into exile thereby abandoning his expected role as a future king only to return later to reclaim his territory. A must watch for children due to its eternal appeal over time. The coming of “The Antz” was another fitting reminder of “The Lion King”. We look forward to more such animated cartoon movies in future.

I couldn’t help thinking a lot about lions and asking myself, why would the king of the jungle run away from its place of habitation. Although the movie paints a rather friendly picture of the lion, reality reveals quite the opposite. This big brave ferocious creature of the feline species of wild animals is more used to a life of dominance than being tamed.

When a lion is born, it resembles a kitten in outlook, gentleness and fluffiness. This cub will grow and develop to youthful stature on to adult maturity where it overwhelms even man’s size by great measure.

The lion will seek to dominate its pride and all lionesses therein, immediately it enters maturity and its natural ability to sire off springs. The lion will not entertain interference or challenges from other male lions in the pride.

The role of the lion king in the pride is to protect the entire pride against intruders, spy the environment and ensure safety from its high vantage position where it keeps vigil and secures its territorial boundaries by urinating on its peripheries. What I found to be rather strange is that the lion king never hunts while in the pride. This task is relegated to lionesses in the pride.

Ironically, immediately a kill is made by the lionesses, they all vacate allowing lion king to feed to satisfaction first, before they come eating the remains. Of course the king eats the best portions. Lion king will majestically walk away and sit down to lick its paws as it watches other members of its pride feeding.

One day, when lion king is old, weak and sick, a younger stronger opponent will arrive, take dominance and chase the older lion off to die a lonely miserable death in the bush of sickness and due to its lack of hunting skills that lionesses have sharpened with time, especially if it fails to catch smaller vulnerable preys. Don’t you think the king of the jungle deserves a more fitting end than this? There is something sad about male dominance, but this is the world as it is.