Tuesday, 20 November 2018

On Lions and the American Way.

Can you believe that I’ve never seen the movie The Lion King? As far as I’m able to judge, every person on planet Earth knows and loves The Lion King. Except me.

Well, today I found a copy of the DVD in the village book exchange and decided it was time to lay this troublesome ghost to rest. I made 15 minutes and 41 seconds tonight before I could stand the assault on my sensibilities no longer and switched it off.

It began promisingly with, insofar as the limitations of the animated format would allow, a reasonable evocation of the Romance of Africa. And the opening song was a splendid African one sung by a splendid African voice in some splendid African language.

And then it went downhill rapidly: down, down, down into that deep vat of excessively sugary gloop on which Disney Studios founded its unenviable reputation. When it got to the point where two little lion cubs began singing a typically soggy, Disneyesque song in the kind of voice explicitly reserved for the classic, pre-pubescent American brat, my strength of purpose evaporated. Shame, but there it is.

 
Did you know that lionesses will sometimes gang
up on a lone male and kill it?

(And I’m aware that my posts of late have exhibited an apparent hint of anti-American bias. Sorry, Americans; no offence meant. It’s just that I’ve felt a little swamped lately by manifestations of the negative side of the American image – most notably Trump, Walt Disney, gun crime, and support for the alt-right Establishments in Israel and Saudi Arabia. Trump’s assertion that the Saudi regime is a fine and upstanding one because it buys lots of American guns is both irrational and difficult to swallow. I expect I’ll get over it.)

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