The role of the Lion King in the kiddie-fication of movies overall, and of children's movies themselves (after watching for 1st time at 40)

After enjoying watching Aladdin for the first time probably since I saw it in the theater in 1992, I figured I'd catch up on the whole Disney Renaissance period. The target audience was born a bit after me, so I never felt compelled to see them when they were out, nor since. But it's supposedly a revival of a once-great studio, so let's see what it's all about.

I'd seen 45 minutes of Beauty and the Beast during a "teacher shows movie instead of teaching day" in 6th grade. And I actually was taken — against my will — to the theater for The Little Mermaid in 1989, but I was so angry at the babysitter for over-ruling my protest about going to a little girl's movie, that I glared straight ahead and dissociated for the entire movie. Seriously, I did not remember anything I saw on that big screen.

But after Aladdin, I figured those two would be natural ones to see next, and they do form a trilogy. In the music, Howard Ashman & Alan Menken are reviving the Broadway musical genre for the whole family — meaning, some aspects are solely for the kids (slapstick humor, fairytale tone), and other aspects are solely for the grown-ups (SAT words, wordplay, allusions to grown-up culture). In other words, a variety of several things for several audiences — not a single package of the least-common-denominator that involves every audience at every moment.

In the plot and characterization, there are strong-willed Gen-X teenage girls struggling to grow up socially outside their domestic sphere, Gen-X teenage guys leading a life of charming mischief (similar to Bart Simpson on the small screen), and the parents accepting that their kids' lives are at some point beyond their own control and letting things take their course (whether in bittersweet acceptance, or joyful encouragement).

I found each of those three more or less equally as enjoyable as one another.

Then I chose two I hadn't seen even pieces of over the years — Pocahontas and the Lion King. That's right: never saw the Lion King, along with most of the blockbusters from 1994-'95 onward (Independence Day, Men in Black, Titanic, etc.).

Pocahontas tries to continue the trilogy above, but falls flat in the execution outside of the visual area. In the plot and characterization, there was no fantastic or magical element, unlike what you want from a Disney movie, and was too historical. They should have simply done a legend or myth from some Native American group's culture. In the music, it adhered too closely to the classic Broadway show-tunes approach, which sounds too out-of-time and out-of-place. It should have gone New Age and world music to match the Pure Moods visual style and pre-colonial Native American setting. In fairness, the single version of "Colors of the Wind" by Vanessa Williams strikes this tone perfectly — the whole soundtrack should've been arranged that way.

The Lion King was something else entirely, however, and it was being developed at the same time as Pocahontas, but clearly on a different overall path.

First, on the pleasant side, it solved the problem of "reviving the musical format" while being set in an exotic pre-civilized location, where standard show-tunes would sound out of place. Its style went full Paul Simon's Graceland / New Age / world music, dovetailing seamlessly with the '90s multicultural setting and tone. That is, let's learn from and enjoy each other's distinct cultures, maybe even fashion an interesting combination from them.

(As a reminder that childhood influences are not too enduring, the Millennials who were raised in that culturally pluralist '90s climate grew up to destroy it in hysterical accusations of cultural appropriation, etc. As a result, the dominant music in movies today is lowest-common-denominator, zero-risk, decades-old, all-American dad rock. Only the cozy groypers are keeping alive their '90s multicultural new-age environmentalist childhood, for which they have been branded bigots by their woketard "get with the 2010s program already" generation-mates.)

Second, the Lion King avoided Pocahontas' mismatch between visual style and plot / characters by making the visuals more naturalistic than fantastic, and instead indulged in fantasy by making all the characters non-anthropomorphic animals (like Bambi). Combined with the different approach to music, this gives the Lion King a much more coherent and integrated tone throughout the movie, compared to the discordant and disjointed Pocahontas.

And yet the Lion King marked the beginning of a long-term trend toward the kiddie-fication of movies — not just of Disney movies for kids themselves, but the entire output of Hollywood. Before it, as discussed earlier, there were separate things for separate audiences, along with some elements for all. In the Lion King, however, the fare became the lowest-common-denominator to all audiences.

It's not that Tim Rice and Elton John's songs are dumbed-down from the Ashman & Menken approach. It's that they do not have certain things for the kids, certain things for teenagers, and certain things for the grown-ups. Caustic wit, wordplay, enjambment, allusions at the high-school level or above, have gone out the window. Some of the slapstick, gross-out, and anarchic spirit is still there, but that's all aimed at the kiddie audience, and adults can only appreciate it vicariously through their children's enjoyment.

That's not a problem for helicopter parents, who love to live through their kids, treat their kids as their best friends, and so on. But it was unnecessary when the children were the latchkey kid generation, whose parents left them unsupervised and allowed them to enjoy and create their own culture. That was reflected in the wider variety of fare in family movies, with something distinct for everyone, not the least-common-denominator.

As for characters, the main hero Simba comes off as a 5 year-old child for most of the movie, and perhaps an 11 year-old when he supposedly grows up by the final act. That includes his voice actors, who never sound like they reached the teenage let alone young adult stage. If it's a coming-of-age story, it's about reaching the threshold of puberty and adolescence, not young adulthood and grown-up life. The lead characters in the earlier trilogy were all well into adolescence, ready to emerge out the other side into (young) adulthood.

Simba is so contrary to the strong-willed characters of the earlier trilogy, that he stops trying to venture out on his own after a single stern lecture from his father, who had warned him not to go to the dangerous elephants' graveyard. He does go there with a friend, almost gets hurt, and is rescued by his helicopter parent father. Rather than find ways to still venture out on his own, against the wishes of his over-protective father, he's so stricken by his father's disappointment over the act of disobedience, that he decides to never disobey again. It's like playing in the street once, nearly getting hit by a car, then being locked indoors for the rest of your life.

His kiddie nature makes it impossible for him to have real narrative goals, face obstacles, and overcome them — he's just a little kid! It's not believable that he would replace James Earl Jones / Mufasa on the throne, until he was going through the transition from adolescence to adulthood.

As it's related in the song "I Just Can't Wait To Be King," his succession is treated more like something that will happen effortlessly and without challenge. Gee whiz, yay! It's a form of grade inflation and Everybody Gets a Trophy Day, right in line with trends of helicopter parents changing how their Millennial kids were to be treated by the community institutions. Becoming king is not a plausible goal for him, so there are no plausible obstacles in its way — just reminders that he's not meant to be king.

In fact, when he leaves in exile after his father is murdered by his usurping uncle Scar, he decides to enjoy a carefree easy life with two screwball characters, which is celebrated in the song "Hakuna Matata". Not exactly plotting revenge like a would-be king. But even if he were to resign himself to not taking on the usurper, wouldn't he at least want to push himself, face challenges, and grow and mature as a result? Maybe start a training sequence, a la Rocky, to prepare for his eventual face-off with his nemesis, who may come looking for him despite his best efforts to keep hiding out? Nope: he wants to pursue a Peter Pan lifestyle of never growing up.

But that, too, is in line with helicopter parents' wishes for their kids to stay socially and emotionally stunted until they hit 25 or 30, and then they can think about reaching life's next milestones like courtship, marriage, and children. Until then, it's no time to take risks or be a hero. However, insulating oneself from real-life challenges only makes it more difficult to do so later — there's a sensitive developmental window that they end up wasting, as though they had to learn a new language at 25.

Also, being a Peter Pan type means not developing feelings for the opposite sex, as the first step along the path toward raising a family. So unlike the earlier trilogy, where love interests abound, there is no romantic sub-plot in the Lion King. Nala, his female friend from toddlerhood, visits him when they are "grown up" (again, resembling 11 year-olds), and they flirtatiously rough-house for a bit. But that's it — they're barely starting puberty, so their relationship cannot possibly go any further. And so, unlike in the earlier trilogy, there are no same-sex rivals vying for the same person, nor are there disapproving parents, in the romantic plot, which form their own set of obstacles for the main character to overcome.

That's a two-fer in the minds of helicopter parents — if your kid stays barely pubescent forever, not only will they never get distracted by the opposite sex, you will never have to play an active role in their love life, whether expressing disapproval, learning to accept their choice that you don't agree with, seeing them elope, or whatever else. Way too stressful of a role for the "friends of their children" parents to contemplate. If they stay 11 forever, no such problems!

This all leads to the main flaw of the movie, which is that dramatically speaking, Simba is not the protagonist, yet his story takes up the overwhelming majority of the runtime.

The true protagonist is his uncle Scar, whose (believable) goal is to become king, and who is driven by overweening ambition. There are two major obstacles in his way. First, his brother the incumbent, which obstacle he overcomes by murdering him. And second, his kiddie nephew, the next-in-line, who he guilt-trips into leaving the community and orders some hyena minions to murder him for good measure. His actions are what drives the narrative forward. Simba is at best an antagonist, although he isn't much of a willful obstacle to Scar's actions for most of the movie.

Scar does not act alone, but forges alliances with the hyenas, reaching dictatorial status. But over time his misrule leads to famine and stagnation, stirring his allies to question their continued loyalty, and throwing up another obstacle to his rule — attempting to placate unruly subjects and allies, through duplicity and threats.

He grows suspicious and superstitious, snapping at anyone who utters the name of his brother the former king. This is the start of a descent into madness, when he becomes undone by his own fatal flaws of pride, ambition, and disloyalty. Ultimately, when Simba returns to confront him, he does not even finish off the usurper himself — it's Scar's erstwhile allies the hyenas who end up tearing him apart, after hearing of his betrayal.

For all the risible talk about this movie resembling Hamlet, which it does not at all, it actually resembles Macbeth. However, unlike the Shakespearean play, the villainous protagonist in the Lion King gets hardly any time before the audience, which is a real wasted opportunity since it's rare to find protagonists who are unsympathetic villains.

Here, yet again, we see the aesthetically corrupting influence of the namby-pamby helicopter parent audience. This could have been a fascinating "Macbeth for kids," set primarily in the dark Gothic elephants' graveyard and the post-apocalyptic Pride Rock, rather than the serene grasslands and the bright luscious jungle. But that would have given too much screentime to the bad guy, and hardly any at all to the plucky underdog good guy.

Helicopter parents are convinced that kids imitate whatever they see in pop culture, in proportion to the length of time it is presented to them, as though their brains were totally passive imprinting tablets. Lots of screentime for the bad guy = improper assignment of role models! In reality, the human brain, even an immature one, looks at roles structurally to see whether they're good or bad, to be imitated or avoided. But paranoid helicopter parents really think their kids can't tell that the murderous usurper who is undone by his own fatal flaws, is the bad guy, and not to be imitated.

By 1994, the window had closed on the genre of dark children's movies, whose heyday was the second half of the 1980s, but whose Gen-X influence still trickled into the early '90s, including Beauty and the Beast. As the Disney Renaissance progressed, though, it quickly shifted to helicopter parents and their eternally bubble-wrapped Millennial children as the target audience. I still have to go through the movies after Pocahontas, but I can already tell it'll be more of the same.

They couldn't recapture the magic of those first three key movies again. At the superficial level, it may have been the loss of Howard Ashman to AIDS part-way through the making of Aladdin. But how was he given such central creative roles in the first place? And why was no successor found? It was due to a change in the zeitgeist, which had been warm to someone like him in the '80s and early '90s, but gradually shifted toward a more lowest-common-denominator, helicopter parent-approved model afterward.