The Lion King and Religous tolerance

The modern Disney films give almost direct representations of religion and religious concepts.  The well-known film The Lion King provides numerous explicit examples of Islamic, Hindu, and Christian values throughout the entire film.  These new religious inputs into films represent a direct change from the subtle additions of Walt Disney in his original animations.

    In the film The Lion King, Roger Allers, the director, indiscreetly places a positive Christian action into the opening scene and other scenes throughout the movie.  In the opening, Rafiki, a baboon acting as a priest, brings Simba, a lion cub, out of the dark, rubs water and oil upon his head, and soon lifts him high above the congregation in a religious manner.  Pride rock, the rock on which Rafiki lifts up Simba, looks and acts exactly as an alter in a Catholic mass or Christian service.  This act of lifting the child up, rubbing his forehead with water, and the rock as an alter directly correlates to the Christian act of Baptism.  The Lion King also incorporates the idea of Heaven and the Christian belief that our ancestors, or angels, watch over us even after they have died.  The Lion King first incorporates this concept when Simba and his father, Mufasa, look up into the sky and discuss how all the Kings of the past look down upon them.  Heaven and revelation again occurs during Simba’s realization of his destiny when he looks up and the sky and asks for his father.  Mufasa then appears in a cloud and reveals exactly what Simba should do, paralleling the Christian concept of Heaven and revelation.  By incorporating a Christian sacrament into the opening scene of The Lion King and the idea of Heaven and revelation throughout the movie, Disney incorporates recognizable, watered down, religious values and scenes into his cartoons.

            An Islamic presence occurs throughout the movie, although not initially recognizable and still unrecognized people throughout the world, because an Islamic story outlines the entire story of The Lion King.  Discussing Islam in History class, our teacher used The Lion King as an example of how Islam and the Muslim culture influences our world. He discussed how the Islamic story of how a lion loses his father and must return to his home in order to save his home almost represents the direct plot of The Lion King.  Pinsky discusses how Disney made sure to not “’single out any one religion’” (Pinsky 2), so the newer movies follow the same steps by taking a Islamic story and adding Christian and Catholic elements into the movie to provide religious equality.  Roger Allers utilizes this relatively unknown fact to counteract the Christian scenes throughout the movie.  The Lion King also utilizes the moon as another important Islamic symbol that appears throughout the entire film.  In almost all of the night scenes, the moon appears in a crescent shape, which appears as the symbol of Islam as a crescent moon.  This, in turn, accounts for another Islamic image Allers subtly incorporates into the movie.  The moon appears multiple times throughout the movies, even during apparently Christian scenes in order to provide the religious balance Disney stresses during his time creating the company.  In order to keep up with Disney and Pinsky’s belief that religious equality occurs throughout all Disney films, Allers utilizes Islamic oral traditions and common Islamic symbols to provide religious balance.

   The Hindu Circle of Life resonates the loudest throughout the entire film and represents the most prominent idea from The Lion King.  From the opening scene to the ending scene, the film most stresses the Hindu concept of the Circle of Life.  The opening song, “The Circle of Life”, written by Elton John, provides deep and thought provoking messages of the film and clearly represents the Hindu Circle of Life.  Incorporating this Hindu message into the opening scene littered with Islamic and Christian messages provides even more religious tolerance because three of the most practiced religions can see their religious practices and beliefs in the opening scene.  The characters throughout the film mention and preach the idea of the circle of life again reflecting the Hindi values and providing more religious backgrounds.  At the end of the film, Allers plays the song “The Circle of Life” again not only reinforcing the Hindu value, but also reflecting this value by playing his songs in a cyclical nature.  Through consistent mention of the concept of the circle of life and the use of the song “The Circle of Life”, Allers reflects Disney’s stress on religious tolerance and equality.

            In creative and intelligent manners, Allers incorporates all three religions equally throughout the film.  More importantly, Allers utilizes all three religions in the opening Baptism scene in order to demonstrate that religious equality immediately into the story.  Similarly, many of the religious ideals occur together, such as Simba’s epiphany or Simba’s discussion with Rafiki.  Many Hindi, Christian, and Islamic values resonate in those different scenes.  Utilizing Pinsky’s concepts of secular ‘toonism and his description of religious equality, we see the progressive changes from early Disney animations using almost no religion to The Lion King which smothers the viewer with religious subtext and meanings.