The Lion Guard, Defending Anything But Feminism

lion-guard-feminism

To the unsuspecting parents desperate to distract their children, The Lion Guard manifests itself as an effective tool.

Immediately upon hearing the show’s opening theme song, children will abandon their toys and miscellaneous devices to commit their fullest attention to Kion and his lion guard.

Conversely, perhaps it is the subtlety of the program’s most troubling themes that prevents the nostalgic parents from raising their red flags.

The Break-Down: Understanding The Lion King and its Follow-ups

The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride was the seldom-heard-of sequel to The Lion King. In it, Simba had a protagonist daughter named Kiara.

As for The Lion Guard, the creators wanted to focus on the time of Kiara’s youth in the second film for the spin-off.

However, rather than providing a continuation or addendum to Kiara’s story, she was relegated to a minor role to allow her brother, Kion, (who never existed in any of The Lion King movies) to seize her spotlight as the main character.

Boy and girl cub looking at one another, boy cub smirks: "Hi, I'm the brother figure no one asked for and I exist to make you irrelevant"

As a sidenote, it is also interesting that Kiara is suddenly bereft of her individuality. Here, Kion flaunts the stand-out golden colors associated with Simba, whereas Kiara . . .

2

3

. . . Has lost all instances of her distinguished shading tint from The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride (top) and can now hardly ever be recognized amongst her fellow creamy-pelted girl friends in The Lion Guard in any lighting whatsoever (bottom).

Talking About the Main Character: When Retconning Does More Harm Than Good

This wasn’t the only change that was seen in Kiara.

In The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride, Kiara makes it very clear toward the end of this video that she doesn’t want to be queen!

Yet somehow, in The Lion Guard, this trait is entirely discarded in lieu of a minor female character who wants nothing more than to claim her title of nobility.

4

The Lion Guard makes the mistake of depicting this Kiara as arrogant, haughty, and quite “bitchy” for being ambitious about the position she was already born into.

Kiara is happy essentially remaining home and doing nothing of importance (by apparent virtue of her off-screen “training to be queen”) while her brother becomes the outgoing hero.

This is a troubling mentality that Barnett and Rivers remark on in Same Difference:

Women’s brain structures are poorly suited for leadership . . . male brains are created for systemizing–the drive to analyze, explore, and construct a system . . . Women lack the motivation for leadership . . . men are the risk takers . . . jobs are “cheerfully chosen” by women because of their preferences, motivations, and expectations . . . women are just not aggressive enough to succeed . . . In short, these commentators believe that women will never achieve as much as men . . . When men lead, all’s right with the world. When women lead, men are less manly and women are miserable. (Barnett & Rivers, 175-176)

If the “queen-in-training” title is referenced or used as a plot device during an episode, the audience can rest assured that this nagging character will not hold the spotlight, and Kion will soon appear to entertain the children with his rambunctiously boyish antics.

This is merely a coded term for “princess,” a trite title that Disney knows they have bestowed upon their female protagonists or side characters in the past.

It grants these girls the excuse to eventually become pretty ornaments or damsels to be rescued by the males, all under the false illusion that they are being just as practical as the guys.

Kiona looking cool says, "What a pretty title, good thing it doesn't come with any responsibilities, because I was almost relevant"

Hyenas and Clans: What Do You Mean “Not A Patriarch?”

6

Furthermore, The Lion Guard is equally reluctant to depict its first villain, a spotted hyena leader named Janja, as the female he really should be.

In spotted hyena cackles or clans, there is no question about the dominance of the females, which is established the moment hyena cubs are born.

As the video below explains, female hyena cubs have immediate priority over a hyena clan’s oldest male adults, will grow to be larger and stronger than males, and ultimately enforce a matriarch system with their power.

This begs a simple question: why? Why would the creators, who very obviously would have been aware of this research due to their close contact with Disney’s highly convenient Animal Kingdom, decide against this?

“Because it’s a cartoon!” Some readers may readily shout, however this isn’t an appropriate time for that excuse; one of The Lion Guard’s main goals, as their producers stated, was to teach kids about animals.

This is why they made the choice to ensure that animals aside from lions–a hippo, a honey badger, a cheetah, and even a cattle egret–were in Kion’s Lion Guard.

Despite this perfect learning opportunity to add a girl to the outnumbered female character line-up, we are instead treated to a stereotypical gangster-accented punk of a guy hyena.

In fact, he is so attuned to the Guy Code that moments of his feminization (such as a butterfly landing on his head) are occasionally used as gags. This is a character who faces frequent humiliation when he is unable to be tough and intimidating.

As the author of Guyland explains this pattern of behaviors:

Violence, or the threat of violence, is a main element of the Guy Code . . . They use violence when necessary to test and prove their manhood, and when others don’t measure up, they make them pay. (Kimmel 57)

This definitely appears to resonate with Janja, who time and time again bullies and antagonizes other animals in his all-male clan of hyenas.

Perhaps Disney’s concern was that Janja would’ve come off as a butch lesbian if allowed to be an aggressive female, given the extremely masculine and “Guy Code” nature of true female spotted hyenas.

Hyena saying, "Even though no one complained about a pretty androgynous-looking female in the first movie.

Damsels In Distress, With Disturbing Implications

Additionally, this male aggression is repeatedly coupled by female victimization. We have a grand maximum of three recurring female characters, and all of them require rescuing: Kiara, Fuli the cheetah, and Jasiri the hyena are those damsels.

Many complained about the demonization of hyenas in the first movie, and so when a “good,” supposedly independent female hyena appeared in The Lion Guard, the feedback was generally positive!

It was so optimistic, in fact, that audiences very easily ignored that she was anything but a self-reliant female character. In the video below, Jasiri scoffs at Kion for suggesting that she might ever need his help.

Of course, seconds later, trouble arrives in the form of Janja and his clan. She defends herself for a bit, but ultimately, it is Kion who chases off the malevolent hyena clan with an awesome roar.

Her musical number with Kion, “We’re The Same,” begins to sound void of self-awareness once it is realized that . . . They really aren’t treated the same at all, in fact.

As two separate species, they accept each other, and feasibly that is a positive message about appreciating physical differences. Even so, when comparing the sexes, an imbalance is clearly seen in favor of our male hero.

Hyena saying, "Let's not forget how odd it was for a female hyena to be the boys' victim, when all real female spotted hyenas dominate males without exception"

Irritating as this is, it pales in comparison to some of the perverse undertones displayed throughout these damsel cases. The collage below may help to define this persisting theme.

It is always predatory or preying groups of males that plan to abduct or ambush the girls. In each case, the girls are helplessly pinned or too are weak to defend themselves.

9

In the video below, Kiara is lured into the outlands where Janja’s clan awaits to attack. It’s Kion to the rescue once again, and only then does the cackle retreat.

Even this is rather subtle harassment in contrast to Fuli’s encounter with vultures, and it is worth listening to what the villains’ voice of reason says as his parliament encircles her at 1:13.

“Oh, don’t worry my dear, it will all be over soon. After all, we’re not uncivilized.”

Timon looking disgusted

What it sounds like is precisely what the distracted parents are likely to miss, and it’s also what the author of Guyland commentates on in uncensored detail:

Whenever men build and give allegiance to a mystical, enduring, all-male social group, the disparagement of women is, invariably, an important ingredient of the mystical bond, and sexual aggression the means by which the bond is renewed. (Kimmel 238)

A dismayed Scar muses, "Surely you will soon grow tired of this damsel trope?"It’s the sugar-coated conclusions to these twenty-minute-long episodes that obscures an otherwise precarious brand of symbolism. These are metaphors where men are carnivores and women–even if technically meat eaters in this show–are the targets of assault.

Even if one chooses to disbelieve that this is very mildly hinted rape culture slipping into children’s television, there is still something to be said about the high levels of violence toward women that are being depicted today in children’s television.

Final Thoughts and Reflection

Parents are swift to defend this show with a defensively prepared, “It’s just a cartoon, so what’s the harm? They love it, and they’re learning something from it!”

12

The sad truth is, they really are learning something from it; and it isn’t what we’d hope they would about animals or friendship.

They’re learning about Hollywood-contrived, exaggerated discrepancies between males and females, where few actually exist in reality.

They’re learning that they’re watching a “boy’s” show, where mainly boys get to explore.

Overall, they’re learning some concepts about general kindness and courage, but it’s a swing and a miss because gender and messages of equality all conjoin in the same ballpark.

Positive themes and morals aren’t impossible in children’s television, because dedicated shows with reasonable airing times like Gravity Falls create an entertaining space of equality without shoving ideas down the audience’s throat.

Before we begin asking kids to be friendly to each other through media, perhaps we as adults should wonder what we’re making these children think about themselves.

13

References

Barnett, Rosalind, and Rivers, Caryl. 2004. “Leading Questions.” Same Difference. New York: Basic Books.

Kimmel, Michael. 2008. “Bros Before Hos”: The Guy Code.” Guyland. New York: Harper.

Kimmel, Michael. 2008. “Predatory Sex and Party Rape.” Guyland. New York: Harper.


This essay was written and compiled by a student of Dr. Corey Lee Wrenn who wishes to remain unnamed.

The New Frontier of Rape Porn in Animal Rights

Trigger Warning: Graphic descriptions of rape and violence against women.

On a public walkway, women are gathered around.  One woman cradles her baby. Suddenly a gang of men dressed in black with ski masks grab her. They pull her child away, place the baby in a crate, and she screams and cries for her child. The assailants rip open her blouse, exposing her breasts. She is beaten, pulled by the hair, and a man forcibly clamps a breast pump to her nipple. She screams in agony, blood pours from her breast. When they are finished milking her, they beat her about the head, tie a lead to her neck, and drag her to a waiting van, where she is dumped inside.

Screaming woman holding a baby surrounded by men in black ski masks

This assault (what Nonhuman Animal rights organization 269 Life describes as a “performance”) is currently hosted on Youtube (not linked to here because it basically amounts to rape porn). As of this writing, it has over 36,000 views. The top comments are:

Stop it boner!

And

Nice tits!

One commenter requested they go further and actually rape, maim, kill, dismember, and cannibalize her:

LOL! Great! Keep doing this so people can see how radical vegans really are. Why stop at branding and milking? Seems kinda wimpy to not go all the way. C’mon, 269, you can do better than this. Let’s see impregnation! Spaying! Neutering! Euthanasia! How about butchering! Fire up the grill along side the branding iron. A video of you radical vegans chomping on some human steaks would really prove how sincere you are about animals being equal to humans.

But 269 Life reassures us that the message we should be gleaning is that dairy consumption is immoral and exploitative.  Really? Because all I got from watching this video was sick to my stomach, fearful for my life, and flash backs to my own experience with rape and male violence. As for the male viewers, they were apparently turned on and hungry for more.

Dairy farmers do not dress in black with ski masks and dump their victims in vans, the stereotypical rapist does that.  269 Life uses the language of human female rape and murder to tell a story about cow rape and murder.  While there are certainly similarities, 269 Life has botched this job big time.  By the way, the infant used in the rape demonstration was real.  Exposing a baby to this violence, staged or not, qualifies as child abuse.

Incidentally, this group also hosted another street demonstration where three white men were chained and branded with a hot iron.  As with the white woman who was forcibly separated from her child and beaten by her owners, these branded men in chains draw on a history of human slavery.  There’s something disturbing about white skinned activists from a mostly white organization reenacting a history of racial oppression while simultaneously failing to acknowledge it in their narrative.

Man with chain around his neck and a brand on his arm lays on the ground.

In another street demonstration, this time against foie gras (the diseased livers of ducks who are force fed sometimes to the point that their esophagus or stomach ruptures before they are even slaughtered), a male activist forcibly holds down the head of a young woman. Her face shows terror, his shows violent determination. Her hands are bound and a feeding tube is forced into her mouth.  The imagery is, not by coincidence, drawing on the popularity of “gagging” gonzo porn.  Watching a woman gag on a penis, or feeding tube, whichever, is supposed to be sexy . . . especially if she is hurting and humiliated.

Woman in a PETA protest on her knees with her hands tied behind her back, looks scared and in pain, a man is pushing her head down and forcing a feeding tube down her throat

In another demonstration by the Vancouver Orphan Kitten Rescue Association, a parade float that is intended to “raise awareness” for homeless kittens is one big mobile strip joint. Nearly naked women writhe and flip on stripper poles down the street. Somewhere in the crowd of nearly naked women, you can make out a sign that pictures a kitten in need. One commenter writes: “Nice pussies.”

Parade float with many women in underwear and lingerie dancing on poles. A kitten adoption group.

Some third wave feminists hail stripping as “empowering,” but for less privileged women who live the reality of sex work, there is nothing glamorous or liberating about stripping at all.  The profession has extraordinarily high rates of sexual assault, rape, and pimping.

Animal rights activism draws on very real violence against women, children, and people of color, aggravating it, normalizing it, and sexualizing it.  It’s clear from the public reaction, their intention to help Nonhuman Animals is getting completely obscured.  Instead of alleviating violence and suffering, they aggravate it.

 


Corey Lee WrennDr. Wrenn is Lecturer of Sociology. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology with Colorado State University in 2016. She received her M.S. in Sociology in 2008 and her B.A. in Political Science in 2005, both from Virginia Tech. She was awarded Exemplary Diversity Scholar, 2016 by the University of Michigan’s National Center for Institutional Diversity. She served as council member with the American Sociological Association’s Animals & Society section (2013-2016) and was elected Chair in 2018. She serves as Book Review Editor to Society & Animals and has contributed to the Human-Animal Studies Images and Cinema blogs for the Animals and Society Institute. She has been published in several peer-reviewed academic journals including the Journal of Gender Studies, Feminist Media Studies, Disability & Society, Food, Culture & Society, and Society & Animals. In July 2013, she founded the Vegan Feminist Network, an academic-activist project engaging intersectional social justice praxis. She is the author of A Rational Approach to Animal Rights: Extensions in Abolitionist Theory (Palgrave MacMillan 2016).

Receive research updates straight to your inbox by subscribing to my newsletter.