Gooding-Williams vs. Morton Papers

After reading Gooding-William’s, I will admit that I did not agree with it very much or did not find it all too convincing. I found the concept of “history” that Gooding-William’s and Morton write so much about to be very confusing. I do not think I fully understand what they meant by the depiction of Africa having history or no history. Nevertheless, I would have to say that I think Gooding-Williams provided the more convincing argument. 

First of all, Gooding-Williams provides a clearly stated argument or thesis, which was “By figuring poverty & decline in terms of physical spaces caused by the entry of the hyenas, Disney’s film renders invisible the macropolitical & -economic social relations that reproduce urban poverty.” In addition, Gooding Williams provides provides evidence to support this argument such as quotes and and good analysis of these quotes. In Gooding-Williams’s argument, he quotes Hegel and uses Hegel’s ideas of a “historyless Africa” to support his argument. After quoting Hegel, Good-Williams also immediately addresses the quote and tells readers what they should get from the quote. However, regardless of the fact that Gooding-Williams uses good strategies of providing evidence and then analysis, I did not find this particular argument of a “historyless Africa” and the “circle of life” to be very convincing. Instead, I found it to be confusing and a little too out there to be plausible. In fact, I think his whole argument under the subtitle “Disney in Africa” didn’t really fit in well with his thesis that Disney masks the real conditions that create urban poverty. In contrast, I did find his argument of Disney’s Africa being an “allegory of Disney’s America” to be  convincing, therefore I did agree with some of the points Gooding-Williams made under the subtitle “Disney in the Inner City.” Again, Gooding-Williams provides evidence to his argument by quoting the film, analyzing scenes, providing information on the voices behind the characters, and analyzing and comparing the Lion King to other Hollywood films that depict similar images of blacks. For example, Gooding-Williams quotes another reviewer of the Lion King, Janet Malin, and clearly addresses what is right and wrong with her argument in a way that supports his argument. I do believe that his argument that “an essential part of the movie’s allegorical vision is the perfect polity America would be if its circle of life excluded its underclass of black and Latino scavengers” is a plausible and convincing argument that supports his overall thesis. 

Morton on the other hand provided a slightly less convincing argument than Gooding-Williams due to his lack of support or evidence. Morton does a good job with addressing the "they say" (or Gooding-Williams says), and then providing the "I say" to each of Gooding-Williams’s points. He is very specific in explaining what was wrong with Gooding-Williams’s argument and then giving a detailed explanation of his argument and the “correct” way to think about the movie. However, unlike Gooding-Williams, Morton provides no evidence to back up his points thus taking away their credibility. In my opinion, Morton would have provided the stronger argument because I found his points in themselves to be more convincing but his lack of support and credibility took away from his argument. 

Overall, although Gooding-Williams does not provide a very convincing argument, it is is more well supported then Morton’s argument thus increasing the credibility and strength of the argument.