Mussafer Gooding-Williams vs. Morton

When I read Gooding-Williams' article on The Lion King I had many questions. I underlined and highlighted many parts of his writing as there were many claims that he made that seemed rather far fetched for me. I enjoyed reading Morton's article as he had some of the same instances of confusion/suspecion that I had. While Gooding-Williams' article had some big claims, the biggest that The Lion King was an allegory for America, he did provide rather in depth explanations for his claims. While I do not agree with his overall argument of Lion King's connection to the US, there are many parts that were very valid that I agree with. For example, he says that "it is not farfetched to suppose that Disney is playing a major role in the political formation of America's children". Children consume and imitate what they see. Children watch Disney movies, fall in love with the characters, the storys, songs, etc. and so Disney plays a large role in what children see and what they thus perceive. As humans, we connect what we see to how we few our own lives. In this case, children see certain things on tv and they unconsciously connect these instances to society. For example, Disney has received criticism on their portrayal of genders, cultures, socioeconomic status and much more. There is a reason that Disney's Frozen had such a major presence in society. It was a major step for Disney to change their basic format of having the prince save the princess, and fall in love and create the story of Frozen where there two female leads where love is prominent, but it is not the romantic type and is rather the bond between two sisters. I do agree that there is validity to the criticism that Disney received regarding their portrayal of the hyenas in the story as two of the hyenas are voiced by African American people while the major of the "good" characters are voiced by white people. One thing that I highlighted in the article was that Gooding-Williams claims that The Lion King is answering the question of where this place of danger and evil exists. Disney answers this by elluding that it is where the hyenas live. Gooding-Williams says that it is "not somewhere in Africa [but] [r]ather the place in which Simba and Nala lose themselves is in the American inner city. I responded to this by saying that I can't imagine Disney consciously doing this. I do agree that Disney may have chosen the hyena's voices and the location with their idea of society but I do not think they purposely decided to have this place represent the American Inner city.
Morton questions this and argues that Timon and Pumbaa "certainly represent the more benign side of the "lower orders" and that they have validity for being those in the lower class. Morton is not saying that the hyenas could still not represent the lower class but I think Morton is right to bring up this argument about Timon and Pumbaa and they are also represented as being of lower class and race brought up in their depiction of being from this class. Morton goes on to say that "The Lion King strikes an alliance between the productive working class and the legitimate ruling class" and infers that this idea of status in The Lion King may have been less related to racial stereotypes in America's society than Gooding-Williams alluded to.

In Morton's closing remarks he writes "[s]ince we may, in fact, choose to fill The Lion King's empty symbolic vessels with what we will". This line struck me as it felt like a jab at Gooding-Williams' piece as well as everyone who tries to analyze The Lion King as I take it that he is inferring that there may not be actually any symbolize and that people are claiming these conceptions of the movie in areas where Disney may have not intended there to be any symbolize. I disagree with this claim. As a stated earlier, everything that people watch, read, and listen to play a role in their view of their own lives and society. I think that no matter if Disney intended there to be or not, these symbols are still there and so it is hard to say that these allegories do not exist as everything has a deeper meaning whether it is consciously placed there or not. The choices, decisions, and opinions that someone has is based on past events that have influenced them and so whether or not it is conscious, these past events always influence a person's decisions. And so having two of the hyenas being voiced by black artists and having the good characters being voiced by white people are not fully a coincidence. Deep in someone's subconscious they chose those voices for a reason and it is naive to say that there is no deeper meaning for why those decisions were made.
https://screenrant.com/lion-king-remake-hyenas-biggest-change/