Lessons I Didn’t Know That I Had Learned From The Lion King

Huey’s parents went down to Kuta yesterday leaving us to have a lads day once we’d got school out of the way. After we had shown some new guests around the property, the rain began falling heavily and has pretty much been doing so ever since. To chase away the meteorological blues, we rifled through the DVD collection and settled on ‘The Lion King’, which we both agreed was one of the best Disney films of all time.

Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/chao/

It had been a few years since I had seen the film, but I remembered it almost word for word – much to the anger of Huey, who took offence to me singing along at every opportunity. But as we both watched intently, I realised just how much of my moral character was shaped by Simba’s journey to his rightful place on the throne at Pride Rock. At the end of the day, that is what Disney films do. They teach lessons in morality through wonderful storytelling and a healthy dose of anthropomorphism. However, I was obsessed with the Lion King for a long time, thanks to my love of lions and the mystery of Africa. I still kind of am. So watching it again was a bit like looking though your old school books.

1. Bros before Hoes

When the beautiful Nala finds Simba in the jungle with Timon and Pumba, she asks for a little time to speak to him alone. Simba seriously lets his mates down by telling them to get lost so he can have a chat with his hot lioness girly. Timon is obviously quite a clever lad and sees the danger ahead. Sure enough, Simba puts the lady ahead of his boys and risks losing their friendship.

Luckily for Simba, Timon and Pumba are very understanding blokes and they stick by him, even after he has shunned them in favour of Nala. Lesser friends would’ve told him to shove it up his big lion backside. I think the shrewd meerkat was able to see a future in the car insurance industry if he was able to keep a bit of lion-muscle on his side.

Cheap car insurance anyone? Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/deja-dew/

2. Uncles can be untrustworthy

All of my uncles are fantastic and extremely trustworthy indeed. They are great blokes and thus that was my impression of what every uncle would be like. Of course, Scar single handedly changed that image. As Huey pointed out to me yesterday as Mufasa was being hurled down to the stampeding wildebeest below, ‘he’s just plain mean’.

This lesson meant nothing to me until recently, when I myself became an uncle for the first time. I have a number of concerns about what an atrocious job I will do, particularly as all of my uncles are excellent. However, thanks to the Lion King, I know that I will at least never be as bad as Scar. Unless I toss my brother-in-law off a cliff into a stampede. Unlikely, I reckon.

Evil uncles can be defeated with the help of a Jedi. Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/thejoshmeister/

3. Eat well if you want to grow up to be big and strong

Timon, Pumba and Simba all survive in the jungle on a diet of bugs. Slimy, yet satisfying. Amazing as it may seem, Simba the lion and Pumba the warthog are both able survive on this rather meagre diet. Not only that, but thanks to a typical Disney musical interlude, we are able to watch Simba grow from a cute little lion-cub into a large muscular specimen, who is capable of taking the throne in the pride lands. Yet here we are wasting our time on diets and protein shakes. I think I’ll go and eat worms.