Joshua Garza

@01260864
Soc-2013-002
Gender Inequalities in The Lion King
The Lion King is a time honored classic film labeled as one of the top box-office grossing films.
This G-rated film was seen in theatres and can still be seen in many homes and waiting rooms all around
the country. However after a closer look at the film, maybe a few years later when you have matured and
can catch all the little niches in the film, one wonders what is really being projected onto the viewers. At
first glance one may see a patriarchal scheme where the goal is to rise to power, however, is can also be
argued that the system in place in a real world pride of lions, the pack is mainly viewed as a matriarchy.
Further analysis highlights the amount of male and female good and bad guys present in the film and
highlights gender roles in the entirety of the film.
Very rarely is the world split in to absolutes, the grey area can run far and wide in-between polar
opposites. At first glance one views this film and can identify the lion pride as a patriarchal system of
power. The film begins with a catchy song and the opening seen of the entire animal kingdom coming
together to celebrate the continuation of a blood line. There is one king of the land, Mufasa, gathers all the
inhabitants and they are made to rejoice at the birth of his son. This kind of demonstration is highly
similar to that of a Male driven hierarchy where the males are in control or impact their environment
stronger than the females in the society. The film even goes without a female role acting throughout the
whole time Simba is aging and developing his character with Timon and Pumba. However, in a real world
pride and in the movie the female of the movie are given the responsibility to raise the young, hunt for the
pride, and protect the land claimed by the group. In the film we see a heavy reliance on the lionesses for
survival, even after Scar has assumed power of the pride. To further investigate gender roles and asses the
equality of sexes in the film one must take a closer look at the characters present in the film.
An examination of the female roles in the film expose some really common features and even
more un-common forms of presence in the film. Sarabi, the mother, is presented in a very familiar way
not to many individuals are unfamiliar with seeing. Here we have a clear demonstration of a mother
figure, responsible for cleaning, feeding, and sometimes rearing the young cubs. This type of gender role
is not uncommon and can be viewed as females being subservient to the male counterpart in the film.
Nala, however, represents a somewhat different version a female role. As a cub she is portrayed as strong
willed and overall pretty dominant when compared to her counterpart, Simba. She is seen beating him in a
friendly pouncing contest and often pins him down when wrestling or rough housing. This role is a little
more dominant and she proves to be a great asset to the movie, she is after all the one who finds Simba
and convinces him to return home. Another character worth mentioning is Shenzi, voiced by Whoopi
Goldberg, this is a rarely seen female antagonist or villain. The hyenas in the movie present themselves as

Joshua Garza
@01260864
Soc-2013-002
subservient to her and this displays a female role that is dominant over her male counter parts and
supports the idea of equal representation of genders in the film.
Lastly a look at some of the male roles in the film portray different views at what it means to be a
male in the film. If we start with Simba, a male protagonist which is not uncommon in films of this
period, we see strong Patriarchal influences. The hierarchy of respect and power seems to flow from the
oldest male lions down to the youngest of male lions. Proof of this need only be seen when Scars plan to
take over the thrown involves having to dispose of Mufasa and Simba. Scar, a male antagonist which is
very common in any movie with a power struggle, strives to maintain a world where he has the most
power. His tenacity and sexist mindset is displayed when he demeans his female hyena accomplice,
Shenzi, and strikes down Sarabi. A contradiction to this macho style gender roles however is displayed
with two of the least likely characters. Timon and Pumba are rogue males that were ostracized from their
respective homes due to personal differences from their own communities. Their exterior is representative
of a common male role, they are stinky, bug eating, mud soaking, and men who just want to live their
lives content without having to contribute to society. However a deeper look highlights the exchange of
gender roles displayed by the pair. Raising a child or young one is usually a task associated with women
as presented earlier in the movie with the lionesses in the pride, we very clearly observe Simba being
raised by two male role models however. This observation goes against the notion that the ideals
projected through this film are sexist and demonstrate that males too can succeed at raising young.
In summation, The Lion King can be stated to represent a fairly well distribution of gender roles
to the cast. The patriarchy is seen with a male ruler and power struggle between an almost all male cast.
The argument can also be made that the film displays and highlights the importance of a female role and
the matriarchy, as expressed by the importance of lionesses to the survival of the pride. As stated early
very rarely does the world deal with absolutes, this film demonstrates that very ideal in a society where
the females are charged with the protection and are key members of society, and Males are represented as
authority figures and nurturing figures. There is even a fair distribution of male and female gender roles
scattered throughout the film. Maybe this example of a working society where males and females have an
equally adverse effect on their environment can be a model for what we humans, as a society, need to do.