I believe that the hyenas were banned from the Pride Lands because they were eating more than they needed, which is disrespectful to the Circle of Life. So they were given a separate territory out of the Pride Lands, where they have exhausted all of their resources.
If that is the case, segregating them out of the kingdom to just the elephant graveyard is not the solution needed. Mufasa was wrong to do it and ultimately paid with his life for it.
Do you really believe this false mainstream Pride Lands media narrative? The hyenas are very much an integral part of the circle of life. Do your own research.
@@ModernMouse what do you do with a sect of the population that takes more resources than they need and thus impact what everyone else has access too. If you see the hyenas as a fast rising class rising from lower to middle to upper middle class gentrifiers taking land and resources from others, what would a better solution be? to just animals eating up more food so others can't eat...what is a better solution. Surely every hyena wasn't like this. Giving them rotation areas they can exhaust?
I disagree because when scar and the hyenas take over there is no food not because the hyenas killed all the animals but because they disagreed with the change in leadership and migrated somewhere else
@@ModernMouse At end of the day, the thing that makes Scar the true villian is that he is manipulator. The worst kind in fact given that we can say he is a sociopath.
Something i always saw when rewatching the Lion king is how similar it is to Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Nazi Germany. Both Hitler and Scar felt they hadn't been treated nicely by society, and both of them rallied "the lower classes" into believing the upper classes had wronged them. Even the whole Scar standing on a rock while the Hyenas march past him- the hyenas are literally doing the Goose-Step march that Nazi soldiers were taught.
That's common for all tyrants and dictators they all follow the same rhetoric regardless of national or political ideals. Like we demonize the Nazis yet ignore the crimes of the Soviets that were not that different. It was either be with them and live or be there enemy and die.
The Lion Guard is heavily flawed but I will heavily give it credit for showing that everything's not black and white. When Jasiri first appeared, I suspected she would have betrayed the lions and that she is just pulling a ruse, but when it turns out that she is a good hyena, it shows that not all of the hyenas are evil. I actually think none of the hyenas were; they just didn't understand the Circle of Life due to not being bred around it and is manipulated by Scar whereas some other hyenas have been raised by it and it shows that not all of them have been entirely raised that way. The lions I believe didn't like them because they ate too much, but if they understood the hyenas and try to be sympathetic to them after they have suffered much and attempt to teach them the Circle of Life. The lions and hyenas are the same, but lions enforced their authority by eating the animals that bow down before them so the hyenas should have been given a chance. Looking deeper, Lion King is not mere black and white but something more.
Mufasa is today's government/economic elites with a great PR team. Scar is the charismatic, populist leader rallying the masses but was only out for himself the whole time.
The deeper meanings do exist but it is just the unintentional effect of entertainment using the same formulas over and over on the basis that they are proven to produce profits over and over. They aren't trying to sub-textually teach children about the dangers of class disparity and segregation... they just know that it has retained peoples interest in stories prior and will likely do so again.
3:10 In fairness, hyenas are legitimate threats to lion cubs in both real-life and in-universe. It makes sense that Mufasa would want to keep them as far away from the Pride Lands as possible.
What’s interesting is that Scar is a lion, a prince by technicality. He’s not a hyena or a member of the lower class, and he’s obviously healthier and better off if he’s able to throw away an entire zebra haunch on a whim.
It is a nickname for the elephant graveyard. Simba even calls it a "shadowy place" when first learning from Mufasa in the film. Like the film, I use them interchangeably.
"The hyenas should never have been banished" Well, yeah, of course not, but the reality is they were banished. The only question is what can be done to fix it. How exactly do you propose that be done? Can a hyena just walk up to a lion & peacefully request to be let back in to society? Of course not -- the lions won't willingly give up their own power like that The only solution can be them rising up & fighting for their rights to live comfortably just like everyone else To say otherwise is to say you value the comfort & safety of the lions (the safety to not be attacked) more than the comfort & safety of the hyenas (the safety to live)
We are definitely on the same page here. It just depends on your definition of "fighting for their rights". The way it happens in the film, by the hyenas siding with Scar, the Pride Lands fall apart and everyone suffers, including the hyenas. Leadership can't be selfish and has to be inclusive in order for things to work.
I have not seen very much later addition to the Lion King's lore so I do not know if something changed, but I think it is important to note that, as far as the original go, Hyenas are not a victims being abused by Scar against the Pride. Mufasa is not perfect ruler, but his flaw is the his blindness to Scar's evil capacity. Mufasa refusing or not being able to see that his brother could do what he eventually did. From what I gather Mufasa does not kick out the Hyenas to the Shadow realm out of malice of some racial conflict. Mufasa is supposed to be the paragon of the story, being hindered by his inability to take a pre-emptive action against Scar. Hyenas are kicked out because they abuse the circle of life, and they could drive the land to what happens when Scar actually takes over. Yes they suffer after being punished. But Mufasa is not to the cause of the suffering, he just passes and enforces the sentence. This goes in tone with Hitler allegory. Germans were suffering after WWI, the world was generally wrecked and they were the loosing side so they got hit twice as hard. This made it easier for Hitler to play the "we are the mistreated victims and deserve revenge against those that wronged us" card. But it was not the every not-german fault that germany suffered after loosing WWI. You loose a war, you get wrecked and then punished. You may feel wronged by those that won, especially the next generation that did not took part in the loosing war, but it does not give you right to partray yourself as a victim rightfully claiming justice. This is not what WWII was, this is not what the Hyenas were doing, this is not what Russia is doing right now. Hyenas have it bad where they are, but they are there as the consequence of their own actions, not a victim but punished villains. A "sins of the father" cause is a whole another argument. But they still decide to follow Scar into destroying the Pridelands. This was not slaves fighting the system, this was germany starting the WWII. Do not make that mistake as even today some try to spin the narrative their way
I think it's important to note how Scar actively despises hyenas which is also a common denominator of many populist dictators who pretended to care about lower classes but in fact treated them instrumentally and ultimately inferior. This is indeed what happens to the societies where there are no gradual liberal-democratic changes taking place in that mindset shift, but instead one ruling class is drastically replaced by the other so that eventually inequality and injustice remain. This is precisely what happened in Russia in the beginning of 20th century or Asian countries like China or Korea. But I fully agree, the way this movie approaches this topic may create some illusion of inherent evil that hyenas are simply born with, simply justifying generalization and stereotypes. I guess that the sequel although being much worse in terms of basically everything, solves that issue to a certain extent.
I don't want to disagree with the message you're trying to say here, but I think it's pretty disingenuous to make the claim that it's the message the movie is making. I feel like I need to ignore a lot in this movie to not think that the hyenas deserved to be cast out and banished. Heck Scar isn't even the one who destroys the Pride lands. The hyenas are the ones who destroy everything explicitly because they don't have the enlightened upper class keeping them under control. At least if you're looking at things in terms of class structures which I think you shouldn't. Your interpretation lies on the assumption the hyenas don't deserve their situation. I think the movie tries pretty hard to say the hyenas are fundamentally bad and a threat to everyone around them. Is this a good message? Maybe not, certainly not if they are supposed to represent the lower class, but I don't think the characterization of the hyenas is supposed to be quite that specific. I really think the hyenas are more a representation of chaos and more a nebulous representation of people's willingness to do evil. This is something that plays into the main message of the movie which is largely focused on taking responsibility for your life and protecting it from the dangers that threaten it. The just king and groups of fundamentally evil people are reasonable archetypes when talking about personal development, but not so much when talking about society. I think that is fine though because the movie is not really talking about society. It's talking about personal responsibility. I think the way hyenas are depicted fits into this nicely. On the other hand if they are supposed to be lower class the movie would be saying the lower class is a collection of fundamentally wicked, back biting, shortsighted, evil people who will destroy society if given the chance and the happy ending is them being banished out of sight where they belong. I really don't think that is what the movie is trying to say here. I want to make it clear, I do think the movie explicitly makes a point about the dangers of charismatic leaders inciting people who feel wronged to violence with this Be Prepared scene and I think it's a very good point to make. I just don’t think the hyenas should be taken as an analogy for the lower class just because of this scene despite how awesome it is. I just can’t reconcile that interpretation with the entire rest of the movie.
Thank you for such a well put together comment. It took me a few days to think on this one. The film's narrative, if following more closely to Hamlet, deals with the upper class and royalty. It really doesn't care to tell the story of any of the other animals outside of the Lions (besides a select few that are connected to them.) That said, intended or not by Disney, there are tons of other animals in this film that we see for seconds who still have to be doing something off screen within the timeline. For, me any of the other animals are part of the lower class. The giraffes, hippos, etc... As my interpretation goes, it is just a select species, the hyenas the get banished due to their own bad behavior within the kingdom. From the outset the are portrayed as bad for the rest of the pride lands. What I find interesting is that real world hyenas aren't really the scavengers that we see in The Lion King. In fact, they are more seen as equals on the food chain. Disney chose to make the Lions royalty (makes sense since they are nicknamed the king of the jungle) but they also chose to make the hyenas these scavengers who ruin the circle of life. It was a choice Disney and I personally find it fascinating as a story telling device. So whether intended or not, you can make the analogy of lions to upper class as hyenas are to lower class. It is definitely an interpretation that sets aside many other plot points in the film, but one that could have easily connected had Disney fleshed out the hyena characters more than they did.
I always felt like it was subtly implied that the Hyenas brought it on themselves at some point in the past. Mufasa doesn't seem like the kind of leader who would arbitrarily banish one species on a whim, he's fair to all within his kingdom to the best of his ability. He allows the grazing animals to graze and the predators to hunt and generally life just goes on as normal for the wildlife living in the pridelands. As such, the Hyenas must have done something at some point in the past to warrant their banishment at the time. If I had to take a guess, it was an over-eating problem which was threatening the natural balance of their ecosystem. Near the end of the movie while Scar is still king, the pridelands are a barren husk of what they once were, with very little food. Not enough for everyone. There's no way Scar is eating all this food himself. The only newcomers are the Hyenas. While it may seem as though the Hyenas are a lower class within the context of the movie, you do have to keep in mind that this isn't a story about human beings, even if the animals do seem intelligent within the context of the movie. They are still animals, living their lives as animals would. They don't have technology or farming or currency or any of the other conveniences of human culture to form a proper class structure around. As Mufasa would put it, there is a natural balance to their world in which every living creature has it's place and it's role to play. The grass grows, the Antelope eat the grass, the Lions eat the Antelope, and when the Lions die their bodies fertilize the grass, and so on. The cycle of life. This is how the pridelands operates. As such, if the Hyenas were a threat to this balance and were banished because of it, it's not surprising that the place they were exiled to ended up as the barren Elephant Graveyard nearly void of food that it did. In their absence, the pridelands thrived and flourished. During this time, they could have considered their over-eating problem and tried to change, only eating as much as they needed. Perhaps in time if they proved themselves, they would have been welcomed back into the pridelands, or perhaps they wouldn't have needed to return at all due to thriving in their new home. That's not what happened though. They didn't change, and Scar saw an opportunity to manipulate them for the sake of generating an army. Convince them that their banishment was wrongful oppression, offer them food in exchange for their loyalty, and then after killing Mufasa and dealing with Simba the pridelands would be theirs for the taking. Scar then no longer has use for them, only looks after himself, and yada yada yada we've all seen the movie. If anything this only further solidifies how cunning of a villain Scar is. He fits solidly into the Mastermind trope of villainy, being a threat to the protagonists not through physical force but rather through their manipulation tactics and general intellect. He's likely the single most intellectual character in the entire series, but lacks wisdom and has ego and greed in it's place. He's a manipulative narcissist with ambition for political power who knows how to twist the narrative to suit his needs. This is in stark contrast to many other villains who have similar ambitions but achieve them not through wit and smooth talking, but through brute force. For Scar, brute force is always an absolute last resort. He would much prefer to achieve his ambitions without ever needing to fight at all, but isn't so foolish as to leave himself defenseless should things turn ugly.
That's all well and good but every heyena deserves this? All of them are deserving of starving in the elephant graveyard for the crime of being hyenas? What of the newborns? Also, food consumption isn't a choice and they're all starving and emaciated in the elephant graveyard. Also, also irl removing a "bad organism" rarely fixes an environment. Take wolves in Yellowstone. Unless of course they're invasive and the native animals have no defenses. That's more a flaw with the lion king movie logic then anything else though.
@@solsystem1342 It's self inflicted. As I stated in my original post, if they weren't over-eating to begin with they wouldn't have had any such problem. The Elephant Graveyard they were banished to probably wasn't the barren wasteland it has become in their presence. If they had simply been eating their fair share and not overdoing it, they wouldn't be in the mess they find themselves in. Mufasa has a responsibility as King to look after what is in the best interest of the Pridelands so they can flourish. To put the blame on him for this is like blaming law enforcement for arresting criminals, or to blame a teacher for sending a bully to detention.
This is interesting, but as wild animals, I feel like they should have never been segragated into class systems in the first place. Animals don't even exist so much in a food chain as they do in a food web. And there is no one way that will neatly categorize all of them. Hyenas aren't lower class, to me; they exist outwith the class system entirely. They are chaotic, free, wild... and yes, cast out even though they are still integral to the circle of life, as hyenas are in real life too... but they wouldn't really belong into an orderly place like a kingdom. And they would probably clash with the lions a lot. We also don't know that the elephant graveyard wasn't once lush with life and that the hyenas didn't turn it into a hell of their own accord. In the one single movie there are a lot of unknowns.
There are definitely unknowns and I'm playing with an allegory that the film itself sets up, but the things we do know can be seen in the real world. Scar is a ruler like Hitler or Kim Jong-Un. The hyenas are seen as lesser than and many are afraid of them. They have been banished by Mufasa. Lots of things that definitely showcase bad leadership all around.
It's important to remember the full quote "When the people shall have no more to eat, they will eat the rich", that those who say "eat the rich" are saying that the bourgeoisie should be careful about how far they push the proletariat, lest they force an uprising.
I believe that the hyenas were forced out of the Pridelands because the Pridelands' carrying capacity is enough for the hyenas or for the lions, but not both. Basic ecology dictates that any given habitat can only sustain so much, and the lions and hyenas together are above that limit.
If you are talking about a growing population, the last the we want any leader to do is banish people because we don't have the room for them. That is the easy way out but it also battles morality. Would you allow a part of the population to die from lack of food and water just so that the rest can go on living happily? As a leader, you have to come up with alternatives, whether that means turning to different food sources or relocating to where there are more sources. Ultimately I know the analogy with the Lion King doesn't really work with this exact situation considering that lions aren't magically going to become vegetarians and the food chain isn't going to change, but in reality people think this way and it isn't the right way to think. We can't give some communities everything and others nothing.
This reminds me of an episode of Teen Titians Go "Nature". Beast Boy loses his power to shapeshift into animals. In order to get it back, he has to be one with nature. So he has to live out in the woods for a while and the other titians live with him. He realizes nature is too cruel so he makes it so that all the animals live in apartments and eat vegetarian burritos instead of each other. Then he gets his powers back.
Once again, awesome video. You really hit the head on the nails with this one. I agree as well that the Pridelanders shouldn’t have disregarded the hyenas for they too are a part of the Pridelands and the Circle of Life. They just wanted to survive just like any of the other animals. That’s why I am happy about how they handled this in the Lion Guard and showed how lions and hyenas can get along and that, in essence, they are the same 😁.
I've seen only bits of The Lion Guard but 1000%. Regardless of what the hyenas had done previously, they shouldn't have been exiled and left to basically die.
The same issue is shown in the sequel with the revenge of Scar's former scrawny lion disciples for their exile and mistreatment at the hands of Simba. It's sad how history repeats itself. Thank goodness for that hackneyed Romeo and Juliet plot resulting in true peace and equality (among the lions that is, but its a good start)
Scar never convinced the hyena's to rebel versus mufasa, They were always aligned with him and even mention seeing him before the be prepared scene. I think a better scene for scar would of been the first cave scene as a it highlights that scar was unjustly discarded due to his genetics and also sets up that a he cannot beat mufasa in a outright fight also that he wants power. He's pretty relatable as he has nothing and was treated poorly due to him being on the lower end of the gene pool to quote himself however scar's father just seen him as weak and useless ignoring that his ability laid within his intelligence and ultimately scar was proven right over his dad as his cunning won out versus mufusa's brute force
It should be noted that even the hyenas had sufficient under Mufasa. Far less than they wanted, but enough to where before the end they wished for the old system. It is also heavily implied that hyena lands were hyena lands, lion lands were lion lands and only Scar's manipulation to make Simba go there changed that. Thus, in trying to gain it all they wound up with nothing. Nor is it clear that if the hyenas were in charge without Scar that things would have been any better. Perhaps the message we should learn isn't about classism so much as to be weary of those promising easy answers to our problems and requiring only blind obedience.
I did do a video about Frollo and I do think that he is one of the most evil characters in any Disney film due to how real his story could be. Here is a link if you want to see that video ---> tinyurl.com/f6mtyk8w
A thought came to mind: The people in leadership positions often have been traumatized into or have biological predilections for pathology. Because of that, they pursue "unhealthy" goals externally on the world and so, the collective "we" become victims of their unrecognized pathology.
The French Revolution ultimately gave some power back to the lower class and limited what the upper class could do, while also dismantling the aristocratic dominance over France.
@@ModernMouse I have issues with the words "ultimately" and "back". "Back" because few if any of the powers transferred to the lower classes had a historical precedent in the lower classes. "Ultimately" because the only thing that gave any of those reforms staying power was the Charter of 1814, which gave very little more than was required by the conference of Vienna. So, ultimately the revolution failed and decades later many of the same terms were imposed by foreign powers to try and prevent another french empire forming. The one major achievement I know of from the French revolution that probably would have survived without the terms from the conference of Vienna, was the abolition of Serfdom just because re-instituting it was beyond the logistical and administrative capabilities of 19th century France.
@@TrabberShir It is true that in the long run it didn't do as much as what was hoped for. I do feel like class war isn't the answer now anyways. Like I said in the video, I think a serious restructuring of the economic and political system is in order....like today.
They also murdered thousands in the Reign of Terror and led to Napoleon becoming emperor of France and initiating a series of wars that only be overshadowed by the world wars in devastation
Was actually interesting regarding the lion King is it’s actually pretty easy to see the connection with a Political world. After all stuff like this happen in politics all the time. This is exactly how Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin came to power. Even an American politics, we saw this in the 2016 and 2020 elections with Senator Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump well in very different methods. Senator Sanders try to appeal to the lower and middle classes only and provided a “Christmas wish list“ and said the people would not have to pay for new healthcare programs you wanted to put in place, but it’s only solutions for paying for all of his programs were cutting military spending and taxing the rich poor, implying that the rich were not part of the American people. Donald Trump by comparison trader peeled everybody as he understood the problems business owners face, he seemed to understand issues relating to the lower and middle classes and he actually offered solutions that were fairly popular when people actually looked at them instead of looking at who proposed them. I also think is interesting that a lot of the issues that you bring up in this video regarding issues the lower class is dealing with, or issues that were created by the American government and the only solutions people are proposing is more and more government
You can see the entire point of this essay in the very beginning of the song... to paraphrase: Scar: "We're going to kill the King and Simba" Hyenas "Yeah and then there will be no more King!" Scar: "No! I will be King!" Makes me wish for a version of the story where Simba gets found and saved by a different group Hyena's and ends up taking down Scar's fascist dictatorship with the help of the old oppressed Animals to form a more egalitarian democratic society^^
I haven't seen the lion guard or really anything outside of The Lion King and 1 1/2, but I'm pretty sure Shenzi, Bonzai and Ed at least are unambiguously evil. At no point do they act anything like starved and deprived animals trying desperately to scrape by. When food falls into their laps, they sadistically toy with it until they're scared off, they even launch Zazu right out of the area entirely instead of eating him. I know it's a kids movie so that's not really something they could have shown, but it's still definitely not the behavior of a starving lower class.
So is ‘One Villainous Scene’ a collar? Because why hasn’t:t anyone done the Skeleton King? Haha Seems like most people are only doing movie villains, and a lot of people are sticking with newer or Disney villains, which seems a little limited since a lot of these are similar. Not too many who are evil incarnate, which is important because it’s the difference between a plotting villain and rational scheming, and a more chaotic, force of nature type of evil, which is much harder to understand or impede.
This was a collab. I took on a Disney character because much of my channel is centered around Disney....but if you want to take on the Skeleton King, there is still room to be added to the collab. Lots of people are getting views still from this playlist.
@@ModernMouse Sounds fun, but I don’t have any video editing software. I’m currently busy with a Don’t Starve mod and am trying to finish that up in my free time.
I didn't mention it but I showed it. I felt like most people would see that but it's definitely a big part of my jumping off point with this video. You could equate it to visuals coming out of North Korea as well.
@@ModernMouse fair enough, how ever I will say as a neurodivergent person sometimes I need the seemingly obvious pointed out so mentioning it in the dialogue would be good for people like me.
I've made my comparative videos to Trump in the past, and you can and should definitely point at him, but I also think there are other people in the upper class currently that we have to keep our eyes on. Political leaders, business men, and more.
I appreciate this political look at the film, but I think people forget that Disney utilized the divine right of kings as a plot point in the movie. Scar's takeover led to the worst drought ever which is what made him look so bad. Yes, Scar is 100 percent a villian, but his political operation was cursed by God.
I don't think god had anything to do with it, nor has he ever had anything to do with any political movement. The "divine right" is a slippery slope that leads to some seriously troublesome issues.
@@ModernMouse I'm unsure from your reply, but I'm an atheist. The divine right of kings is a historical fact that was used to justify hierarchies and moments of great happenstance were used to further justify monarchs "rightful place." The subtext of the Lion King includes the natural order or God rejecting Scar's rule.
@@anthonynorman7545 I'm on your side here. It was used and in part is a reason in the United States that there as a separation of church and state. That line seems to have been blurred though in the last few years and many people see Donald Trump as having that "divine right" again. That's why I say it is a slippery slope. We haven't learned from history nor from the stories we read, watch, hear, etc...
"It wouldn't be difficult for someone, with charm and charisma, to come into our current society, especially in the United States, and create a class war." Scar is Trump, change my mind.
I'm very much a socialist and all for the "eat the rich" slogan but some people take it too far. Regardless, I'm pretty open about my views and think the wealth inequality is a serious problem.
