Why Disney's The Lion King is the Greatest Movie Ever

   Look, I grew up on this stuff since before I can remember. Actually I can remember some things about when I first saw Lion King. I was rather young, so I cannot accurately recall what I thought of the plot, the characterisation or the fact that the actor who voices Mufasa is so perfectly cast that if anyone else had done so, I may have not even liked the movie at all (and I love Lion King) but I do remember the day I first went to see it in the cinema. Because that’s how you saw movies back in the day before you just downloaded them off the internet and watched them when you were bored.

   I went to the movie with a girl called Lasmai, who was my best friend at the time. I remember we had a popcorn fight throughout the entire advertisement section at the beginning and getting severely reprimanded by my mother. Or her mother. Or whoever’s mother was burdened with the task of looking after us while we were at the movies. I remember little else except thinking the songs were cool, and crying once (oh no, spoiler alert!) Mufasa died in the stampede. I can’t think of a single child that does not cry during that scene. I can think of a few adults who still cry when they watch that bit. (Well, William and I do. But it’s so sad.)

I'm not even taking the piss now. I still cry in that scene. He just lost his dad, fuck you Scar!

    From that moment on in my young life, I was obsessed with lions. They were my favourite animal ever, the first exhibit I had to go see when I went to the zoo, I could recite a million and one facts about lions, and for my seventh birthday, I remember one girl giving me a present wrapped in lion wrapping paper, and I cannot even remember what she gave me, I just remember the lions.

   At the same time, I developed an obsession with all things Lion King. Our neighbours had the soundtrack on cassette tape (yes, cassette tape) and we made a copy of it. Every single car trip as a child, we were damn well listening to The Lion King, when my mum took me to the video store to hire a movie, we were hiring The Lion King, whenever I played with my toys we were re-enacting the opening scene where Rafiki is presenting the young cub Simba to the kingdom. I played Rafiki, if you want to know.

   My parents even ordered a custom-made Lion King book, with my name printed in it, for Christmas one year. I was stoked.

   While I was belting out more Elton John hits than a gay Idol-contestant, I still refused to watch that one scene where Mufasa dies. I would run out of the room and yell at my mum to come and get me once the hyenas come back in to chase Simba away from the pridelands. She called me silly every time, but I still couldn’t watch it without crying. Poor Simba, all alone in the world, having to leave behind his family even though he was still so young.

   Yeah, I can see a link between The Lion King and adoption. Perhaps that is why it affected me so profoundly from such a young age. It actually came up the other weekend when I was staying at my brother’s.
   We were watching The Lion King 1.5 which is pretty much the same thing as the first one, but from Timon and Pumbaa’s point of view. (Hey, why not milk the cash cow, the original is still a quality movie.) When Simba comes to them, there’s a particular line of Timon’s:

It does sound rather daunting.

   Then suddenly, William and I had a moment of revelation- Timon and Pumbaa are gay! Our other small discovery was that Simba was pretty much adopted by them. This is actually pretty cute. I didn’t pay much attention to the rest of Lion King 1.5 as William and I were too busy making adoption jokes to pay much notice.


   PS- Just so you know- I get to make adoption jokes. It’s one of the few advantages that come with being adopted.

William is the Shiz

   I may have written about William a few times on here. Like the time he was saved by a multi-coloured elephant. But there was very little to write about when I hadn’t seen him in years.


   This changed recently.

   Let’s thank the cheap wine at the afterparty. I forget what we ended up drunk texting about (I do remember, I’d just rather not explain in excruciating detail. It may have been about a guy. He may have encouraged me to flirt with said guy. I was barely forming a coherent sentence by then though, thankfully) but at some stage, he suggested I come to see him sometime.

   A week later and I was on a bus to Dunedin.

   Look, I’m fucking stoked, ok? I’ve idolised my brother since I was old enough to figure out who he was (adoption tends to cloud the issue somewhat) and I’ve resented him for the past few years for his lack of contact with me. Didn’t make me idolise him any less, of course. It just upset me, was all.

   He hadn’t changed much. I lie. He’s a considerably more functional (and hygienic) person now. Multiple jobs tend to force you to be so. He’s still wonderfully sarcastic and somewhat opinionated, though. It reassured me.

   I know that anything I write on here is never going to do it justice, the way it felt finally seeing him again. A year ago I would have given up anything, literally anything, to see him again. The thing is, adoption leaves you with a few after effects, one of which being a fear of abandonment by family members. You rationalise that it is entirely possible that they could just never see you again, because… well. You feel abandoned. You start to think of all the ways things could have been different, and that if only you were good enough, then you would have deserved a family, and they’d welcome you back with open arms.

   I got past the fear of abandonment phase by replacing this fear with stoic acceptance that I was probably never going to see William again, and to prepare myself for a life without an older brother. It was bearable at first. I lie. I was horribly hurt by that acceptance. I’m glad David started talking to me, that helped me cope, a little. I’ve hinted somewhat at William about how hurt I was by the ordeal, but now we’re talking again, I don’t need to explain anything. He gets it. Besides, I think he had his own stuff to deal with.

   I clearly remember around October last year, Ellie and I celebrated the end of school (just before exams) by going on a road trip to Dunedin, and seeing my brother David. We were casually walking through town together at night when I saw what I knew was William, walking in the opposite direction on the other side of the street. I asked David if it was him- to be fair, I hadn’t seen him in a couple of years, and David said he didn’t know. (David wears glasses. I don’t know if he’d appreciate me mentioning that on my blog, but as far as embarrassing stories go, there are worse ones I could tell, so he ought to be grateful!) I had every intention of yelling out to the man on the other side of the street- I know it was him- but then the “acceptance he will never talk to me again” kicked in and silenced me. I knew it was him, but I figured he wouldn’t want his little sister embarrassing him like that.

   For months afterward I hated myself for not talking to him that night.

   Recently we’ve been communicating via Facebook. Well. He commented on a few wall posts and statuses of mine, but look, after two years and me being all prepared to never hear from him again, that’s practically full-blown conversation. Anyway, I drunk texted him at some ridiculous hour before burning some pasta, and spent the weekend at his a week later.

   I had a fabulous time by the way. We watched The Lion King and The Lion King 1.5 (basically the same thing but from Timon and Pumbaa’s point of view) and caught up on what we’d missed over the past couple of years. It was awesome.

   As an aside, I know one of my friends from Summer Gathering, Rachel, has been dealing with her own similar issues with a foster brother. Just to let you know Rachel, don’t accept that you’ll never see him again, even if it’s been years. Anything, as I have learned, is possible in time.