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.