The lyin’, the snitch and the warlord: What ‘The Lion King’ teaches us

Twenty-five years ago, a dark, dystopian American film predicted the rise of modern politics in a chilling examination of patriarchal power, unearned hereditary privilege and intense xenophobia. That film was called The Lion King.

It was a simple, brutal satire.

Lions rule the African savannah. They see themselves as benevolent rulers, but then again, they would. Perhaps one might have given them the benefit of the doubt if they had set up a coalition government of predators, prey and scavengers, monitored by a strong judiciary, but they haven’t because they’re lions, and lions rule by murdering everything that is smaller and slower than them...