Inspiring Kings: Part 2 (The Lion King and Trauma)

There’s one scene in The Lion King that has always stuck with me. It takes place after the iconic moment where Simba speaks to the ghost of his father, who tells him, “Remember who you are. You are my son and the one true king.” For a large portion of his life, Simba has been hiding away in an oasis. He believes he’s responsible for his father’s death and refuses to return to his pride. But he can’t run away any longer. He must return to Pride Rock, overthrow its tyrant, and accept his responsibility as king. Still, Simba is full of self-doubt. He’s about to fall into a cycle of despair…. when the sagely mandrill Rafiki whacks him on the head with his baboa stick.

“Ow, geez, what was that for?” Simba complains, rubbing the injured spot.

“It doesn’t matter,” says Rafiki, “it’s in the past.”

Simba gazes at his paw. “Yeah, but it still hurts.”

“Oh yes, the past can hurt. But the way I see it, you can either run from it or… learn from it.”

Rafiki swings his stick again. This time, Simba is able to duck. “Ah-ha, you see,” Rafiki proclaims.

This exchange was always meaningful to me. It related to my tendency to get stuck on things that happened in the past, from something simple like, “Last week I accidentally said something that upset my girlfriend and I can’t forgive myself,” to, “I have experienced so much trauma and pain and it’s unfair, and now I’m going to hold onto this anger and misery because I don’t know how to let go.” Rafiki’s words reminded me that I have the power to move forward, tools at my disposal for coping with anxiety, hope at the end of the tunnel.

But in the summer of 2019, The Lion King became my enemy. I know that might sound silly, but allow me to explain.

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Last summer, the photorealistic remake of The Lion King hit theaters. With this remake came a lot of criticism and analysis.

The online Kimba the White Lion community I was a part of grieved over how this uncredited spiritual successor was receiving so much more attention than our beloved show. Content creators such as Big Joel were also releasing analyses on how the Lion King remake and its original suffered not only from unfortunate racist implications (see: the hyenas), yet also contained a subliminal message about maintaining a Status Quo. Feeling like my special interest (Kimba) was being cast into the shadows and realizing something I treasured went against my progressive ideals… The Lion King became unjust.

This hurt ripped at my heart as I rewatched The Lion King. When Mufasa’s ghost emerged from the clouds and said that iconic line — “Remember who you are. You are my son and the one true king” — I couldn’t for the life of me understand what he meant. Was Simba just a tool whose only purpose was to restore Pride Rock to its monarchical state? And, I began to wonder, how come Simba needed to take responsibility? He wasn’t the one who killed his father, it was Scar. Simba ran away and hid because he was reacting to childhood trauma. Of course he was in a pit of self-loathing, of course he didn’t want to return home.

Okay, so, there was more my anger than the Kimba controversy and criticism (both which still definitely played large factors). The summer of 2019 was my first summer out of college. I was falling out of a structured and predictable life, which greatly affected me as someone on the spectrum.

And I had too much time to myself. Enough time to indulge in my anxieties and trauma. Memories of a difficult past and fears of the future clogged my thoughts. I regressed into a paranoid, distrustful figure. Yet despite the severe decline in my mental health, it was easier to cling onto this pain than to move into the unknown.

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I often give second chances, so a second chance to The Lion King I gave, rewatching it with a good friend of mine.

Imagine my absolute surprise when it clicked that The Lion King could be a perfect example of CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). One of the largest parts of the CBT is learning to balance a rational and emotional mind, to look at the facts. Simba doesn’t do this. As my friend and I excitedly discussed, Simba is choosing to believe the narrative Scar fed to him, as full of holes as it is.

Contrary to what Simba thought, Scar never told the lions that he killed his father. He’s provided with evidence from his childhood friend, Nala, that Scar was also deceiving them by claiming Simba was dead. Yet Simba is so stuck on the event of his father’s death that this doesn’t matter to him — “It wouldn’t change the past,” he says. He isn’t only paranlyzed by the delusion that he killed his father. What makes him so immobile is the fact that his father, who he was so reliant on for guidance, is gone.

Later, I asked my friend what Mufasa’s ghost meant when he said, “Remember who you are. You are my son and the one true king.” And they responded with something that completely changed my way of thinking:

“The confrontation of Pride Rock is not confrontation of Simba’s past. It’s the confrontation of his future, allowing him to be more than that instant.”

Now it made sense — Mufasa wasn’t telling Simba who to be, but guiding him to become more than his trauma. If Simba were told who his killer was without any lesson, that would only have fed into his anger and led to negative consequences. Only by moving on from the memory of his father’s death and focusing on what was happening to Pride Rock could Simba truly learn, grow, and take action.

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I don’t think The Lion King should be exempt from criticism. At the same time, as loyal to Kimba as I am and as critical I can be about elements of this film… The Lion King is still always going to be meaningful to me. I treasure it as a story about someone who realizes he is more than his past memories and becomes a stronger person. And that’s what I aspire to.

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For the introduction to Inspiring Kings series, click here!