Day One: How The Lion King’s greatness is based on an ancient Egyptian Myth
The peak of this summer’s box office season will be Disney’s “live-action” remake of the Academy Award winning The Lion King. The words “live-action” are used humbly in quotes as this movie is, in reality, less live-action and more the most advanced CGI ever seen. The sheer level of realism and detail director Jon Favreau has brought to this wonderful story should be a wonder to behold in July. Headlined by a starry cast entirely with African origins, and built on top of the most fertile source material Disney has sowed, The Lion King is set to claim box office gold this summer.
Of course, not a single film, even the greatest ones, can escape controversy. Lion King critics have identified that the animation is strikingly similar to Japanese anime Kimba the White Lion, and that the storyline is reminiscent of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. However, perhaps the most overlooked influence is one as old as time itself. One of the themes of The Lion King is the Circle of Life, a metaphor for the comings and goings of all, large and small, who walk the paths of life. Thus it is only fitting that the greatest fable of modern times is another re-telling of one of the oldest stories in the world, one that predates Christ by over 2000 years. Enter The Osirus Myth, an Egyptian tragedy about the god of afterlife.
I am supremely interested in the role that stories play in society. Perhaps it is simply a natural trait of being an actor. For me it seems that since the rise of civilization, stories have been used to simplify the complexities of the world. Whether it was the changing of the sky, the migration patterns of buffalo, or the flooding of the Nile, all manners of natural phenomena were always first explained using stories. The best and most universal of stories have inspired generation after generation of writers and storytellers, so it is only natural that we look at the giants of today to find the common threads that have resonated throughout human history.
While browsing Wikipedia bored at work, I came across the story of a king who was murdered by his jealous brother and usurps his throne. The son of the dead king goes into hiding and eventually challenges for the throne once having reached maturity. Sound familiar? I’m not talking about The Lion King, and I’m not talking about Hamlet. This is the story of Osiris, Egyptian god-king, the most prolific and important myth in all ancient Egypt. It is rich in complex symbolism and is integral to core Egyptian beliefs, such as kingship and royal succession, motherhood, and what happens after death.
Due to the sheer age of Egyptian culture, there is currently no definitive source for the story of Osiris that has been preserved until now. However a fairly consistent narrative can be pieced together from the multitude of texts and hieroglyphic translations. The ancient play features a main cast consisting of Osiris, our titular character, his queen and consort Isis, a brother riddled by jealousy named Set, and lastly Osiris’s son and eventual patron King of Egypt Horus.
As the story begins, Egypt is a kingdom at peace, supported by the life-giving rule of the rightful king, Osiris. However, the treacherous Set, who covets the throne, abruptly ends this period of peace by murdering his brother Osiris. Due to Isis’s timely assistance, Osiris is preserved through death by the process of mummification, the first mention of this classic Egyptian trope. Isis then gives birth to Osiris's son Horus, and raises him in secret with the objective of one day claiming his birthright. In time, after Horus is slowly exposed to the world and its dangers, he eventually becomes strong enough to defeat Set and restore Maat, the Egyptian concept of balance within the kingdom and social order.
This concept of social order has been pervasive throughout human culture. It is the fabric under which civilization operates. One end of the earth calls it “the divine right of kings” and the other gives it the name “mandate of heaven”. This concept establishes the right of a leader to see no superior except an ethereal one, the law of conscience. Looking at the term social order we can see that the word “order” implies putting one object after another, until a hierarchy is established. It is similar to the solution of a math problem, if the wrong order is put in place, the solution will be incorrect.
One of the most profound quotes from the trailer of the new The Lion King movie is “A true king searches for not what he can take, but what he can give”, which establishes the responsibility of a king. For most people, it is natural to take. We start our lives in the womb taking, and until we reach adulthood, we often take much more than we give. It is not until we accept the responsibility of our talents for the world that we start to give. The men and women who are most willing to give all they have and more become leaders and, in essence, the kings and queens of today. The story of Osiris was the most prolific story in all of Egyptian civilization and similarly, its modern-day equivalent The Lion King will be dominant at the box office because it establishes the code under which our society determines right and wrong.
Inexplicably, Disney has always been associated with magic. Perhaps it is because the stories they tell are ones that are closest to the vein of human experience. Their stories are universal, becoming in a way a moral guide to our modern, fast-paced life. The Lion King is no different. Grown from perhaps the farthest reaching roots of any story, the Osiris Myth, this modern fable about kingship is sure to dazzle audiences, adults and children alike.
