How I Teach Story Structure With Disney’s ‘The Lion King’
Simba’s Shakespearean adventure is purrrrrrfect for teaching young people how to write
The unofficial tagline for The Lion King is ‘Hamlet on Safari,’ and it’s a pretty good one. To tell Year 7 kids (seventh graders) this salient fact is still a useless exercise, of course. Most twelve-year-olds haven’t read Hamlet, and those who insist they have are so precocious that you must eject them from any class immediately.
Shakespeare’s Danish Prince is a good analogy up to a point. Both protagonists struggle to reconcile their father’s death at the hands of their uncle and thus become the epitome of indecision. Hamlet does not have a talking meerkat and warthog; he has Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Simba does not stab Zazu as he hides behind a flimsy bedroom curtain, causing Nala to end up face down in a pond in lieu of a nunnery.
Perhaps most importantly, because it’s a kids’ film, there’s very little latent sexual tension between Simba and Sarabi — unless you look really hard and you’re THAT sort of psychologist.
The Lion King is so ubiquitously watched by adults and children alike that it is the perfect way to introduce basic story theory. Most people intuitively understand stories, but they don’t understand why they…
