Response to John Morton

By reading through Morton's response to Robert Gooding Williams' article, Morton really despises everything that William.  His hatred of Williams shines through his argument which makes it hard for his audience to really focus on his argument and see the arguments that he is making.  If one puts aside his hatred of Williams, he actually makes some really interesting arguments about The Lion King.  One of the arguments that I found really interesting.  Morton argues against Williams' idea that  "this picturing of Disney's Africa as a place without history, to which Scar's revolution is a counter-trend".  Instead Morton argues that "the circle of life", the whole theme of this movie is the history behind Africa.  The history is that individuals want to maintain the standard ideology that has been intact for centuries in this land.  Mostly everyone is happy with the hierarchy of the land and understands the importance that society has a circle of life, they go through their struggles and eventually life will be alright again.  This circle of history is what defines Africa so I side with Morton on this argument that there is a history behind Africa. Morton also brings in an excellent point that the hyenas are not the only ones who represent the low order class in the movie. Timon and Pumba are two individuals who have been essentially exiled from the mainland.  However, these individuals are happy with their status in the circle of life.  They have one of the lowest status and Williams fails to mention anything about them.  Timon and Pumba are a prime example in illustrating that not everyone has the viewpoint that the hyenas have in the fact that they must overthrow the whole regiment to get what they want. Timon and Pumba lived their life normally and ended up moving up the social ladder by sticking by the rules of the circle of life.

Another really interesting point that Morton makes is about the different ruling styles of Simba and Scar. Morton says that Scar's revolution "based exclusively on a politics of resentment" while Simba's revolution is "both democratic and productive".  Scar has resented his brother all his life because he ended up ruling over the whole kingdom and he did not.  His ruling was based purely on his hatred for the standards of society and ended up doing so much harm to society that there was famine spreading everywhere, there was no really equality among the individuals, and everything was being destroyed.  Scar's resentment towards the hierarchy of society caused him to end up destroying the thing he wanted to fix.  Williams nowhere in his article mentions about why Scar's reign failed and the reason behind the failure.  Williams avoided everything that would make his point contradicted, which excluded so much information about The Lion King. Williams was stretching what little information he had to make his argument, which Morton was able to tear apart easily.  If Morton hid his disdain for Williams, his argument would certainly have been stronger and still have his credibility as a critic.