TBT: Beauty and the Beast vs. The Lion King

Today I'm going to dive into the most middlebrow of all middlebrow topics: ranking Disney musical films from the 1990s. I am going to play my cards immediately by saying that the purpose of this post is to rectify a myth that unfortunately has spread too far and too wide among people from my generation. There is a widespread belief that The Lion King is the best Disney film of the 1990s. This belief rests on nostalgia, false memories of what actually happened in the movie, and the success of the subsequent stage version. Beauty and the Beast is far and away the better film.

Plot and structure: Beauty wins here without a doubt. The plotting and structure of the film is beautiful. The stained glass prologue, followed by the musical introduction of "Belle", to the subtle shifts in character (which are shown, not told), to the pacing of the romance, to the climax and grand finale--every moment fits together beautifully. The Lion King, on the other hand, is much more uneven. It too has a beautiful prologue ("Circle of Life"), but the theme that gets introduced there feels forced onto the material that follows. The romance in Lion King is completely peripheral to the main plot and feels unnecessary. We as an audience are given no compelling reason to root for Mufasa and Simba over Scar. Simba's character development is superficial at best and we are told, not shown, how he grows and matures.

Characters: Since Frozen premiered last year the Disney princess characters of old have gotten a bad rep. Part of that has to do with how the characters are portrayed in the movies. Ariel gives up one of her greatest talents for a chance to be with a man. Sleeping Beauty and Snow White are so passive as to be asleep for half their films while their princes fight off evil witches. What really gave the princess characters a bad rep though was Disney's marketing machine, which turned all of these characters into nothing more than commercial fodder and symbols of "traditional" feminine virtues. The marketing and cultural response to it does a disservice to the characters, Belle from B&B in particular. 

What's Belle's problem, according to these critics? That she has Stockholm Syndrome. The only reason she falls in love with the Beast is because she has a psychological condition which makes her fall in love with her captor, they say. A simple viewing of the film shows that this interpretation doesn't hold water. Belle is not kidnapped: she trades places to save her elderly father. Belle is not trapped in the castle: one of the Beast's true signs of love and selflessness is to let Belle leave to take care of her father. Belle does not fall in love with Beast-as-captor; she only falls in love with him when he changes. He becomes more gracious and giving and way less selfish. The audience sees all of these changes and can understand why Belle's feelings towards him are changing. It's twisting to the film to say she only fell in love because of Stockholm Syndrome.

Simba and Nala are no match for Belle and Beast. Nala is a wasted character without all that much to do. Simba obviously struggles throughout his life, but has no clear character traits and does not undergo the kind of deep change we see Belle and the Beast experience in B&B.

The films are more evenly matched when it comes to villains and side-kick characters. Scar and Gaston are both wonderful villains, but even here Gaston works better into the structure of his film. He is selfish, like the Beast, but has the outer beauty the Beast lacks. Gaston also initially pursues Belle for selfish reasons. Unlike the Beast, Gaston does not change, and serves to emphasize the Beast's character changes. Scar, who is a great character by himself, does no such work to help the overall plot/structure/momentum of The Lion King.

Side-kick characters are great in both. But again Lumiere, Cogsworth, and Mrs. Potts are primarily there to serve the story. They have teeth in the game; they too want to be human again. They offer guidance and support to Belle and the Beast, and serve as a kind of Greek Chorus as their romance progresses. Timon and Pumbaa are there to be...well, Timon and Pumbaa, appealing characters who sing "Hakuna Matata" and who help Simba get over his father's death. But that's it. Like Scar they are great characters by themselves, but don't serve the overall story nearly as well as Beauty's sidekicks do.

Songs: Howard Ashman and Alan Menken wrote such beautiful music for Beauty. People even said that the best musical on Broadway in 1991 was playing in the movie theater. The music serves the story and characters perfectly. "Belle": the perfect exposition. "Be Our Guest": the best animated Busby Berkeley homage you can imagine. "Gaston": such clever lyrics! "Beauty and the Beast": so poignant and beautiful, especially when sung by Angela Lansbury. The Lion King's songs are also memorable and some do their job to serve the story. It's telling, though, that the two most memorable songs, "Circle of Life" and "Can You Feel the Love Tonight", are tacked on. They don't serve the plot, story, or characters. They serve Elton John and Tim Rice's quest for an Oscar (which they got). Beauty obviously wins here too.

Visuals: Okay this one's a tie. Beauty has the stained glass prologue, the cleverness of "Be Our Guest", the computer animated ballroom scene, and the Beast's transformation at the end. Lion King has "Circle of Life" sequence, the wildebeest stampede, and Mufasa in the clouds. Both pretty spectacular examples of animation.

Reception: Lion King had one of the best box offices of all time, and that definitely counts for something, but let's remember that this blog is called "Middlebrow Musings" and there's nothing more middlebrow than the Oscars. Beauty was the first (and until Up [like Lion King, another super overrated movie] the only) animated movie to be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. Let's also note that nearly every film critic, when reviewing The Lion King, said it wasn't as good as Beauty and the Beast. Here are some examples.

LA Times: http://articles.latimes.com/1994-06-15/entertainment/ca-4277_1_lion-king
Gene Siskel at Chicago Tribune: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1994-06-24/entertainment/9406240051_1_young-lion-cub-lion-king-howard-ashman
NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9501E0DE163DF936A25755C0A962958260

I like both movies, but B&B is far and away the better film and deserves better in the minds and memories of millennials.