The Lion King: Not Made for Africa

So a dear friend who lives in the States asked me, in my capacity as an African living in Africa, to review the Lion King, and so I will give a short review here. I had thought about doing it, but then I only had negative thoughts, so I didn't want to spoil anyone's childhood by expressing them. But since I was specifically requested to do it, well, here it is. You're probably not going to like it.
Now the story of the Lion King is no surprise to anyone; I sincerely doubt if there's anyone alive who hasn't at least seen the animation. But much as it was set in 'Africa' I don't really think it was meant for the consumption of Africans.

It's weird how we're excluded from what are allegedly our own stories.
"But Annemarie, why do you say this?" asked nobody.
Well, let me tell you a few things about the original and the live-action remake that I noticed, specifically as a Kenyan because that is clearly where the Lions are based.
The whole "Pride Rock" place, I think I've seen it live. It's somewhere along the Rift Valley between Naivasha and Nakuru although it was probably meant to be the Maasai Mara where there are actual lions. The Maasai Mara however, is savannah which is flat land, as opposed to the actual rifts and valleys brought about by shifting of tectonic plates long ago that brought about the Rift Valley.
So Lions in Naivasha and a stampede of wildebeest almost as if they were doing the great annual migration from the Kenya side to the Tanzania side. Except they were doing it in like Olduvai Gorge as opposed to Namanga.

this is Naivasha

Also, there's no actual desert landscape anywhere near Naivasha or Namanga. Simba would have had to go all the way to North Eastern Kenya and then come down to either Western Kenya where there is a waterfall or down to Mt. Kenya region. Both places are lush and green but wow, for such a small cub to cover such distances...
It's cool, I mean, why let the truth affect good storytelling right?
And for sure when I first watched it as a teenager in the nineties, I just was too traumatized by Mufasa's death to care about these details.

And I'm not much aggrieved by them now either. What does aggrieve me is Disney trying to patent the phrase "Hakuna Matata" as if Kiswahili isn't an actual language spoken in many versions across Africa from North to South and as if it wasn't the motto for Brand Kenya (yes yes, we have a brand) for the entirety of the Moi era. As if Them Mushrooms did not sing a song, waaaay before the Lion King was conceptualized named, Jambo Bwana whose lyrics coined the phrase, Hakuna Matata.
That was annoying AS FUCK.
To make matters worse, Beyonce did an album, that she called an "African" album with a bunch of Nigerian singers. Now we not about to tell Beyonce who can feature in her album but don't call it African please, when it's just Nigerian. That's how we get erased; by not acknowledging that we are not a homogenous mass. African and African American is not the same - you cannot put us all under one umbrella. It's not similar to choosing rappers only from Atlanta and saying, "Oh, the African American community is represented."
No. Nigerian music is vibrant, popular in America and very distinctive. Its good music and its African music but it does not represent the entirety of the African music experience. Furthermore, it has nothing to do with an accurate portrayal of the environment of the Lion King. Nigeria doesn't even have lions. But I suppose Burna Boy and Yemi Alade would be more recognizable to an American audience than Sauti Sol or Eric Wainaina.
I just don't see why at least a Them Mushrooms sample could not have been used. Just to pay tribute to the originators of the phrase...

On top of that, apparently, Beyonce stole the entire video concept for Spirit from an African film. It's a disappointment on top of disappointment.
Now, coming to the film itself, there were plenty of innacuracies including Simba being able to survive on grubs and bugs. But let's say in the spirit of it being fiction, that that could happen. But now, I'm an adult and everything problematic just shouts out to me. In trying to find a reason for Scar's jealousy of Mufasa, they made Mrs. Mufasa his love interest or at least somebody he was lusting after. Great, fine. But this mighty lionness allowed the Pridelands to become Badlands while she sat there and watched from her rock, waiting for 'someone' to help them while thinking that her son was dead so what this mythical help was supposed to look like, we don't know. In an ideal society such as Wakanda for example, there is no way that Simba would have ruled over Nala. She is the one who took charge, she is the one who sought to remove them from the situation they were in. She is the one who never lost herself. But because the story was written by white men knowingly or not, steeped in patriarchy and white privilege, it's the male, who barely knows himself let alone the pride lands, who gets to rule.
Then, there were the accents.

And man...were those annoying or what? So all the 'good' lions had American accents, the 'bad' lion had a British accent. The head hyena though got to have a generic "African" accent. I don't know if that was meant to sound Kenyan or what. So not even the villain but the villain support, have African accents while everyone else is westernized. It might not be deliberate but it perpetuates a stereotype about the order of hierarchies in the world, who comes first and who comes last. Then, there's the monkey who is randomly speaking Xhosa...
What?
It's just disrespectful. I'm sure they could have at least gotten someone who spoke Kiswahili. But I guess those details don't matter because the identity of Africans doesn't matter to the Lion King's core targeted audience - white people.
It wasn't just the accent or the language but also the mannerisms were very very American. If Simba's dad had been a true African Lion, he would at least have gotten a very severe punishment for putting himself and Nala in danger. Whether it was going to bed with no supper, a slipper to his ass, something. African parents don't just 'give a talk' and then reward bad behavior with play. In whose Africa?

Not the one I live in for sure.
I suppose it's like Japanese anime. Is it actually made for the consumption of actual Japanese people or is it for creepy dudes to jerk off to on the Internet?
I mean, there was not one single premier held on the African continent. Magical Kenya had to travel all the way to the London premier to be seen (check the advertisers on the yellow carpet). A movie about Africa that totally ignores the continent yet benefits from advertisers from the actual place where the film was based. Yep, just another day in paradise.

All in all, apart from the, you know, everything, it was a good way to relive childhood trauma.

When Females Have Big Dick Energy

Society seems to be built on the fragile foundation of male insecurity. To quote Chimamanda because she said it so Perfectly:

"We teach girls to shrink themselves To make themselves smaller We say to girls "You can have ambition But not too much You should aim to be successful But not too successful Otherwise you will threaten the man" Because I am female I am expected to aspire to marriage I am expected to make my life choices Always keeping in mind that Marriage is the most important Now marriage can be a source of Joy and love and mutual support But why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage And we don't teach boys the same?We raise girls to each other as competitors Not for jobs or for accomplishments Which I think can be a good thing But for the attention of men We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings In the way that boys are..."

 This notion has been thrust forcibly in my face recently because of two women who embody everything that it is to be Flawless: Megan Rapinoe and Serena Williams. Of course, in addition to being phenomenal at what they do, these two women are also minorities - Megan is gay and Serena is black.
Unfortunately, society has made it so that if you are a minority and also phenomenally successful and then on top of that you dare to have two x chromosomes...man...you have committed a capital offence punishable by being called names such as:
'Oh my God, that Megan/Serena is so arrogant she brings disgrace to the sport. Not like *insert delicate blonde white cishet woman here* who is just such a great example for young girls to follow."
It's the worst sort of gaslighting and it boggles me that everyone doesn't immediately see through it and go like, "Boo! shame. shame. shame."
Of course, even in fiction it's only the women who get to walk naked down the street as people shout "Shame!" (disclaimer: Cersei totally deserved it though. However, she's a perfect example of female big dick energy...misused).

I don't even claim the word 'feminist' for myself although I would have been in the front line burning my bra and screaming in joy. I hate bras with a passion and I take my Double D's very personally. God really took the mickey out of me with that one. A reckoning will come one day though...
The reason why I don't claim the word is that it's been subverted by white women for their own ends. Being a woman though is a declaration in itself; especially when you own your womanhood and try to do it the way you want to as opposed to how society expects you to. Society tried to shame women into tying themselves up with these corsets and later bras, hence the burning. Before missionaries brought their repressed bullshit to African shores, bras did not exist here in any way, shape or form. The patriarchy, like every other bad thing, was brought to us courtesy of missionaries.
Anyways, as I was saying about colonialists - another example of some female big dick energy is Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex. Every time she appears in public, the whites find something to complain about.
She holds her kid at a cricket match, "Gasp! How dare she!"
She attends a Lion King opening, "Oh my God she was heard complaining about how we treat her badly! Doesn't she know there's people dying of hunger?" *Kourtney Kardashian voice* p.s. All she said in response to Pharrell was "they don't make it easy."
It's just jealousy.

Whatever happened to just being happy about people's achievements? What happened to clapping for them when they do a good or difficult thing? I know we are surrounded by a lot of negative energy. Capitalism is killing us all. Our leaders don't give a fuck about anyone but themselves to the point of actively trying to subjugate all of us to their rich people needs. This is all bad. But we're aware of it now. So at least we're not sleepwalking through life and sooner or later, we'll find a fix.
In the meantime, you have to find pockets of happiness wherever you can - and I don't mean like escaping to the bottom of a whiskey bottle, that just exacerbates your problems long term - be it in movies, books, sex, conversation, connection...whatever works for you.
And to insecure people who resent those of us who have learned to harness our big dick energy I say, work on yourself. It's not too late for you. Change your mental conversation, positive reinforcement only, build your confidence and grow your own big dick energy so that we truly can all be living in Wakanda.

Integrity vs. Get'cho Money

Yesterday, one of my writing jobs people sent me a potential job where the client wanted a story about a sex addict, who travels the entire Yoonited States and fails to find a virgin to 'cure him' of his addiction.
So by some accident of fate or I don't know, lack of google maps/men don't ask for directions thing, he ends up in Africa. Where he finds a village where naked African virgins are running wild, not speaking English, reading or writing; just hanging out being naked.
If you have sex with one of these virgins, you have to marry her or lose a finger.
So the guy finds his magical African virgin sex addict cure vagina and has sex with it. And voila! Cured.
Except...
He's tempted by three other virgins and has sex with them too. As a result, he loses three fingers. Virgin number one takes care of him, lovingly, gently and after seven years, he marries her.
I firmly declined to write it.
I know somewhere on Rihanna's internet, a man is asking "what's wrong with this storyline?" They're saying "I'd read it."
Yeah, okay. So you write it.

I, as an African, a former virgin forcibly relieved of that virginity, and as a woman, cannot.
Let's start with the sexism that says, a. there are no virgins in America because...reasons.
b. virginity is a cure for disease - this is an actually harmful idea that has seen children raped by men infected with HIV because 'virginity is a cure'.
c. Africa has villages of naked virgins - okay this is sexism/racism. I'm surprised the word 'natives' was not used. A simple breed, easily led, have not discovered clothes, have no purpose other than to satisfy the sexual desire of males...the ways in which this is wrong is endless.
"But Annemarie, you're a ghostwriter. You're getting paid to write. What does it matter what you write about?"
As long as you're getting paid, what's the problem? is an answer I see to many things on Donald Trump's internet. Yes, Michael Joseph is a racist but if he makes money for Safaricom, who cares? Donald Trump is trafficking children, but he knows how to make a deal so what's the problem? Jobs for African Americans have risen by 50%!
If you're making money, then what's the problem?

Integrity.
It's a thing that used to exist.
Now it's been strangled by consumerism.
Well...not completely. Pockets of resistance do remain. I saw this story on Twitter about a Starbucks throwing out five cops because 'they made the customers feel unsafe.'
I mean...
High five guys.
Finally, someone is looking at cops and seeing them for what they are; the biggest most violent, gang in the world.
Nike actually listened to Colin Kaepernick about racist sneakers, they've stood behind Caster Semenya in her battles as well as Serena Williams.
Also, Rihanna exists.
So these are all good things.

Of course, it's easier for me to talk about integrity now, in 2019, when I have more work than I seriously have time for; maybe if I hadn't worked for two months, I would have shut up and written the damn story. There is, after all, a difference between consumerism and poverty. I'm glad I did not have to make that choice between my integrity versus necessity. Been there, done that and it still bothers me to this day.
So perhaps it's counterproductive to judge what people are going through when they do things that just seem out there. These days Twitter just seems full of angry people sifting through the internet looking for things to be mad about. An Arab guy posted an email - with the email address displayed - from a white supremacist essentially saying white is right and white power. And this new zen me was like, 'gosh this guy must be so afraid. Because now everyone else is discovering what white people have known for centuries. Their only talents are stealing from other races and taking credit for the hard work of black and brown people. Now if black and brown people discover what they're up to, it's over for them. Hence, the escalated shouting about whites being better.'
I felt kinda sorry for him. Standing to lose everything that has kept you going must be so hard.
Well, I have a secret for you Mr White Supremacist - you already lost.

But even with all the horrific things going on in the world, mostly in America according to my tl, there is just so much anger on the Internet. People are 'angry' at DJT but instead of mobilizing voters or impeaching him - you know, something practical - they just repeat his words online with the disclaimer that they're very angry about it. Nobody cares about your feelings. Fuck your feelings. Put up or shut up. It's a waste of time to articulate your self-righteous anger if there is no action behind it. It just becomes posturing to prove to the internet that you didn't vote for Trump (you did). The faux shock at everything Trump does as if he has changed even one iota from when he was campaigning is just...
Anywho, me and my zen self refuse to participate.
It's not just politics which is exhausting. Fan wars can get so juvenile sometimes you have to continuously remind yourself that these aren't Onion affiliates. I cannot even repeat some of the posts because girl...too much. It's only fiction guys, relax. Find a hobby. There are just too many real things in the world worth getting upset about. But I guess, white privilege.
Anyway

I want the parents of the world to do me a favour and help their kids find an internal compass that is not dependent on what is going on around you. You do this by allowing your kids to make decisions from as early on as possible and then validating those decisions in terms of letting them carry out the actions behind those decisions and letting them learn from their own mistakes. Let them form their own opinions about people and things without trying to impose your own on them. You have society trying to mould them into whatever is easiest and it's a battle to constantly push back on that and let them be what is right not just for you or them, but what is right, period. No qualifications. You know what it is, it's maybe just too hard to always do the right thing. Isn't that sad?
Here's a book about someone who struggled constantly with the right thing, as opposed to the easier one. She kinds of reminds me of Ilhan.