'The female lions depend on the males for salvation,' he said, which 'reinforces the stereotypes of men as power-driven competitors and women as helpless, hapless victims.' And, he said, Scar is clearly meant to represent an evil African American because 'while Simba's mane is gloriously red, Scar's is, of course, black.'
Should I pass along what a columnist wrote in the Philadelphia Inquirer? That by depicting the rank and file of the kingdom as subservient under Scar and unable to save themselves without Simba, the message to children is that they can't help themselves? 'Anybody at Disney heard of empowerment?' this writer said, adding 'We must teach our children to see beyond the dependency of early childhood, beyond the sense of entitlement and victimization so many embrace, and into a world where they believe that they can and should and will be responsible for themselves.'
Do I shatter their innocence by disclosing what Carolyn Newberger of Harvard University said? According to the Associated Press, she complained in the Boston Globe that 'the good-for-nothing hyenas are urban blacks; the archvillain's gestures are effeminate, and he speaks in supposed gay cliches.' And another Harvard professor worried that the characters achieve goals 'through violence.'