The newly blockbuster release of Disney’s “The Lion King” is heading toward a big opening weekend but on the other hand, it also reminds us how these anthropomorphic animals seem to be more commercially popular than the actual real things.
As audiences of nature programming know, the real jungle is enthralling but on the other side, it is likely to be cold-blooded, cruel and a lot less appealing when it comes to survival and dominance.
As compared to the monogamous Disney’s Live-action Lion King, Simba, the real lion kings hunt the youngest as well as weakest members of herds, sometimes they even kill their cubs to ensure their own mating rights.
As we have seen the long history of nature programming by Disney which always intends of assigning human qualities to animals which then further built around the concept that the animals are a lot like us which often comprises of giving names as well as personalities to lions, tigers, and bears.
The admiration of these nature programming has usually depended on constructing stories. As Slate described in a 2015 article, which was titled “Why Wildlife Documentaries Insist on Making Animals Seem Human,” “It’s now almost impossible to make a wildlife documentary without a dose of anthropomorphism,” admitting that producers “are probably right to assume that few people want to sit in a theatre and watch animals doing animal stuff for two hours; viewers need to emotionally invest.”
Well, if you think about it deeply then you will realize that Walt Disney, particularly has played an essential role in generating these kinds of format. He also produced a series of movies, which was titled “True-Life Adventures,” in the 1950s and the nature fare in Disney’s weekly TV program, which wanted to stand-in gratitude of wild animals but instead of highlighting education it has highlighted more of the entertainment stuff.
In the recent time, Disneynature has hired a related approach on a series of theatrical films such as “The Monkey Kingdom,” “Born in China,” “Penguins” whose releases are generally scheduled to Earth Day. Those movies have also featured real animals while infolding an environmental message in a family-friendly package.
There is no doubt that the previous decade has seen an outburst of nature biographies instigating in the United Kingdom, where filmmakers have to make the most of on technical advances as well as high-definition devices to bring remarkable footage.
Those programs usually produce higher ratings in the UK as compared to the US. For instance “Planet Earth II,” which with a great opening broke all the records in the UK in the year 2016, with the premiere drawing over 9 million viewers.
The next venture of Discovery Channel is the six-part “Serengeti,” which will premiere in August, promising “the heart-warming stories of a cast of African wildlife including lions, zebras, baboons, and cheetahs over the course of a year.”
“The Lion King” on the other hand denotes a different, integrally more marketable way of appointing into the wild kingdom, constructing the nature more appetizing for mass consumption.
