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Embodying Animal, Racial, Theatrical, and Commercial Power in The Lion King

Disney stories and characters have delighted international audiences for nearly nine decades, but as The Walt Disney Company has sought to reach new markets in the twenty-first century, Disney’s live theatrical productions have served a unique and powerful ambassadorial function in which body and representation play vital roles. In 1997, Julie Taymor’s production of The Lion King, which is inspired by several cultural traditions, opened on Broadway to critical and popular acclaim. The musical has since been translated into six languages and has played in over a dozen productions around the world.  While the characters are animals, The Lion King is a human fable, and Taymor was determined that audiences see the fictional animals and real, live humans at the same time– what she termed the “double event.” With her unique vision as a guide, she enlisted an international creative team: film co-director Roger Allers and co-writer Irene Mecchi as book writers, Rhodesia-born Brit Richard Hudson as set designer, Michael Curry as puppet co-designer, Garth Fagan as choreographer, and a handful of diverse composers and lyricists to create the score–Elton John and Tim Rice, Lebo M, Hans Zimmer, Mark Mancina, and Taymor herself.  Despite consciously postmodern, internationalist, and postcolonial aims–which have earned both economic and political rewards–the creative process, product, and reception have not arrived without challenges, complications, and criticism. This paper examines how The Lion King attempts to harness animal, racial, theatrical, and commercial power for diverse audiences in a global age.