Nazi Hyenas and Devil Ducks

A Primer on Media Literacy and Politics in Fiction

Goose Stepping in the Pride Lands

Starship Troopers, Hell Divers 2, Fallout, and, lately, X-Men ‘97, a revival of the 1997 X-Men: The Animated Series, each of these media franchises has had its spotlight in The Discourse™ as of late concerning “politics in media” and “media literacy.” For those grass touchers not “plugged in” to social media discussions, the conversation usually goes as follows:

• Conservative or, for lack of a better term, right-leaning account of some stripe bemoans the current state of media and how it’s politicized or contains a leftist agenda

• Progressive and leftist accounts of all stripes jump in and state all media has always been political, usually with some sort of example, ranging from a 90’s children’s cartoon to a classic film

• Right-leaning accounts counter with there’s a difference between a series like Metal Gear Solid and an episode of Family Guy or asking how an image of an anime girl eating a burger is in any way political

• Back and forth continues until someone gets tired or blocks and everyone waits for the next round

Recently, I myself chimed in after seeing a Xweet on X (they/them, deadname: Twitter) sarcastically stating that politics was never subtle in old Disney cartoons, attached with a frame from Scar’s villain song “Be Prepared” from “The Lion King.” Before we get into the discussion of the “politics” of the scene itself, first, allow me to establish the facts about the composition of the scene. Feel free to rewatch it if it’s been a while since you’ve seen it.

At the beginning of the second verse of “Be Prepared,” Scar stands above a crowd of Hyenas who begin goose step marching in front of him as their shadows pass over him. The script itself (page 42) describes the crowd as “rows of jackbooted, goose stepping storm trooper hyenas.” To quote a 1994 Entertainment Weekly article,

“Be Prepared” grew out of one sketch by story staffer Jorgen Klubien that pictured Scar as Hitler. The directors ran with the concept and worked up a Triumph of the Will-style mock-Nuremberg rally

Scar overlooking his marching Hyenas was 100% modeled after Hitler doing the same. Likewise, the pillars of lights that appear around Scar was inspired by “Lichtdom” or “The Cathedral of Light,” which was a prominent feature of the Nuremberg rallies.

It cannot be denied that the second half of “Be Prepared” was inspired by the aesthetics of the political rallies of 1930’s Nazi Germany. That was the authorial intent (keep this phrase in the back of your mind). However, just as I argued on X (they/, deadname: Twitter), yes, this scene in “The Lion King” is a reference to the Nazis, and, no, it isn’t political.

Let’s discuss why.

Literary Theory and Criticism

While analysis and criticism of art has existed for as long as art itself has, the root of what we consider modern (Western) literary criticism could be argued to have stemmed from classical Biblical hermeneutics and exegesis, especially of the Old Testament. Whereas monks and saints of a thousand years ago poured over religious texts, analyzing each line with a fine tooth comb, this later developed into the same sort of rigor over non-religious texts. The saints of old viewed the Old Testament through the lens of the New, explicating how each part of the books of the prophets ultimately point back to Christ, today, this lens is exchanged for one from a school of higher criticism. Instead of reading the Book of Jonah as a prophecy for Christ in a monastery, today we read Milton’s “Paradise Lost” from a post-colonial lens, watch Michael Bay’s “Transformers” series from a feminist lens, or interpret FromSoft’s “Dark Souls” series from a Marxist lens.

When interpreting a work of literature, a film, or any other work of art, there are two elements mainly at play during our criticism and analysis of it: the elements within the piece and the elements without the piece. What do I mean by this? Mainly, we can either look at the elements that specifically make up a piece, such as in a poem, the meter or word used or imagery, or the elements outside that piece that might inform it, such as who the creator is, his or her culture, authorial intent, et cetera.

Traditional interpretation of a work of art, particularly literature, focused heavily on the biography of the creator to understand the intended and definitive meaning of the work. So, for example, Edmund Spenser’s “The Fairie Queene” could only truly be understood and analyzed with the knowledge of who Spenser was, his attempt to curry favor with Queen Elizabeth I, the House of the Tudors, the Protestant Reformation, and Elizabethan England itself.

This form of interpretation, however, came to a head, in 1967, in French literary critic Roland Barthes’ essay, “The Death of the Author.” Barthes argued that to narrowly focus on the text in reference to the author is to limit the text itself. Who Spenser was would be irrelevant to Barthes in understanding “The Fairie Queene.” The meaning would lie solely within the text itself and what the reader draws from it.

To inject myself back into the conversation, I believe both sides of the extreme would fail to fully capture the point of a piece of art. Unlike Barthes, I don’t believe any piece can be fully removed from its creator or the culture in which it was produced. An author’s DNA can no more be removed from his book than can a father’s from his own son. However, likewise, to only focus on a work of fiction within the context of the author or culture is to put aside any universal meanings and messages which a work taps into. A work needs to be able to stand on its own, outside its author. The point of art is to tap into and explore the human condition (a universal) from one’s own perspective (a particular). In addition, an author may unknowingly portray something or give a message that was completely unintended but still resonant, regardless of authorial intent.

But enough on the history of literary criticism, what about the Nazi Hyenas?

Semiotics and Swastikas

Before discussing why the goose stepping hyenas scene in “The Lion King” is or is not “political,” it’s important to explain what the argument taking place actually is. What does it mean when a piece of media is “political?” When someone complains about “shoving politics into media” what exactly does he mean by that?

Ultimately, the difference between fictional politics and political fiction comes down to authorial intent. When someone complains about “politics in media,” what they are complaining about is the author of the piece inserting political commentary into their fictional world. The mere presence of politics, such as Scar’s coup over his brother in The Lion King, does not mean a work is political. Fictional politics is concerned solely with the politics of the world, while political fiction is concerned with the politics of the real world. Political fiction draws one out of the fictional world and makes one think about real world politics because that is the main purpose of the fictional world in political fiction, to push forward a message of some kind. We call the most flagrant examples of this “propaganda.”

If one is to argue that the marching hyenas in “Be Prepared” is political, the question then becomes, “What is the message then?” That Nazis and Hitler are evil because Scar is evil and thus associated with him?

But this has the order of operations reversed. The scene is not saying the Nazis are bad because they are like Scar, but the reverse, that Scar is bad because he is like the Nazis. Scar is being associated with fascist imagery, not the other way around.

Let’s talk about semiotics, the study and interpretation of signs and symbols.

Nazi Germany was thoroughly defeated during the Second World War, and since then, in Western culture, Nazi and fascist imagery has been shorthand for evil. This is different from, say, one political party calling the other evil in modern politics, simply due to the fact that Nazis no longer exist outside of internet imageboards and Eastern Europe. Nazis are not a political faction; they are a cultural symbol. I would, in fact, argue that, as a result of the resulting mythos of World War II, Hitler has supplanted Satan as the go-to reference for evil in common cultural parlance. He and the Nazis are less people or an extinct political force than they are a symbol for evil in the American cultural conception.

So, in 1994, Scar and the hyenas are established as villains using Nazi aesthetics, since goose stepping had become shorthand for an evil army. “Be Prepared” is not a commentary on fascism, but merely using culturally understood symbols to speak on the character and motivation of Scar and his hyenas.

But if you’re still not convinced, allow me to use another example.

Devil Ducks and Angelic Witches

If you are at all, even slightly, familiar with my activity online, you would know that religion is much more in my wheelhouse than politics. And religion and literary criticism both combined is just me getting wild on a Friday night.

1992, two years prior to the release of “The Lion King,” Warner Bros. released a Bug Bunny cartoon, titled, “Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers.” A riff on the 1956 film, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” the cartoon lambasts Warner Bros. executives for the treatment of the characters and shoddy animation of modern Looney Tunes productions. In one scene, Daffy Duck, as per usual, is seen changing the “Duck Season” signs to say “Rabbit Season,” and, after painting over them, he laughs devilishly as his head feathers form horns on the top of his head. Standard Looney Tunes stuff.

Now let’s apply the same discussion of politics and “The Lion King” except to religion and “Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers.” When Daffy’s head feathers turn into devil horns, is this “religious?” Is this making some sort of commentary about the Christian faith?

Of course not. I think it would be silly to suggest one and a half seconds of Daffy with devil horns is supposed to be a hard hitting commentary on religion. Just as the SS Hyenas and Elephant Graveyard Cathedral of Lights is meant to speak to Scar’s character, Daffy with horns is meant to communicate that he is being deceitful and sneaky via comparison to the devil. The horns operate off a prior understanding of the devil being sneaky to inform Daffy’s character, not making a comment about the devil himself. It’s using a cultural symbol within a piece of fiction to communicate something within that piece of fiction. For a work to be political or religious in nature, in the ways conservative complain about, it would have the be the reverse, as in, something within a piece of fiction would be used to communicate something about the real world.

Let’s take another religious symbol in a work of media to really drive home my point. Japan is notorious for its usage of Christian symbols within video games, anime, and manga, while simultaneously not understanding them in context whatsoever. “The Legend of Zelda” is one such Japanese video game franchise set in a faux medieval European world. In fact, Link was initially conceptualized as being a Christian, particularly Catholic, warrior, before the world’s own mythology was created in later games. Was this due to anything particularly Catholic about the plots of the earliest games? Not at all, but medieval Europe’s aesthetics involve the Catholic Church, and therefore, so too would a faux European setting.

Even after the mythology of Hyrule’s goddesses was established by Ocarina of Time, we still see real world religious symbols within the game. The original symbol of the all-female race of the Gerudo was the Islamic crescent moon and star. Was this to comment on Islam? Of course not, as it being changed in later editions shows, but as a desert dwelling people, a symbol of Islam would serve as an analogue to them.

In the same game, after Link defeats Twinrova, the antagonist Ganondorf’s surrogate twin mothers, a humorous scene plays where the two sisters argue as a halos appear above their heads and they ascend to heaven. As even the most remedial of Christians could tell you, two evil witches ascending to heaven is not very likely. Is this the creators of Ocarina of Time making some commentary on the Christian faith? No, that would be silly to suggest. This is simply a case of a Japanese creator appropriating Christian symbolism (i.e. halos for the dead) without understanding the proper context. It’s not any deeper than that.

However, allow me to play devil’s advocate for a moment. When someone argues that “all art is political,” what is meant by that?

Everyone’s a Combatant in (Culture) War

If one was at all plugged in to video game culture at large during the mid-2010’s, Anita Sarkeesian would no doubt be a familiar name. Probably one of the most prominent culture critics of the time, she has a famous quote that’s often truncated and taken slightly out of context.

At the “How to Be a Feminist” panel at the 2015 All About Women Festival in Sydney, Australia, Anita speaks about her learning about “the sociology of systems and structural change,” saying,

I sort of joke about how it was the most liberating thing that ever happened to me, and also the most frustrating for everyone around me. Cause, like, when you start learning about systems, everything is sexist, everything is racist, everything is homophobic, and you have to point it all out to everyone all the time. So there's a good year of my life where I was the most obnoxious person to be around. And then you settle into it, you start to understand, like, oh, people have been living within these systems, and it was just sort of a liberating moment for me. You learn how to pick and choose your battles and that sort of thing.

The bolded portion is what you’ve most likely seen if you’ve seen anything from this quote before. Anita is slightly making fun of herself saying when she learned about societal systems, she felt the need to point it out to everyone all the time before settling down and picking her battles. Fundamentally, however, the bolded portion gets to the heart of what is meant by “all art is political.”

What does it mean when, after a right-leaning X (they/them, deadname: Twitter) account bemoans about a TV show being politicized, someone else responds with “all art is political?” Whereas the person complaining about politicization of media is focusing on authorial intent, what message the creator is pushing, the “all art is political” side is much less concerned with the creator at all.

This phrase is shorthand for the idea that all works of art and cultural creations either, a) critique and challenge the prevailing beliefs and morals of a particular culture or b) uphold and defend the prevailing beliefs and morals of a particular culture. To the political mind, nothing is “neutral,” as even in the supposed neutrality of a “non-political” work, said work implicitly supports the prevailing power structure of society by refusing or failing to critique it.

Indeed, even on my initial post on X (they/them, deadname: Twitter), a self-identified fascist disagreed with me saying that the goose stepping hyenas in “Be Prepared” was not a political statement. He argued, exactly in the way I explained above, that by using the “aesthetics of nationalistic authoritarian militarism” for the villain of the film, it is reinforcing the cultural understanding of goose stepping as an evil, conditioning children to be against it.

While you may have initially laughed at my example in the introduction about whether or not an anime girl eating a burger is political, that exact conversation has played out before. For the “all art is political” crowd, the anime girl eating a burger is very much political; it reinforces American cultural hegemony. Whatever the artist intended is irrelevant.

This is ultimately the problem when literary theory and critique is taken out of its place in academia and thrown haphazardly into the culture. When one takes a literary theory and applies it to a work of art, it is a conversation between that work and the ideological lens one is viewing it from, but it is misguided to then conclude the ultimate meaning of a work as a result of that conversation.

If one wishes to view “The Lion King” with feminist theory, one would probably start with the three named female characters, Nala the lioness, Shenzi the Hyena, and Simba’s mom (no one remembers her name), Mufasa’s harem, or perhaps pull the threads of Scar’s line about how hunting is the job of the lionesses. However, this does not mean “The Lion King” is a work about the female sex.

And if one wants to use a Marxist theory to view “The Lion King,” rather than the shallow aesthetics of the goose step, a much better starting point would be the best part of “Be Prepared,” when Scar sings about getting his due after being denied for decades while the hyena chorus sings about getting endless meat. I could very easily type up a Marxist critique about Scar, as a demagogue, taking advantage of the underclass of hyenas and co-opting the Revolution™ for his personal gain, with the return of Simba reinforcing the monarchical power structure. But this does not make “The Lion King” innately political just because I applied a theory looking at class structure to the film.

I could even, never in a university setting of course, do a fascist reading of “The Lion King,” looking at Scar mobilizing a foreign group of hyenas for his own personal gain at the expense of the lions. Does this mean “The Lion King” is a fascist film? No, it doesn’t.

Whether from the left or from the right, I feel this line of reasoning that everything is political is so reductionist to art as a whole. To paint everything as political, either marching for or against the prevailing cultural mores and ideology, saps art of its true meaning and purpose as an exploration of the human condition and soul. Politics, without a doubt, is a part of what it means to be human, but to subject everything human to a political angle, is to reduce man to nothing more than a political actor, a cog in the machine of societal structures.

If one wishes to view all art through a lens of either upholding or critiquing the dominant culture, sure, one can do so, but it misses the point of art and paints a very bleak view of reality instead. The view renders beauty and truth not as things which are transcendental, that which touches upon the divine or sparks a feeling in the heart, but rather promotes that art is merely whatever the culture views as beautiful or true, let alone any universal, and nothing more than that.