I don't know if any of you watch this show, I sure don't, but I'm ranting about it anyway.
Lemme just say, this show isn't all bad. I'm sure there are great parts of It! I can't say much because I don't watch it. But I've seen a fee episodes and it's enough to make me mad pissed.
This show could be great. It's set in the Lion King universe, which I love, and the concept is really cool. But it fucks some things up and I don't like that.
Let's start of with the man, the myth, the legend, our protagonist himself, Kion. First of all Kion is just lion with a different letter and I only noticed that now. Onto the actual important thing...Kion messes up TLK canon. In Simba's Pride, set after TLK, where the fuck is he? Oh, that's right, he doesn't exist. He's supposed to be Kiara's younger brother but he isn't there in the future. Did he run away? Did he die? No, Disney just didn't care. This wouldn't be such a big deal if it wasn't so fucking avoidable. He didn't have to be Simba's son, for a start. But I can see why Disney did that and I support it - it connects the audience to him more as a character. He could've been Kiara and Kovu's son. What fucks me off is that Kiara is right there. Yeah, she's the heir, but couldn't she have been the protagonist, because it would then fit canon better and wouldn't mess up the timeline?
Oh wait, we couldn't do that. A female protagonist? Oh no, we can't do that. Boys can't watch shows with a female protagonist, and this show is clearly marketed towards boys even though animals and TLK are a fairly gender neutral thing (though everything should be) it has action in it and isn't totally pink and girly and it isn't about princesses or fairies, or pink and glittery. So why market towards girls?
We'll get back to the gender rant later. Now I wanna talk about the dumbest fucking thing the show did. And I get it, it's for kids, and they won't notice this gross retcon. But that's no excuse for Disney to be lazy. Yeah, the shows a blatant cash grab, but it could at last be a good cash grab. They invented this whole thing that Scar was evil because he killed the other members of his lion guard before the whole Mufasa incident. Meaning that Mufasa kept Scar around despite knowing that he was evil and allowed him to be around his child. I - what? That fucks everything up! It makes the entire pride look stupid, if anyone was dumb enough to accept that as canon. That was so unnecessary and it makes me so angry! I can't articulate how stupid this is because I'm so mad about it.
Some other petty things
- kions "adolescent" design annoys me. Give the man at least a little more of a mane.
- Kion's roar in general. Oooh, look at him, he's got a magical roar! I know its a kids show and I'm biased against it, but come on. Couldn't they be a little more creative? The whole concept doesn't fit into the world and I just don't like it at all.
- I saw one episode where Kion had to save Nala because Nala couldn't possibly defend herself, and her cub son with his magical roar had to save her. Haha fuck that. Nala ran away from the pridelands to bring Simba home to save her pride, risking her life and assumably coming into all kinds of danger. She can fight, she's a badass. Our little protagonist is a child. They didn't have to make Nala helpless to make our little hero look better.
- The Lion Guard would jump in and chase the hyenas away from prey in their own territory?? What happened to the circle of life? Fuck that.
- Bunga is so incredibly annoying. This isn't exactly a critical for the show bc I'm sure if I was a kid he'd be fine but,, dear god he sucks.
- the characters are so one dimensional. I know I haven't see much of the show and it's for kids but that doesn't mean it has to be shitty. Kids shows can be full of depth. AtLA, though having a different age demographic was perfectly entertaining and watchable at a young age, and rewatching it when I'm older, I can see just how incredible it was with its characterisation and depth. A show being for kids doesn't excuse it of lazy writing. If anything, kids shows should have quality writing because they can majorly impact a kid's opinions and worldview.
But what really annoys me about the show is that it's that standard "group of male characters and one token female" in the main group business. Like Paw Patrol. It's so annoying. As I said before, TLK isn't "a boy's movie" so the show shouldn't be. A shoe marketed towards boys shouldn't have only one girl to make the female viewers happy. Why do we always have to settle for that one token girl? It should be more balanced. It's misogyny and I'm so tired of it. Is it that hard to add two females to three boys? Or, shock horror, more girls than boys?? Yes, it's easier to someone to relate to A protagonist of their own gender as a kid. Kion being male isn't a problem (...though as I said, the show shouldn't necessarily be marketed at boys anyway) but having a more gender balanced cast would help kids have more empathy towards other genders and stop seeing other genders as alien. Obviously it would be really cool for nb genders and trans characters to be included too but that's not gonna happen. Disney are cowards and we all know it. This whole misogyny business is my main complaint. We're in 2020 now. Surely this is something that should be long out the doors.
Sorry for anyone wanting quality rants about warriors who instead got a 30 minute world vomit about how much I dislike a kids show I haven't watched but,, I'm mad. Real mad.
