The Lion King Movie Review
The Lion King is a movie about a cute lion named Simba who is too young to be king, yet enjoying life beforehand. In the beginning Simba is born, a new king; as he is raised high, the story is set as all of the animals come to see this new young one. The story continues as he becomes best friends with his bride-to-be, and goes through adolescence with a positive outlook. Until one day, his father dies and he runs away from home to meet two very unusual characters Timon and Pumba. They lead him into his adulthood and as soon as he grows up, Nala, his old best friend comes to beg him back. With some help from his old friend Rafiki, and Nala he reluctantly returns to his home to take his future as a rightful king. The story ends where it started, and Simba has a cute little girl named Kiara.
Scar, a character who convinces Simba to run away from home has the disease narcissism. Narcissism is a need for admiration, and lack of empathy. The diagnosis for narcissism says that 5/9 are need to be present:
(1) has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
(2) is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
(3) believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
(4) requires excessive admiration
(5) has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
(6) is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
(7) lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
(8) is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
(9) shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes
Scar shows many signs of narcissism. One sign is a grandiose sense of self-importance when he is overexaggerated about his plan to get Simba out of town and kill his brother, his preoccupiedness with the fantasy of unlimited power covers the fact that he has murdered his own brother. He believes that he is “special” and unique when he starts singing about how Simba’s father better “Be Prepaired”. He takes advantage of the highenas when he pretty much forces them to attack the pride land and help kill off the lions. He is unable to identify the feelings and needs of others when he doesn’t notice that by killing his brother, he hurt more than Simba and Nala; the whole pride land is suffering. He is envious of others because the whole plot is how he is so desperate to become a king.
Another character in the movie is Rafiki, who is the one that performs the birth rituals on Simba, and helps convince Simba that he should return to his rightful home. Rafiki suffers from Scizophrenia. Scizophrenia is a mental disorder that affecting a variety of aspects of behavior, thinking, and emotion. To have scizophrenia, two of the following need to apply:
1) delusions
(2) hallucinations
(3) disorganized speech (e.g., frequent derailment or incoherence)
(4) grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior
(5) negative symptoms, i.e., affective flattening, alogia, or avolition
Raffiki has delusions/hallucinations when he tells Simba to listen to the wind, and that it is telling him something. Also when he is in his tree, and the wind blows, and he thinks that the wind is trying to tell him that Simba should be king. He has disorganized speech when he is trying to talk to Simba, and Simba can’t understand a word he is saying; nobody can really.
Simba, the main character and the king of the pride land suffers from dissociative fuge, possibly because he thought he killed his father. Dissociative fuge is when the patient suddenly and unexpectedly travel away from home, geographic location, experience impared recall of their past. They sometimes assume a new identity. People who suffer from dissociative fuge
A. The predominant disturbance is sudden, unexpected travel away from home or one's customary place of work, with inability to recall one's past.
B. Confusion about personal identity or assumption of a new identity (partial or complete).
C. The disturbance does not occur exclusively during the course of Dissociative Identity Disorder and is not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse, a medication) or a general medical condition (e.g., temporal lobe epilepsy).
D. The symptoms cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
Simba suddenly leaves the pride land when his father dies. When Nala comes to bring him home, he doesn’t remember her. He doesn’t suffer from multiple personalities. And this causes distress among not only himself but Nala and the people he left behind.
One final character is Simba’s mother, who rarely is shown in the film, however she is diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder. People with OCD sacrifice openness, spontaneity, and flexibility to pursue orderliness, control, and perfectionism. Four out of the following need to be identified:
(1) is preoccupied with details, rules, lists, order, organization, or schedules to the extent that the major point of the activity is lost
(2) shows perfectionism that interferes with task completion (e.g., is unable to complete a project because his or her own overly strict standards are not met)
(3) is excessively devoted to work and productivity to the exclusion of leisure activities and friendships (not accounted for by obvious economic necessity)
(4) is overconscientious, scrupulous, and inflexible about matters of morality, ethics, or values (not accounted for by cultural or religious identification)
(5) is unable to discard worn-out or worthless objects even when they have no sentimental value
(6) is reluctant to delegate tasks or to work with others unless they submit to exactly his or her way of doing things
(7) adopts a miserly spending style toward both self and others; money is viewed as something to be hoarded for future catastrophes
(8) shows rigidity and stubbornness
Simba’s mother is preoccupied with the detail that Simba needs to be clean that she will not let him run away and play with Nala until he is done getting his bath (which she is giving him). He was pretty clean to begin with, so her perfectionism interrupted his task to go out and play, and shortened the time that he had. She shows stubbornness when she will not let him go, and she shows reluctancy to delegate tasks when she won’t just let Nala clean him while they are off playing in the wilderness. She is devoted to her work, that is motherhood and cleaning the crap out of Simba.