Have Y'all Seen Lion King 2?
Okay - I know this is a bit of a weird question, but...
Have you all seen Lion King 2?
First - to dispel any misconceptions. No, I am not part of an unusual effort by Disney to revive the 1998 made-for-video sequel to the original Lion King.
I ask because I watched it recently, and I was kind of mind-blown.
A few weekends ago, I was hanging out with my nephew, and he wanted to watch Lion King 2. So we clicked play, and two-hours later, I was telling anyone who would listen that they should watch it.
Before we go further, I have to give you a spoiler-alert. I am going to tell you what happens in Lion King 2. So if it's been on your to-do list for the past 26 years, and you keep telling yourself you're going to get around to it so, you may want to wait to read the rest of this email until you do.
Lion King 2 tells the story of Kiara and Kovu, lions who are essentially the grandchildren to Mufasa and Scar's generation. Kiara's father, Simba, and Kovu's mother, Zira, hold a great deal of resentment and suspicion toward one another. You see, Zira, is the leader of a pride of lions that Simba regards as "the outsiders." They were followers of Scar, and therefore denied belonging to Simba's group, who were followers of Mufasa.
Kiara and Kovu become close, despite the fact that the families they come from are in a terrible feud. Kovu's mother, Zira, wants Kovu to assasinate Simba. But Kovu changes his mind due to his relationship with Simba's daugher, Kiara.
Simba doens't trust Kovu because of his association with the outsiders, but Kiara works hard to convince Simba to be more open-minded.
The original Lion King tells a powerful story, in part because Scar is easily represented as the obvious villain.
Lion King 2 tells a much more complicated story. The obvious villain turns out to be not so obvious.
You see, it turns out that that Simba's real enemy is neither Zira nor the outsiders. And Zira's true enemy is neither Simba nor the pridelanders. Rather, the true enemy to both of them is their own internal psychology.
Simba and Zira's children - Kiara and Kovu - end up teaching them that they are stuck replicating the traumatic violence acted out by Scar and Mufasa. Kiara and Kovu wake up just enough to refuse to participate in their parent's bullshit in-group/out-group dynamics, and they help their parents wake up too.
When I realized this was the lesson Lion King 2 was trying to teach, I thought - OMG, we need to have public screenings of this all over the country! This needs to be on the big screen!
Of course, Lion King 2 lacks the extraordinary music, acting, and follow-up musical as the original Lion King. But, in my view, the message is much more important for our times.
Trauma leaves a powerful imprint on us. And unless we have the support to deal with it, we end up passing it down - leaving it for our children, grandchildren, or great-grandchildren. After enough generations, someone will eventually find the support they need to heal the thing. But that gets so much more difficult in a world where modern society has essentially externalized its trauma response into our economic, legal, and political structures in the forms of various systems of oppression.
How do the generations alive today wake up enough not only to resist the bullshit in-group/out-group dynamics some members of past generations have passed down? But also the bullshit in-group/out-group dynamics that are encoded in our societal DNA?
To my mind, it essentially comes down to supporting one another to access and feel our pain, deal with our trauma, and support others to do the same. It means opening ourselves up to how we're implicated, and it means being care-ful with those who would deny their involvement.
I don't think we live in an age where business-as-usual can work any longer. I think most of us need to make urgent changes in the very foundations of our lives. We need to learn to prioritize community, relationality, and personal and communal healing over the mundane day-to-day demands that suck the life out of us. Seriously - fuck that shit.
Along the lines of transcending in-group/out-group dynamics, I'm excited to share that I have just begun to release a free virtual course on the essential nature of systems of oppression and why they exist.
An introduction to the course and the first module, Oppression and Addiction, is currently available. Two future modules, "The Deep Operating System" and "A New Perspective," will be available within the next month.
In other news, I'm sad to say that Network for Edwork and I recently made the decision to cancel Social Justice Stewardship due to low enrollment. We look forward to the opportunity to present the material at other times and in other forms in the future. Please reach out if you can think of an audience or organization who may be interested in the training!
That's all for now. I thank you for taking the time to read!
Sincerely,