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Page 188 from Athens and cursing his friends, Disney’s Timon imparts the message jovially, as a means of encouraging Prince Simba to forget his worries. The Disney Timon becomes, like Falstaff to Prince Hal in 1 Henry IV, a substitute father to Simba. Timon is also like Falstaff because he has no memory or knowledge of time. He acts histrionically, and even quotes Shakespeare in his famous song, “Hakuna Matata,” which contains the words “What’s in a name?” from the balcony scene of Romeo and Juliet (2.1.85). Specifically, the character of Timon offers an alternative sexual identity. By the time of The Lion King’s appearance, Nathan Lane, the voice of Timon, had played the role of an aging gay man in The Birdcage, and the campiest gay role in the stage version of Love! Valour! Compassion! Timon thus signifies gayness, or at least, Simba’s unsettled adolescent sexuality. Although Timon’s values are positive forces for pleasure, they must be overcome in order for Simba to regain his kingdom. Disney uses 1 Henry IV both to establish Simba’s and Timon’s transgressive natures and to restrict them. The corporation ultimately disciplines these characters’ desires for behavioral diversity by closing the movie with marriage and childbirth, the culmination of Frye’s festive pattern. The gay-inflected Timon is present at Simba’s ritual celebration of his new son. But in marrying, fathering a child, assuming the mantle of power, and literally stepping into the role of his father, King Mufasa, when he repeats the ritual of ascending the mountain, Simba gives up the irresponsibility nurtured by Timon and proves his own heterosexuality. Unlike Ursula of The Little Mermaid, Timon is not eradicated, suggesting in part that theatrical selves and transgressive bodies may be tolerated, although their influence recedes. Similarly, although Falstaff’s influence has “fallen away’’ (3.3.1) after Prince Hal joins with the King during the second half of 1 Henry IV, Hal continues to countenance the disorderly Knight. The Lion King, though, can only tolerate Timon’s disreputable presence because heterosexuality seems to be the central source of power. In fact, the catalyst to Simba’s re-emergence is his fiancée, Nala. When she pressures him to return home, he says, “You’re starting to sound like my father.” In The Lion King the ingénue is already an agent for patriarchy. It is not just the enshrinement of Simba’s heterosexuality that enables The Lion King to tolerate Timon. Disney also manages the threat to discipline that Timon poses by splitting the disruptive aspects of the outsider’s histrionic personality between Timon and the vain, posing, villain Scar. Scar’s death provides a warning against |
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