![]() They are all supporting characters or side characters who are barely featured. With the exception of Mufasa and Young Nala, none of the characters are our main characters. Then there are Scar’s hyena sidekicks, who share a decent role in the movie, but only two are played by people of color, with Whoopi Goldberg playing Shenzi and Cheech Marin playing Banzai. Rafiki, voiced by Robert Guillaume, has a pretty prominent role but is largely an adviser to Simba and even then he takes a back seat to characters like Nala, Timone, or Pumbaa. Sarabi, Simba’s mother, is played by another Black voice actress named Madge Sinclair, but is barely featured in the movie at all. Young Nala, played by Niketa Calame, is only in the very beginning of the movie and Adult Nala is played by Moira Kelly, a white actress. Mufasa, played by James Earl Jones, dies at the beginning of the movie. Two of those voice actors aren’t in the movie for very long. I love the musical and I still love the Lion King movie, but the movie actually has a ton of issues from casting to racial coding.ĭuring my re-watch of T he Lion King, I decided to look up the cast and I was dismayed to find that there are only five Black voice actors and only six voice actors of color total. I think some people tend to not think of the movie as racist because it is set in Africa and launched a successful musical that features a huge cast of Black actors -which are all great things on their own. So my husband and I have been continuing our Disney marathon, and while we were watching I discovered something: The Lion King actually has a lot of racist themes, especially in regards to the hyenas. ![]()
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