Mufasa’s a genderbent Disney Princess now, and here’s why:
So I was chatting with my friend about the Mufasa movie, how I adore it and love its potential, but hate the realistic cgi lions so bad.
And out of nowhere, I had a sudden realization. And my brain had fixated on it.
In the new film, Mufasa becomes an orphan when his dad dies and he gets separated from his family.
He is adopted and raised by Eshe, while Obasi hates him. He had comfort, but surely had a rough time mourning his parents while growing up in a pride whose king hated him.
Mufasa, at the start of the film, is kind of a Mary Sue. He lacks pretty much any flaws that can be used for character growth throughout the movie. He’s just generally a nice person, compassionate, selfless, and caring, from start to finish.
He meets Sarabi, and falls in love, but cannot pursue her out of respect for his brother. His brother, the prince, the one with noble blood.
Sarabi is the “Disney Prince” too Mufasa’s Disney Princess in this scenario. She shows up, they fall in love quite quickly, there is a conflict that keeps them apart and the “Princess” is much more avoidant and nervous about it than the “Prince”.
The villains are defeated by the power of being outnumbered, the family member who betrayed the princess gets a not really good but not really bad either ending.
And the Princess becomes royalty with her Prince.
To be fair dead parents/becoming an orphan is a staple in a LOT of Disney films, not just the princesses, but the princesses are included in that. Like Elsa and Anna. But I think Cinderella is a better comparison to Mufasa. Cinderella’s father dies, leaving her to be raised by her evil step mother who hates her and prioritized her own two children. Obasi has the same sort of feelings and prejudice towards Mufasa, and despite his son and mate claiming Mufasa as family, he rejects it completely and attempts to have Taka do the same. Almost like how the evil step mother successfully turned her daughters against Cinderella.
I notice in most Disney Princess films, internal conflict and character growth of the main is rarely important to the plot. They’re typically almost perfect, even when they have flaws that do affect the story, they’re usually a perfect Mary Sueish character by the end.
Anything beyond this point may be wrong, it’s been a long time since I’ve last seen most of these movies, so PLEASE correct me if I’ve gotten anything wrong.
Cinderella: No real flaws, she does not fight back against her step mother and step sisters. The only real decision she makes for herself is going to the ball. Cinderella runs away because time is running out on the spells that allowed her to attend the ball, not because of internal conflict, insecurity, or any character flaws of her own.
Rapunzel: Naive and curious about the world, but unlike Ariel, her naivete doesn’t carry consequences to the plot. She’s optimistic. How she sees the best in people.
Mufasa similarly seems naive to others when he tries to work together with other animals. Even Sarabi judges him for trying that with the elephants despite her only companion at first being a bird. But in the end it pays off, his kindness and seeing all animals as equal inspires all the different animals of Milele to fight together.
ALSO Mufasa was given a power to sense things at a great distance in great detail, in a world where any other character (of the same species) do not have powers, or are very likely not to. Like how Raine’s (in her movie at least, I have never seen the show) is the only person with magical powers because of a magical flower. Or even like Elsa, being the special one with powers. Although Mufasa’s powers aren’t nearly as plot-relevant as Elsa’s.
Moving on, Mufasa gets the typical Disney Princess ending:
Ascended to royal status, marrying the love of his life, and living a happily ever after.
Now being tragically murdered by your beloved brother isn’t exactly a peaceful or happy ending. HOWEVER, as this happened in the OG film, and not shown at all in the Mufasa movie, I am not counting it. ESPECIALLY because everything up until that point can and should be considered a happily ever after.
Hell, as Maui put it “If you wear a dress, and have an animal sidekick, you’re a princess!” Mufasa himself is an animal, but I think we can count Zazu as an animal sidekick. He’s more so Sarabi’s sidekick at first, before kind of for the whole group. But he does work for Mufasa and is a very close friend in the OG lion king.
And since I brought up the Princess criteria being joked about in Disney films, I might as well pull up the other time that happened.
“Do you have magic hair?”
“Do animals talk to you?”
“You made a deal with an underwater sea witch, where she took your voice in an exchange for a pair of human legs?”
“Have you ever had true love’s kiss?”
“Do you have daddy issues?”
“I don’t even have a mom!”
“Do people assume all your problems got solved because a big strong man showed up?”
Has some kind of magic power: Yes!
Talks to animals: Yes! (this one, again, is iffy because he is an animal. BUT since culturally most animals stuck to their own species for the most part before Mufasa, I’m counting this)
Had at least one attempt on his life: Yes!
Enslaved or kidnapped: Not really! He’s free to leave but he has no one to go to, everything dear to him is within Obasi’s territory (other than his parents who he has given up on finding) so in a sense he’s trapped himself there.
Made a deal that turned out to be a scam: No
Daddy issues: Yes! Between the dead dad and Obasi refusing to ever be associated with Mufasa or considered his father, I’d say yes.
No mother: No. he’s only “motherless” after Eshe dies until the end where he reunites with Afia.
Big strong man fixes your problems: Nope. Mufasa is the big strong man who fixed his own problems.
I don’t know what to make of this. Was it intentional? Unintentional? Does it even matter? Probably not!
But thinking about Mufasa as a Disney Princess is kind of hilarious. And as soon as I had the thought, I really needed to get it written out and shared with people to discuss it.
Man! I didn’t think this post would be this long! It took me an hour to write this.
