Why do they give them human faces?

Post Reply New Topic

Lion King was my special intrest for years. One of the reasons I loved it so much was because there were no people in it but our friend, Julie Taymore had to go mess that up. I was horrified when I saw the costumes for the Broadway show. I've never found another Lion King fan who shares my feelings for the Broadway show. I've even been attacked for them. I saw it in person and felt it was a rip off. I want my money back. The whole thing reminded me of people's descriptions of an LSD expirence. I don't care what everyone else says, I feel it raped the original movie. If I ever came across Julie Taymore, I would at least spit on her. The child in "The Emperor's New Clothes" was definatly an aspie. Perhaps if TLK wasn't my number one special intrest, I would not feel so much hatred for Julie Taymore. Anyway, why do people feel the need to give human faces to things? I cringe when I see those halloween costumes for little kids where there is a hood with animal's face, but they also feature the child's face in it's mouth. A It's clearly obvious where Miss Julie got the idea for the lion costumes:


The other costumes aren't that stunning either:

Pumbaa's back legs are sticks and don't move.


Why doesn't young Simba have a headdress but why does he have a tail? Why do I have to see a human face?




I remember the quote from iRobot, "Why do you give them all faces? To friendly them up?" Perhaps Spooner was an aspie as well? Perhaps if TLK wasn't my number one special intrest, I would not feel so much hatred for Julie Taymore. Couldn't they have used a mask that covers their eyes and nose? But really they did not need to make a stage show of TLK. It was fine as a cartoon. But anyway, why do they feel the need to give human faces or human element to everything?

I took a Theater Appreciation course and a Children's Theater course in college to fulfill the art requirement, and one of the plays we learned about in both courses was The Lion King. The Broadway production is a combination of humans and puppetry. On stage, it's not going to look exactly the same as the cartoon. If you watch Broadway: The American Musical, Julie Andrews's PBS documentary, they explain it better. I've never seen the musical, just the ads and the PBS documentary, plus a video about Julie Taymor in my Children's Theater course. I had also seen a performance from the musical on Dancing with the Stars. It was actually quite beautiful. Once you understand it, you'll see that it's actually quite stunning. Hope this helps.

I find it preferable to dispense with the fiction that the actors are animals and admit openly that these are humans playing the parts of animals. There is no way a live performance could be as complete a characterization as a movie. Think of them, and the little kids "with their face in an animal's mouth", as evoking the spirit of the animal rather than embodying it. It all refers back to the movie, but is more immediate as a live performance.

I've been a fan of the Lion King since my son watched it umpteen times as a little kid (he's 17 now), and I *hate* the Broadway show and I totally agree with you about the costumes. They're stupid, IMO....I think it just didn't translate well. *shrug*

~Kate

I'm going to ditto Meow 101 on that.

Had they covered the faces using a mask, then the actors' expressions wouldn't show through as well, for one thing. So it's a sacrifice in realism of the costume as animals for a more symbolic approach, a theatrical device for the human actors to embody the animal characters. I can see why someone would dislike it, but I enjoyed it when I saw it as a kid and think it's a good way to approach the costuming.

I think it was a better choice than puppets. Then it would be to gimmicky. And I think they were trying to go for something symbolic.

Part of the reason is so that the actors can see themselves around the stage, better.

I saw the musical and I really liked it. I wasn't really bothered by the costumes. In fact, I liked them and thought they looked like traditional African costumes.

They have to dance in those things! That's difficult enough as is; adding masks would add more clumsiness. There's a reason face-paint is a great deal more popular on stage than masks: You can actually see and move with face paint on.

Oh, and young Simba doesn't have a headdress because the actors playing the other lions have to look much larger than him.

It's also reminiscent of the way some groups of people in Africa (forget who, but there are some) will put on pageants with this kind of style of costume, to tell stories and such, for special occasions. So they're putting a bit of an "exotic" touch on it, I guess.

I agree with you about the Broadway musical taking the heart and soul out of the story.

Perhaps you would enjoy Anansi stories, one of the most widely shared African oral story traditions, with many versions now in print and recordings. The most recent take is probably the novel The Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman. One of the oldest large written collections is Martha Warren Beckwith's transcription of Jamaican Anansi stories, now available as a free EBook http://www.archive.org/details/jamaicaanansisto00beck

I agree with you. The faces made me feel confused. I had a hard time following the show. I hated it and felt the whole production didn't make any sense and had lost most of its value, particularly the story.

Actors need to act! If the audience can't see their faces then what's the point?

Does anyone know who Michael Dorn is? You'd all seen him, but most of you wouldn't recognize him.

Another example of this is the myriad of scifi movies where they are wearing spacesuits on an away mission for like 10 seconds,and then someone says it is safe to take the helmets off? Ummm no it would be too dangerous to do that. But they must in a movie because we need to see actor's faces.