[quote="Tora"][quote="Sadiki"]I'm a little confused by this. how did the episode make it seem like the girls knew best all the time? Kion and Kiara both had moments in which they were misguided and had to admit they were wrong and the other was right. neither character was presented as the most all-knowing. gender didn't appear to have anything to do with this plot point at all.
if anything, I'd like to see TLG be better about empowering young girls. the show has already disappointed in this realm numerous times, and the only thing that's happened so far to redeem it a bit IMO is the character of Jasiri. but maybe now we can put the added depth of Kiara's character on the list, too![/quote]
Perhaps I misjudged it slightly. My point is that the episode put so much emphasis on the idea that "SHE" is queen, and that "SHE" is in charge. Yes they both had problems and they should have listened to each other. However if "SHE" would have let him do his job instead of issuing decrees just because she was Queen then Kion would never have second guessed his choices. He wouldn't have said lets move the bees. He simply was being spiteful because she told him what to do. I'm just trying to point out it always seems as though especially lately that Disney seems to relish the idea of female characters being leaders. I'll admit atleast Kiara didn't expect Kion to bow down before her. I honestly think the day she demands it he will challenge her for the throne. I digress though maybe I just see something no one else does.
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The emphasis placed on Kiara being in charge has nothing to do with her gender. Like most parents would, Simba placed his oldest child in charge when leaving for his duties. In my household, when we were kids, my sister was put in charge of my brother and me because she was oldest. My neighbor had two sons, when she left them alone, the older one was left in charge. The canon of the TLK universe dictates that Kiara is the heir to the throne, and, as the eldest, it would be sexist to relegate that duty to Kion just because he's male. Kiara's friends placed emphasis on her being in charge, also, as did Bunga, and Ono, but the show itself did not.
Let me explain.
Kiara is told she's to be acting queen for a few days by her father, the king, and she seems a bit uncertain about it. Kion is uncertain too. However, Ono, Bunga, Tiifu, and Zuri make a big deal out of it, especially Tiifu and Zuri, who are behaving as any kids/teens would in this situation, they are trying to stay on Kiara's good side and get her to do what they want because she, their friend, suddenly has power. They aren't royal and they'll never have other animals bowing before them, so they're trying to live vicariously through Kiara, not that this is necessarily conscious or deliberate. At first, she simply suggests that Kion do something about the bees, but it is only after she's prodded by her friends that she declares it is an order. Tiifu and Zuri started the whole "royal decree" thing, not Kiara. With the way they and Bunga were acting, of course the position went to her head a little.
Kion is, as any younger sibling would be, frustrated that his older sibling gets to order him around. He chooses not to listen and ends up messing things up. We can't say for sure whether or not he'd have made the right call in regards to the bee situation had Kiara not given him an order, but we do know that he deliberately chose not to do what she suggested simply because it was her idea. Later on, he had to rescue her when she chose deliberately not to listen to him. The Lion Guard and the ruler are supposed to act together, they are supposed to advise and discuss things together when this kind of thing happens and actually heed one another. Kion and Kiara were both shown to be in the wrong because they let their petty sibling squabbles get in the way. The show is in fact emphasizing that Kiara's not ready to be queen just yet, and that Kion still has a ways to go himself. If anything, the show was emphasizing that Simba shouldn't entrust the Pride Lands to kids without any adult supervision/advising.
Furthermore, I disagree that the show is going too far to empower females. You said something to me about feminism on Skype, in a sort of negative connotation, and I honestly don't think feminism is what you think it is. Real feminism is about men and women being equal, and yes that is showing through in the show. It doesn't seem to be saying females are better than males though--unless you're taking Jasiri's comments about Kion being male the wrong way. In hyena society, females are the leaders; they are more physically powerful and they are dominant. Her comments were to make the show realistic as to her species. The configuration of the Lion Guard (being an all-male, one female group) does show that this is targeted more at boys. Note also that the only two characters shown to always be in the right so far are Rafiki and Mufasa; both male.
In RotR and again here in CWtbQ, Kiara had to be rescued by Kion. That's not empowering her. If anything, it's implying that she's incapable of taking care of herself. Indeed, your reaction to the episode shows that Kiara is not being presented in a positive light, nor are Tiifu and Zuri. If the show truly was empowering females and trying to place emphasis on Kiara's position, they'd be showing her as closer to Nala in personality, she'd be right most of the time and not presented to us through the eyes of her younger brother. We're seeing her as the annoying older sibling because that's how Kion sees her. The only females on this show who are presented in a positive way are Nala, Jasiri, and Fuli, all of whom don't have much screen time as yet. Tiifu and Zuri are presented as annoying, and Kiara, while shown to sometimes be mature and reasonable is generally presented in a negative light as well. And with that, I've listed all of the named female characters who've appeared thusfar. We don't even see random lionesses like in the films. And those hippo girls just existed to make eyes at Beshte.
Despite female hyenas leading the clans, all of our hyena villains are males and they are being led by a male. This is not only contradictory to nature, but it also give a male a position of power where it makes no sense. Mzingo is male, Kion, Beshte, Ono, Rafiki, Bunga, Simba, Mufasa, Timon, Pumbaa, Zazu... the simple fact that we have so many more male characters than females shows that it is more male oriented. Personally I hate it in any show when a single gender dominates over the other (MLP, for example, has signifcantly fewer male characters). The Lion Guard always tends to save the day, but the ideas they have that do so are typically only Kion's ideas.
Simba's treatment of Kiara as opposed to Kion doesn't seem out of place either if you look at many parents. Most favor their oldest child anyway, subconsciously they just do. Additionally, dads tend to show more emotion towards daughters and be more protective of them and encouraging of them than sons. Dads tend to assume their sons don't need/want displays of affection and that they are in less danger of getting into trouble... because dads tend to imagine their little girl is sweet, naive, and innocent, and that males will want to take advantage of her. It's expected also that he'd be more affectionate to the child he has to spend more time with (he has to train her to be queen, and as we saw, Kion disrupts their lessons, and has other things to attend to).
Despite Simba favoring Kiara, however, the show does not.
I personally think that if they add in a few more female characters and give the ones we have already more depth, the show will be pretty balanced. That said, I don't see anything wrong with Fuli's presentation.
And finally, on an unrelated note, while I did enjoy the episode and was quite pleased to see more of Nala, Simba, and Zazu, and impressed with the elephant's funeral... The animation on Nala and Zazu is super wonky, even for the rest of this show. I really wish they'd try a little harder to make them move a bit more smoothly. Other than that, I was glad to see more traces of Nala's original personality (unlike what they did to her in SP), and I liked the way they interacted with Zazu, and Simba's uncertainty about his role in the funeral; it makes sense with his character and makes him less OOC than he's been. There were some flaws with the episode (like the absent lionesses), but in the end it did its job well enough, and displayed the importance of admitting when you're wrong, whether you're the leader of the Lion Guard or the Lion Queen. It made it quite clear that mistakes happen, on your part and on the part of those close to you, and I really don't see the episode itself as making any statements one way or the other about one gender or the other being better than the other. It presented Kiara and Kion as pretty much equals.
