My Lion King Forum

It bothers me a bit that The Lion Guard is made up of four male members and a single female, making Fuli the token girl. Once it was established that Simba and Nala would have a son that would be the leader of the Guard, it makes sense that Bunga, his best friend, is also male. Beshte, being a hippo, and the largest and strongest member is also best suited for a male character. That leaves Ono. He could easily have been made female, in my opinion.

All I`m saying is, why does the Guard have such an overweight of male members? I know Kion, being male would most likely have mostly male friends, but there is such a lack of strong, independent female animal characters in Disney films and series. And by that I mean female characters that aren`t just someones girlfriend or daughter. It would have been nice if The Lion Guard featured a better balance between genders and had two females represented instead of just one.
All that said, I am grateful for the female member it does have, as well as the new lioness cubs Zuri and Tiifu. They`re all great additions to the TLK universe.

It should but likely won't because of out of touch corporate suits who think that stuff like tlk is mainly for boys, and don't know (or just plain ignore) that there are a bajillion female fans or don't think that boys care for female characters.

This is a problem with disney/marvel as a whole.

Rey from star wars tfa barely got any merchandise at the start, and instead disney bet on the wrong horse with kylo ren. Execs were surprised when people wanted merch of the likeable female protagonist over kylo ren.


Gamora and black widow from the marvel movies have the same problem. James Gunn, director of guardians of the galaxy is working towards getting more gamora merch for next years sequel.

So yeah blame the suits who are really out of touch.

I think any of the other characters would have been good as a girl, actually. I will confess I'm pretty fond of Beshte's voice, but I think literally any other character would have made a really good relatable and inspiring role model for girls.

Female hippos are very large and strong too, Beshte could have been a female too.

we have, besides the guard a queen lioness Kiara with 2 female friends, Nala, we have both female and male antagonists.. i dont see a problem with a 4-1 girl in the guard thing.

The problem is that we see Kiara/Nala/Tiifu very rarely.

Honestly, the whole fact that TLG was aimed more at boys probably explains the fact that the guard is made up of more males. First of all, when the guard is mentioned it seems past members all tended to be male lions who were perceived to be stronger than female lions. A lot of female characters get shortchanged in many genres I am into depending on who the people who make it think it's aimed at. That's why if you're into MLP the mane six are all female because they thought only girls would be interested in the show (they never saw bronies coming!). TLK universe kind of has a pattern of not letting female characters have enough screen time such as Nala (SP and TLG), Sarabi, and even Vitani. It's sad but I wish there had been a female as well, perhaps Ono being a female.

There definitely is a huge disparity, and I second EJ in that the blame lies with execs who don't realize that boys love female characters if they're well-written and dynamic. RotR made it seem like Zuri, Tiifu, and Kiara would balance things out, but they've been showing up a bit too rarely for that to be the case.

I think Beshte would have worked best as female. When I think of a female Beshte, I think of something along the lines of Steven Universe's Bismuth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADxR7R03LCo They'd obviously have to find a younger actor than Bismuth's actor, but the tone of voice and charisma would have been really strong had we been given a Beshte along those lines.

If they'd made Beshte a girl, I worry that his personality traits of being warm-hearted and a good socialiser would have been written off as being typical feminine traits. And, I think it's still important that boys do have Beshte as a role model for these traits!

I think the character that would actually benefit the most from a gender switch would be Bunga. I can tell you right now if I were a little girl watching this cartoon I would have loved to see a girl just as carefree, gross and gung-ho as I was in Bunga. (I actually had some pretty bad misconceptions about girls in general as a little one- mainly that they were weak and worthless- that I blame in part on not having enough strong role models)

i think disney has a lot of strong female role models, especially when they let go of the idea of princesses that Needed A Prince. Rapunzel, Anna and Elsa are good examples of strong female roles. Fuli and Kiara are good ones in TLG. I only hate that they gave Zuri "that personality" she has. Tiifu is sweet and innocent, bit Zuri is high hearted in my opinion and a bad example. Bunga is rude and ruthless.. if he was more respectfull I'd like him for his fearlessness ^^