Circle of Life / Lion King
example · film: The Lion King ·
retold in 5 talks
Žižek uses the Lion King's 'Circle of Life' song as emblem of cynical ideology: we lions eat the poor animals but what can you do, it's the cycle of life.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 5
“it's a very cynical basically it means we lions eat the poor animals but what can you do it's the cycle of life and so on no?”
“imagine roberto benigni singing back, it's all one big circle of life, you know, jews are killing us, but we will die and we will turn into food”
“I would love to see Roberto Benigni starting to sing a song oh my son it's all one big circle of life.”
What it carries
one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)
contents · one story, 2 jobsuses
circle of life
×3
the only real change is the change of totality
×1
Its cast and sources
populated by
Jerry B. Jenkins1Bret Davis1Christopher Fynsk1William Blake1Brechtje A. Grotenhuis1Owen Flanagan1Steven St. Croix1Eduard Bernstein1
alongside works
Every retelling 5
Žižek uses the Lion King's 'Circle of Life' song as emblem of cynical ideology: we lions eat the poor animals but what can you do, it's the cycle of life., illustrating Lion King position,resigned wisdom,ideological naturalization of class
When Simba asks why lions eat zebras, his father sings 'The Circle of Life': lions eat zebras, die, feed grass, which zebras eat. Žižek applies this to Life Is Beautiful: imagine Benigni singing the circle of life to explain the Holocaust, Jews are killed, become manure, feed grass, etc. The reductio shows that the ideology of cosmic cycles naturalizes atrocity., illustrating circle of life,ideology / naturalization,the abyss between Buddhism and Christianity
Žižek imagines Roberto Benigni in La Vita Bella having to explain the Holocaust to his son by singing the Lion King's 'Circle of Life', Nazis kill Jews but will rot into grass eaten by cattle, etc., to expose the obscenity of conservative wisdom that naturalizes structural injustice., illustrating circle of life (critique of),conservative ideology,revolution vs. reformism
16:05 German Idealism and Psychoanalysis with Slavoj Zizek, Alenka Zupancic, Mladen Dolar - Part 22012-04-20 · 36:35
The lion tells his son that eating zebras is fine because zebras eat grass fed by lion-manure, the 'cycle of life'; Žižek says this wisdom of opposites-complementing is false, and the task is to change the cycle itself., illustrating the only real change is the change of totality,the truth of the Lion King
In The Lion King, the father explains to his son that lions eating zebras is fine because in the circle of life everyone returns to grass. Žižek uses this to mock 'wisdom' ideology and extends the absurdity: could the same logic justify the Holocaust? The circle-of-life posture naturalizes systemic violence., illustrating wisdom as ideology,ideology in everyday life