Learning from The Lion King

"It's good to be the king. You lie around all day. You have two beautiful blond wives, much younger. They do all the work. When they take too long, you cuff them away and chow down on nice chunks of meat served rare. Hmmm, then it's time for (yawn) nap No. 4. If a new gal comes into town, you can take her in. The wives may howl, but that's too bad. What are they going to do, find another king?"

...I don't know a man who directly or indirectly won't aspire such a life. Well, that's the claim made in one of the recent Stephen Hunter's column in The Washington Post.

I am doing a typical Washington thing here, taking few quotes out of the article and I am just about to beat the hell out - as best as I can. Now to maintain full disclosure, the above quote is about from the review of the 3-D version of "The Lion King." Life is really good for the lion king. No doubt about that. But the writer does give a sexist spin to it -- making the remark that how pro-male and anti-women lion kingdom -- which he then insinuates -- applies to the enitre men species -- including human beings.

I agree. I won't deny it. I won't even argue because I dont have a different point of view. I really don't. All I want to say -- yes! the lion deserves it.

This is where I have some trouble with the article. Hunter does not talk about what the lion has to do to get there. In other words, this is a life that the lion creates for himself through years of blood and sweat. The blondes he gets don't have to deal with all this stuff. This applies to men too, not just "men lions" In some rare circumstances, men do get to live like the lion king.

So what does the lion go through? First, when a cub grows into adosclecence, he is driven out of the pride to fend for his ownself by the dominant male in the family. He then groups together with other males and forms a frat boys society. Teamwork and cooperation tides them through as they start mating and producing cubs. Then, the dominant male fights out and chases the rest away and forms his pride. Well, this is the short version, but we can easily get the gist. Not much different from the human life. And if that's so, for all the blood and sweat, and the fact at each of this step you could have got killed or destroyed, it is a reward that in some sense measure up.

Will someone reward the male lion in me with such a life. Just kidding! Else, will be disheartened.