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| Shenzi, Banzai and Ed | |
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| First appearance | The Lion King |
| Created by | Jonathan Roberts |
| Voiced by | Shenzi: Whoopi Goldberg (films, Animated Storybook: The Lion King) Tress MacNeille (Timon and Pumbaa, Kingdom Hearts II and The Lion King: Simba's Mighty Adventure) Banzai: Cheech Marin (films, KH II, Animated Storybook: The Lion King) Rob Paulsen (Timon and Pumbaa, The Lion King: Simba's Mighty Adventure) Ed: Jim Cummings |
Shenzi, Banzai and Ed are a trio of villainous spotted hyenas who first appeared in the 1994 Disney animated film The Lion King as the loyal followers and minions of Scar, and would later re-appear in one sequel and one spin off series.
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Creation, portrayal and criticism
A number of Disney studios artists spent two days observing and sketching captive spotted hyenas maintained at the Field Station for Behavioural Research in the hills above the University of California's Berkeley campus. Dr. Laurence Frank, and other scientists who had organised the visit, expressed a strong request that the portrayal of the hyenas featured in The Lion King be positive. The artists responded that they would do their best to make the hyenas appear more comical than evil.[1] The resulting portrayal did not impress most hyena biologists: one hyena researcher sued Disney studios for defamation of character[2], and in conclusion to a spotted hyena fact sheet written for African Geographic in May 2006, Dr. Frank included boycotting The Lion King as a way of helping preserve hyenas in the wild.[3] Hyena researcher Stephen Glickman wrote:
| “ | In both Hemingway and The Lion King there is an emphasis on greed, gluttony, and stupidity that is ultimately designed to be comical. This reaches its "pinnacle" when a hyena [Ed] feeds on its own body, as described in The Green Hills of Africa and in the American children's computer game based on the movie. | ” |
Condemnation was also launched by film critics and cultural analysts, some of whom saw the portrayals of the hyenas as underlying a low class and that their upholding of cultural stereotypes by sporting African American (Shenzi) and Latin American (Banzai) accents, as opposed to the American and British accents of the main characters, was racist.[4][5][6] Film analyst Matt Roth was particularly damning, writing in his The Lion King: A short history of Disney-fascism:
| “ | They [the hyenas] are also stereotypical gang members, inherently criminal, cutthroat and mercenary — brawling with each other when not united by a common victim. As scavengers whose own neighborhood offers slim pickings, they eagerly accept handouts. Scar provides them: he gains the hyena's loyalty by promising them a steady stream of meat, thus creating the Welfare State.
After he usurps the throne, Scar lets the hyenas out of the "dark region" and into the Prideland, to the horror of the other species. Catastrophe follows: the lions' resources are squandered by the lazy and rapacious hyenas, who, in turn, harass the lions with petty terror. The balance of nature is upset: the herds flee, the water dries up, and the landscape soon resembles the wasteland of the elephant graveyard. The hyenas carry their blight with them; having brought down the productive ecosystem that used to provide them with scraps, their starvation only worsens. They offend Scar, who cares only about his power, by voicing nostalgia for the Mufasa regime which kept them in their place... Demonstrating kingly mercy, Simba spares Scar — who, of course, tries one more backstab before he's done in by angry and betrayed hyenas, the very unsavory types he has spent his years pandering to. A fitting end to the Liberal Politician. |
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The Hyenas
Shenzi
Shenzi (voiced by Whoopi Goldberg) is the only female of the hyenas. Her name means "savage", "pagan", "uncouth", or "barbarous" in Swahili. According to Timon in The Lion King 1½, her full name is Shenzi Marie Predatora Vendetta Jacquelina Hyena. She is the de facto leader of the trio and the smartest hyena, traits which are consistent with true spotted hyenas: females are larger than the males and dominate them. She has a prominent mohawk-like tuft on her head and lacks the dark grey snout of the other two hyenas. Shenzi was originally going to be male and played by Tommy Chong, reuniting him with his old comedy partner Cheech Marin, who was playing Banzai.[8] Her facial features mimics those of her voice actress, Whoopi Goldberg.
Banzai
Banzai (voiced by Cheech Marin) is the most accident-prone of the hyenas, being wounded twice, once in a fight with Mufasa, and once by falling into a thornbush while chasing Simba. He is also the greediest, frequently making references to food and being the most discontent of the hyenas when the Pride Lands lacks food under Scar's rule ("It's dinnertime, and we ain't got no stinkin' entrees!"), to the point that he quietly remarks to his friends that Mufasa was indeed a better king than Scar. His name means "skulk" or "lurk" in Swahili. It can also mean "die with honor" or "ten thousand years" in Japanese.
Ed
Ed (voiced by Jim Cummings) communicates through laughter, his only line of dialogue being the chorus of the song Be Prepared. He sports a permenant smile on his face, his pupils never leave the centers of his eyes, he has two round cuts on each ear and his tongue is almost always protruding. Ed is shown at times to either act more alert than his peers, or as completely unaware of his surroundings: he is the first to notice Simba and Nala's escape while his two distracted peers were still occupied exchanging jokes. However, when Mufasa attacked them, their situation was worsened when Ed confirmed (by nodding) that he knew Simba was Mufasa's son. During a scuffle with Banzai, he bites his own leg. He is one of the few characters not to have a swahili name.
The Lion King
The hyenas first appear in the Elephant Graveyard that Simba and Nala venture into. The hyenas, under Scar's orders, chase the cubs in an attempt to kill them, but are frightened off by Mufasa. Afterwards, they help Scar carry out his plan to kill Mufasa by triggering the wildebeest stampede. Immediately after Scar tells Simba to run away and never return, he commands the hyenas to kill Simba too, but Simba eventually eludes the clumsy hyenas. Years into Scar's reign, they complain about lack of food in the Pride Lands but Scar ignores them. When Simba returns to overthrow Scar, the hyenas join the fight, but most are defeated, and Shenzi and Banzai are ruthlessly beaten up by Pumbaa for calling him a "pig". When Shenzi, Banzai, and Ed overhear a helpless Scar telling Simba the hyenas are the enemy, they furiously turn against their master. Together, with the aid of other hyenas, they corner Scar after he is defeated by Simba. Scar tries to absolve himself, saying that he did not really mean it. The hyenas refuse to listen and begin to maul him, just before a giant flame engulfs Scar along with the hyenas. Whether they perished in the flames or survived and fled the Pride Lands is unknown, but the latter is more commonly accepted as they are seen later in The Lion King's Timon and Pumbaa.
The Lion King II: Simba's Pride
In the direct-to-video sequel The Lion King II: Simba's Pride, the hyenas are only briefly mentioned by Nuka as he and his grown sister Vitani arrive at the Elephant Graveyard:
| “ | Ew. This place looks even creepier since the hyenas ran off. | ” |
Originally, Zira was going to be accompanied by the hyenas but it was changed to Outsider lions.
The Lion King 1½
In the direct-to-video midquel The Lion King 1½, the hyenas have a fairly major role despite being minor characters in the original film. They can even be called the movie's antagonists.
In their first appearance, they attack a meerkat colony when Timon, who is the sentry on duty of the colony, is daydreaming. They fail to catch any meerkats, but this incident drives Timon to leave the colony to find where he truly belongs. The hyenas make an appearance again during the film's climax at Pride Rock. Some anonymous hyenas are seen chasing Timon and Pumbaa into a cave (after the Hula Song in the first film), and are driven away by Pumbaa's flatulence. Eventually, Timon and Pumbaa are cornered by the hyenas. Timon proposes to Shenzi as a desperate move to buy time for his mother and Uncle Max as they dig a tunnel, which she turns down abruptly. The hyenas then fall into the tunnel, which transports them to the ground just in time for them to maul Scar.
Backstory
The hyenas were also featured in two spin-off books of The Lion King, set before the events of the original film.
In A Tale of Two Brothers, the young hyenas appear at the beginning where they surround a helpless Rafiki who had just arrived in the Pride Lands. King Ahadi comes to the rescue just in time, with his sons Mufasa and Taka (Scar), and demands the hyenas to leave. The hyenas appear again later, where they advise Scar to make Ahadi think Mufasa was useless by making Mufasa enrage a selfish buffalo. The plan did not turn out well, and Scar's eye was wounded by the buffalo herd in the process, hence the nickname "Scar".
In Friends in Need, the teenage hyenas appear again at the beginning, where they are preparing to boil a teenage Zazu in the elephant graveyard like in the first film. A teenage Mufasa passes by, scares the hyenas away, and befriends Zazu.
Beyond the films
The Lion King's Timon and Pumbaa
The three hyenas made occasional appearances in the TV series The Lion King's Timon and Pumbaa. While Jim Cummings reprised his role as Ed, Tress MacNeille and Rob Paulsen replaced Whoopi Goldberg (Shenzi) and Cheech Marin (Banzai) respectively. The hyenas were also more noticeably dimwitted in the series in comparison to the movies. In the series, they continuously bully Timon and Pumbaa.
It should also be pointed out that significant plot points involving the three hyenas and Timon and Pumbaa in this series (particularly, the episode, "Once Upon A Timon"), have since been reconnected by the events that took place in The Lion King 1½.
Kingdom Hearts II
The hyena trio also appeared in the Disney/Square Enix video game Kingdom Hearts II. In the game, they appeared in the Pride Lands world, and were also Scar's followers.
The hyenas first encountered the game's main protagonists, Sora, Donald Duck, and Goofy, when they first appeared in the Pride Lands and battled with them twice. Later on, Sora and company defeated the hyenas again when they were attempting to kill Timon and Pumbaa, just before helping Simba fight Scar. After Scar was destroyed, the hyenas went back to the Elephant Graveyard and started eating carcasses again, though Shenzi considered it a mixed blessing. The trio had one final part in the story, having some knowledge relating to Scar's "ghost" and forcing Sora and Simba to chase and attack them for answers. Once beaten, Shenzi remembers that Scar's ghost only appears when animals are frightened.
In the English version of the game, Tress MacNeille replaced Whoopi Goldberg as Shenzi's voice whereas Cheech Marin and Jim Cummings reprised their respective roles.
It is interesting to note that, out of all of the villains (Disney, Final Fantasy, or otherwise) that Sora has faced in the series, Shenzi, Banzai, and Ed are the only ones that have (canonically speaking) come the closest to actually killing him; at the beginning of their first visit, Banzai is just about to bite into an incapacitated Sora (unused to his new lion form), and it is only Scar calling for the hyenas that Sora survives this encounter.
House of Mouse
The Hyenas were featured in several episodes of House of Mouse, and were part of the Disney villains featured in Mickey's House of Villains.
Disney theme parks
Appearances by the hyenas at Walt Disney Parks and Resorts are extremely rare. In 2004, they were featured in Disneyland Resort Paris’s The Lion King Carnival, but since that time their most reliable presence has been as part of Walt Disney World Resort’s yearly Mickey’s Boo-To-You Halloween Parade.
References
- ^ a b The spotted hyena from Aristotle to the Lion King: reputation is everything - In the Company of Animals, Social Research, Fall, 1995 by Stephen E. Glickman
- ^ The good,the bad and the hyena by James Mcpherson
- ^ Girl Power, Laurence D. Frank, African Geographic
- ^ Film genre 2000: new critical essays published by The SUNY series, cultural studies in cinema/video
- ^ The Death of Art, by Bhesham R. Sharma, published by the University Press of America, 2006
- ^ The Mouse That Roared: Disney and the End of Innocence, Culture and Education, Henry A. Giroux, Rowman & Littlefield, 2001
- ^ The Lion King: A short history of Disney-fascism by Matt Roth from Jump Cut, no. 40, March 1996, pp. 15-20
- ^ AsianWeek.com
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