The Small Pets Equality League

Dear Disney Studios,

We, the members of the small pets equality league, along with Bottle Against Being Yoink (better known by the acronym BABY) are writing to launch a complaint against your company's recent live action adaptation of The Lion King. While we acknowledge that both the original film and its remake are artistically appealing, any enjoyment of either film has been lost on our community due to the problematic portrayal of the film's central protagonist. We know that Simba was born into animal society that it meant to mimic a European aristocracy and hence, his birth is to be celebrated by all the kingdoms subjects-mammalian or otherwise. However the filmmakers' decision to show the baboon character, called Rafiki, lifting newborn Simba into air while all of the animals to him has caused great unrest in our community for the year 25 years. Simba and Rafiki's pose, perhaps because it is so striking, has been replicated, often to little success, with nearly every infant and pet under 25 pounds born after 1994. We do not fully understand why the pose is so broadly appealing to adult humans, but all our attempts to get them to desist have failed. They ignore our obvious disinterest and even fight our squirming. The problem has gotten so how of control that many major sporting events now have a 'Simba Cam' that portrays people in the crowd lifting their infants (and occasionally small dogs) into the air during intermission. Many in our community now avoid 'Bark in the Park' baseball games out of fear that they will be unwilling be lifted and shown to an audience of thousands. The pose is very uncomfortable and we do not enjoy dangling in the air. Given our humans' apparent inability to understand this obvious fact, we are now nicely requesting that you edit both films to no longer show Rifiki hosing Simba in the air. While we realize is in a powerful moment in both the original and in the remake, it has caused us so suffering that we no longer believe it is worth maintaining. Obviously, the film's narrative still requires an opening shot establishing Simba as a lion prince. So, we recommend that Simba's birth is still celebrated and only wish to suggest that Simba and Rifiki be edited into an alternative pose. Potential poses might include: 'Rifiki cradling Simba', 'Rifikie hold Simba close to his chest' or 'Simba walking along side Rifiki'. We are also open to alternative suggestions and understand that the integrity of the original film must remain intact. However, a change must made in order to improve our situation. Please take this request seriously as we have suffered from this problem for decades. We hope to hear from you soon.

Sincerely,

The Small Pets Equality League