DAVENPORT, IA (AP) – Setting box office records for the biggest opening of a Disney remake, featuring photorealistic animals, who sing a lot, and which isn’t “The Jungle Book”, Disney’s new “Lion King” has won broad praise from critics who want to keep being invited to early screenings of Disney movies. Meanwhile, Democrat presidential candidate Bernie Sanders hoped to take advantage of the buzz by name-dropping the movie in his rather startling assertion that Scar, and not Simba, is the REAL hero of “The Lion King”.

Sanders explained his somewhat unconventional perspective.

“I don’t know why Scar always gets a bad rap,” said Sanders. “Maybe it’s his wild blue eyes, or his shocking mane of unkempt white hair that people are always making fun of, saying things like ‘Scar’s a millionaire, you’d think he could afford a stylist whose only connection to hair isn’t that he was once a homeless guy in front of a Great Clips.’ Anyway, Scar’s the REAL hero of this film. Think about what he did: he overthrew a despotic dictator who thought he owned everything the sunlight touched, yet who excluded hyenas from sharing the land’s riches because they are from a ‘shadowy place’. Yeah… those are racist code words if I’ve ever heard them.”

“But Scar,” Sanders said, “against all odds, defeats Mufasa in a free and fair election – perhaps with the trampling wildebeests representing the National Popular Vote movement – and ushers in a new utopia of equal sharing between lions and… well, let’s call them ‘animals of color.’ And things work well for about 5 years or so, when – unexpectedly – there is a shortage of game animals and possibly toilet paper. Which was no one’s fault, just bad luck. And it didn’t help that those lazy lionesses wouldn’t pay their fair share of taxes so that everyone could enjoy the plenty to which they were entitled.”

“The point that everyone misses,” continued Sanders, “is that, under Scar, socialism works. Nobody starved. Nobody even complained about being hungry. Out loud. All anyone ever seems to notice in this movie is that – after Simba takes over – Pride Rock becomes a lush wonderland. But how long did that take? Simba has a son, and a lion’s gestational period is only 110 days. If things could turn around in less than 4 months, that means they were already on the upswing before Simba took over, much as Trump’s economy is merely riding the crest of the wave that indisputably started under Obama. Yet this propaganda film wants to blame poor, heroic Scar for the lack of rain that’s causing all the problems. But Scar couldn’t control the weather. That was just bad luck!”

“But life isn’t a movie, and when I’m elected President,” concluded Sanders, “there will be no bad luck, no drought, no lack of toilet paper! Everyone will pay their fair share and the Pride Lands of America will prosper, because I will be 10 times the president Donald Trump was!”

Although Sanders’ analysis was largely ignored by the press, President Trump did acknowledge it with a brief tweet: “If you want to see real socialism in ‘The Lion King’, it’s that pile of wiggling bugs under the log Pumbaa picks up.”

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