‘Dethroned’ will make you think about what it means to be human in a world where The Lion King is one of the best loved tales yet the real world’s relationship with big cats has too many Scars involved.
Cape Town, South Africa (23 October 2024) — When we’re kids watching films like ‘The Lion King’, concepts like heroes and villains are clearly laid out before us. There are Mufasas and there are Scars. But, as we grow older and watch documentaries like ‘Dethroned’, we learn that good and bad aren’t always two opposing forces bashing against each other. Often, they flow in and out of each other, driven by all sorts of different predispositions.
I thought about this a lot in the ‘Dethroned’ cinema, writes Good Things Guy’s Ashleigh. It was a film I won’t soon forget and it’s one I hope the world doesn’t.
For three years, award-winning photojournalist Aaron Gekoski has been documenting humanity’s relationship with big cats. It’s a collection of experiences Aaron bravely underwent to discover (and in many cases, uncover) in terms how different parts of the world view the former kings of the jungle and grasslands; born from an initial assignment that sent him on the search for a jaguar.
When we think about big cats, most of us imagine them prowling tall trees or roaming open plains. We imagine them in these spaces, their spaces. Far less often do we immediately pull up a mental folder of all the places they should not be, but oftentimes are.
Dethroned bursts the bubble. But, not in the way you’d expect.
From the jungles of Peru to a car seat in Pakistan and mountains of India, these kings live among us in what can only be described as a splicing of their kingdoms. Aaron takes us through these experiences; showcasing the variety of relationships to big cats; the communities who revere and respect them, those who chase and hunt them for the thrill of pride and those who are somewhere in the middle oftentimes because they simple do not know better.
Across six countries, we get to see life with big cats across different streams of influence. The beauty of the doc is that it isn’t just a single side to the story. Epicentre’s of illegal activity, breeders who make having a pet lion possible, people who act for survival and even those who are unknowingly contributing to the ethos of the big cat trade through seemingly tourist-friendly activities like cub-petting spots, are all caught up in the sticky web. Not all intentions are malicious. And in certain cases, that flow between right and wrong becomes quite a swirl—especially when you’re just a tourist who thinks petting a cub will do no harm.
Then there’s the harsher side of the iceberg reminding us that big cats, once respected by all forms of life, are now body parts up for sale and trained pets in cages. The question though, is whether this is a future written in stone for generations to come.
But the iceberg has a melting point too— FOUR PAWS‘ Lion’s Rock Sanctuary’s feature in the film that came as a breath of hope making those of us in the audience realise quite how much we need organisations like theirs, and how much is at stake without them.
The telling is close to home because South Africa too has a big role to play in all of this. After all, many practices that exploit big cats are still legal in our country and around 10,000 known lions and over 600 tigers are kept in captivity for commercial purposes (including cub petting and ‘walk with’ opportunities). But largely, it’s a conversation the world should be having.
For me, Dethroned was not just a documentary about humanity’s relationship with big cats in today’s world. Instead, it was very much about the question of what it means to be human itself. We haven’t been at the top of the food chain for very long by prehistory’s standards. And yet, we insist on destroying our global kingdom time after time.
If the jaguar hides, the lion becomes powerless and the tiger a pet, what can be said of how we will treat other forces of nature, including each other?
Have a watch and let us know your thoughts. You can join an online screening of ‘Dethroned’ at no cost on 26 November, here.
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