How Lacan' Mirror stage theory is compossed in The Lion King

How Lacan' Mirror stage theory is composed in The Lion King 

In this clip from The Lion King it clearly links to Lacan's mirror theory when the character Simba is seen looking at his reflection in the water through a mid-shot that soon turns into a reflection of his late father Mufasa. This shows the mirror theory as the character Simba may feel unsettled as the reflection of his great fathers doesn't reflect how he feels about himself. He looked up to his late father, he respected him and admired him, he saw his father as a stable entity that he aimed to be like and wanted to take after however the way he actually feels is like a failure, never living up to his reflection. Lacan states that our inside self feels chaotic and our reflection is stable therefore we aim to be more like our one-dimensional reflection of which Mufasa represents. 

Simba also says while looking into the water in the diegetic dialogue 'That’s not my father, that's just my reflection' which connotes to the audience that he is aware of the fact that his father is missing from his life, he is aware that there is something lacking that he feels that he will never live up to. He is constantly aspiring to be like his father but feels that he will never meet up to it, he will always only be himself as we can never live up to the image we see in the mirror or in our reflection. Within the mise-en-scene the character Simba also looks disappointed when he realises that what he is seeing is himself reinforcing the idea that we will never be able to live up the to our ‘ideal self’ of which his father is to him. 

In this clip Mufasa also represents the super ego pushing Simba to be the best possible version of himself that he can be, this is shown when his voice says in the diegetic dialogue 'Remember who you are'. This shows Mufasa to be the super ego as he is pushing Simba to be great, to do the morally right thing for everyone even if he doesn’t want to. He makes Simba see the good instead of that bad in the situation that he is in. Mufasa is helping Simba to get closer to his ideal self that he sees in his father and acts as his motivation to become the ideal entity that he sees in his reflection. 

The idea of lack within this scene from The Lion King is also encoded into the film through the use of technical conventions such as the shot types seen. There are many high angle shots looking down on Simba as he is looking up which may represent the idea that he is lacking being a dominant character which he was destined to be by becoming a king but tried to escape this fate. His ideal self sees him becoming the Lion King but instead he ran away and therefore this role is lacking in his current life. Along with this the scene uses mainly low-key lighting which connotes a dramatic effect to the scene even a mysterious feel of what could or could have been if the lack in Simba’s life disappeared and he finally reached his idea self in becoming the reflection he sees in the water, the reflection of his late father. 

At the start of the scene a physical struggle is also shown as Simba is trying to catch up to the character Rafiki, this involves close ups of Simba falling down ditches and long shots of him getting stuck in vines. This helps show the idea that his real self is chaotic and unable to match ideal calm self that his reflection will later show as he sees his father. This shows that our outside self doesn’t feel like it matches our inside self.