I think I wrote this post vaguely enough that there are no serious spoilers, but nonetheless, this is your obligatory spoiler warning.
I finally watched Zootopia last weekend. A bit late for a self-professed Disney fan, but it has been watched nonetheless.
All in all, I found it to be a thoroughly enjoyable masterpiece in every sense—a creative universe of anthropomorphic animals, multidimensional characters, and a well-crafted mystery-detective story line full of plot twists, but in which every little detail added up in the end. Not to mention the hilarious analogues to real life (the delightfully slothful DMV scene) or the excellent homage to the classic The Godfather. But at its core, Zootopia tackles today’s -isms (racism, sexism, etc) in an kid-friendly, approachable way that isn’t overly preachy.
Zootopia begins with a child’s innocent, even naive ideal, that the history of violence and the tension between predator and prey has been laid to rest. But stepping outside, we find a society that operates with underlying assumptions about its members based on their appearance, much like ours.
For our bunny protagonist, Judy Hopps, this shows itself in childhood bullying and on-the-job discrimination as those around her assume that a bunny can’t chase her dreams of becoming a top-notch cop. This is the kind of discrimination that women face as they enter traditionally male-dominated fields, from disparaging comments to being relegated to menial tasks while their peers get to do the “real work.”
But what I found even more striking was this underlying assumption that some of Zootopia’s members, namely the predators, are inherently dangerous and prone to violence—true of the animals we know today, but not in the world of Zootopia. Even though Zootopia’s children are taught that all anyone can become anything, regardless of their biology, the narrative from home is that predators are dangerous. This becomes grounds for fear and distrust, which first manifests itself in fox repellent and defensive reflexes. And Nick, our main fox, feels this alienation and distrust from the beginning, and it even shapes who he is and how he sees the world. But as the story goes on, as media continually confuses correlation with causation and fuels fear, it creates an eerily familiar narrative in which this fear is used to keep certain groups in power, while others are silenced and shoved into the background. And then this fear-fraught confirmation of their ingrained prejudices is used to justify unequal treatment, cruelty, and injustice.
Growing up as an Asian American in the Bay Area, I remember sitting in the back seat of the car listening to countless remarks about how “this neighborhood used to be nice until they moved in, bringing their gangs and drugs and crime.” And this seems to be the experience across my generation of Asian Americans, that we’ve been told to grip our purses a little tighter and lock our car door when a black man walks by. Perhaps it’s time we stop this narrative that implicitly teaches the kind of internal racism that makes triggers easier to pull, sentences easier to hand down, and lives easier to dismiss.
Past its fluffy and furry exterior, Zootopia reflects a facet of our society that we are often afraid to talk about, where ingrained prejudices are passed down and shape the way we treat each other, whether on the level of subtle gestures and comments or unthinkable cruelty. But at the same time, Zootopia offers hope for change, and in some ways shows us how. And it’s when a bunny is confronted with her subconscious prejudices, then takes the time to listen to the stories and experiences of a fox, unlearns everything she’s been taught before. There is issued a deep forgiveness that doesn’t dismiss the hurt of the past, and finally they set out together on an adventure to get to the root of this nefarious plot against true reconciliation between predators and prey.
All that said, Zootopia is not a perfect allegory. Others have voiced complaints that it does not quite tackle systemic inequity and muddles the roles of oppressor/oppressed, suggesting that discrimination is something that all face equally. But it’s a bit much to ask of an animated feature to address completely in less than two hours, isn’t it?
If nothing else, it’s a fantastic entry point into more meaningful conversations, especially in light of recent events and movements like Black Lives Matter.
a cup of kimitea 