Zootopia: Disney’s Smartest Film?
For the most part, you can always count on Disney to deliver a well crafted, animated feature. Zootopia is not the exception but rather rises about all previous films for nailing the social climate on today’s culture. Zootopia is the 55th movie by Disney studios and directed by Byron Howard and Rich Moore.
This thought-provoking story revolves around a female rabbit Judy Hopps, whose dreams of becoming a cop in this anthropomorphic universe. She accomplishes her goal and eventually moves to the great city of Zootopia. Her family and coworkers belittle her and do not take her seriously as she is the very first bunny to make the force. She takes on a case of missing predators (this world is classified as either a prey or a predator) and stumbles upon a fox named Nick and tag teams together to solve the mystery. When Judy becomes the hero her choice of poor words divides and segregates these two populations even further and hurting Nick in the process. In the end, Judy and Nick exposes the true villain and tries to reunite all the community members together.
Disney films in general try to aim their audience directly to children but Zootopia’s dialogue, voice cast and characters can easily be addressed towards adults. Particularly, Disney is overtly talking about bigotry and racism in the form of animals. On the superficial surface, children will learn the usual life traits of perseverance and acceptance of people(or in this case animal’s)’s differences. For the much older crowd, it goes deeper into the dialogue and exposition that predators are the minority with only being about 10% of the population. You see this directly with Nick’s story. The animals have a stereotype of foxes being sly and lying to other creatures. Nick’s backstory happens towards the 2nd act where we learn he wanted to be accepted by the prey and found out through harsh reality and discrimination, he was not going to get the animal’s approval. Thus, giving up on trying to be accepted and just be the fox that everyone assumed. Disney does not use the term “racism” but with certain dialogue sprinkled upon us, adults can pick up the subtle meaning.
For example, Judy meets a fellow cheetah dispatcher named Clawhauser, he comments on how Judy is “cute.” Judy politely corrects him by saying “uh, you probably didn’t know but a bunny can call another bunny cute but when other animals do it...” Clawhauser quickly apologizes and hopes to not have offend her. This references how one group of people’s manor of words is not offensive within the group because of no foul harm but when another group uses it, it tends to be a negative comment, a slur. There are also segregated neighborhoods with species and even an elephant parlor refusing to service Nick for being a fox/predator. Fear is another big point that gets across in this film, fear just like the real world, helps push the prejudice notions. Fear of other “creatures” or in our case different races. Our protagonist claims she is not afraid since she was bullied as a young bunny but in certain situations she has reacted with fear and prejudice even towards Nick thanks to her paranoid of predators parents.
As a movie fan, I love realistic speech that Judy Hopps gives her fellow cops. We all know the world we live in will never be perfect. She almost begs the cops to just try which I think we all can do. “Real life is messy. We all have limitations. We all make mistakes. Which means, hey, glass half full, we all have a lot in common. And the more we try to understand one another, the more exceptional each of us will be. But we have to try. So no matter what kind of person you are, I implore you: Try. Try to make the world a better place. Look inside yourself and recognize that change starts with you.“
As your Nerdy Lisa, I will give Zootopia a 9.5/10. These have been the rantings and ramblings of a girl with a geeky past. See ya!
