Jalen Brewer (Zootopia Blog)

To briefly summarize, this movie is about an amateur bunny cop named Judy who unites with a fox to solve a mystery in the town of Zootopia.  Although this movie is targeted towards young kids, the underlying message is current and up-to-the-minute.  Throughout the Disney animated feature film, the concepts of stereotyping, and race relations are prevalent.

            First, the whole purpose of Zootopia was to give all animals of the many different species equal opportunities with the absence of discrimination.  Many efficient tactics were taken to achieve the different stereotypes, but two instances really caught my eye.  The first example of this took place in the form of dialogue between Judy and Nick.  Towards the end of the movie, Judy was giving her speech and she made the mistake of blaming the way predators acted to their “biological makeup”.  Seeing that Nick was a fox, and society crowned him and his kind to be savages, he was very offended.  Later on, Judy claims that Nick is “not like them”.  What she basically meant was that most fox are bad, but Nick is the exception since he does not line up with their behavior.  This small sequence of events is all too familiar with how our current society puts negative labels on certain people and their race.  The last stereotypical event that stuck out to me was when Judy was trying to crack the case by speaking to the elephant.  In this case, the elephant was given a positive stereotype of having a great memory, but like many others, she did not fulfill what Zootopia labeled her to be.  This part of the movie was very significant because it reiterates the fact that not everybody is comfortable with conforming to what society labels them to be.  This can also be traced back to our present-day society with how people stereotype one race to be known for athleticism, or a great amount of intelligence.  In my opinion, this movie did a fantastic job of shooting down all sorts of stereotypes created by a society.

           

Next, the idea of race became evident in this all-too-real movie.  Many instances of race were brought up but one towards the beginning of the movie was very realistic.  This happened when Judy was new to the police academy and she was at the front desk speaking with the receptionist.  First, the man called Judy a cute little bunny.  Once again, this is all too realistic as her response was something like, “Bunnies can call other bunnies cute but other animals can’t call bunnies cute.”  The instant reaction to this vital dialogue was that the word “cute” for bunnies in Zootopia was equivalent to racial slurs in our society; specifically the “N” word.  This Disney movie was definitely targeted to younger aged children, but the key principles that people of all ages can learn from it are valuable and beneficial.