Zootopia: Their Messages are Fur Real
When it comes to Disney films, the only attributes you think of are: would-be princess with supporting male character turn love interest, dancing between two people that just met, songs that burst out into random, talking creatures (snowmen included), suspenseful action near the end, and, finally, a kiss.
That is pretty much stereotyping Disney.
When you look back on Frozen, you recall how true love was demonstrated, not between a guy and a girl, but as a familial type of love. The film proved how a sisterly bond was more powerful than the ever typical ‘true love’s first kiss’. It was one lesson the film conveyed opposing to previous Disney princess films. That and the whole “marry someone you just met” cliche that received a major, epic beat down toward the film’s climax.
While Frozen has diverted from Disney fairytale stereotype, the lessons it provides are not the realism the world needs today.
On March 4, Zootopia had broken Frozen’s box office record with $73.7 million, completely trampling over Queen Elsa’s $67.4 million. If that was not the most incredible aspect of movie success, how about the Animal Kingdom film beating the die-hard Marvel fans’ long awaited film Deadpool?
Yeah, not even Ryan Reynolds in red spandex can top a bunny in blue nylon.
What makes a film such as Zootopia so successful? So brilliantly accomplished that it triumphs over magic and violent hilarity?
It is because the film is something the world relates so much to. And it is something we, kids and adults, can learn from. Taking the lessons provided by, not a storybook icon or a hero accidentally created by science, but a clever fox and an ambitious rabbit.
When someone is a different ethnicity, how many times have people presumed that person was “just like the rest of his or her kind”? When has racism and prejudice not been an issue? When has a person not been labeled?
The movie focuses on big dreamer bunny Judy Hopps, who, despite being labeled as a small, fragile mammal who would be better suited growing carrots, fights against the odds and becomes Zootopia’s first ever rabbit officer. However, as Riche Moore stated during the film’s production, “It’s not always that easy”.
From the start of the film’s second trailer, would-be fans immediately assumed Zootopia was a place where, from the biggest elephant to a little mouse, animals of all kinds accept one another and there were never any problems.
This is where fantasy takes a back seat and the audience, like Judy Hopps, gets hit in the face with reality.
It really is not easy getting to where you are, as Judy learns when no one in her police force believes a rabbit can really be a cop. To animals bigger and more scary, rabbits are labeled as merely cute and dumb. This is further exemplified when the film’s main protagonist is forced to work with the sly fox we all remember from the film’s teaser.
Nick Fox, who has no qualms about “you are what you are”, never catches a breather to break down Judy’s self-esteem. However, let us not judge him too harshly. What can be said about Nick, without spoiling the tearjerker moments of the film, is that he is a victim of stereotype and prejudice himself. Why else is a so-called “sneaky and untrustworthy” fox giving a “cute and dumb” bunny a hard time? Because that is what everyone who has labelled him expects from his kind.
What makes Judy and Nick real to audiences is the messages they convey, through the reality their world shares that is no different to ours. Disney knows what people face today, and for a film to be centered around that is another reason why Zootopia is that successful.