ZOOTOPIA AND SCHWARTZ
Hey, everybody! I know
that I usually post my Throwback review, today. But we’re gonna change things
up a bit.
Just a little
heads-up, though. Today’s article is gonna be a little more academic than
usual. That is because I am writing this article partially as a final
reflection for a class known as UF 200. This is a class that is required at
Boise State and in the class, we analyze how prejudice works and we examine ethical
dilemmas through different viewpoints. This article is going to be viewing the
new Disney film Zootopia through a
lens of Schwarz’s Dynamics of Oppression. Now, before you read on, here is a
link which explains the Dynamics in great detail:
https://issuu.com/jamesgravatt/docs/dynamics_of_oppression_-_article__j
All caught up now?
OK, here we go.
In order to
explain how Zootopia relates to
oppression, I must give away a major plot point in the middle. SPOILER ALERT!
You have been warned.
The whole premise
of the movie focuses around a young female rabbit named Judy (Ginnifer Goodwin)
trying to prove herself at Zootopia Police Department’s main precinct by
solving a case in which 15 mammals have gone missing. She works with a con
artist fox named Nick (Jason Bateman) to solve the case. Nick has a past of being
mistreated for being a fox, a predator, which has jaded him considerably
(remember this; it will be important). Eventually, both Nick and Judy find the
missing mammals, but it is revealed that they have “gone savage”; this means
the animalistic natures that constituted their behavior thousands of years ago
have taken over.
This belief in the
danger of predators comes back into play when Judy has to speak at a press
conference as to why she thinks these predators have gone savage. She makes the
mistake of saying that it’s all related to biology and these predators are
“reverting back to their primitive, savage ways”. This not only angers Nick,
but it also causes the city of Zootopia to go into a state of panic against the
predator population.
Now, Schwarz’s
Dynamics of Oppression operates on two factors. The first factor is the levels
through which prejudice operates, from a personal level to an institutional
societal level. The second factor is the mechanics of prejudice, which includes
thoughts – a more personal mechanism – and policies, procedure, and structures.
The film runs the entire gamut of these dynamics. It starts off with
stereotyping, in the sense that nobody thinks that a rabbit can be a police
officer because of their size. But, this prejudice does not reach past an
intrapersonal level and therefore does not cause much harm. In all honesty,
initially, it puts up the same barrier that you expect from every Disney film:
“a character wants to do something that nobody supports, but later proves
everybody wrong”. But the clever thing about this movie is that it is striving
to be more than a safe, clichéd story about an individual trying to prove
society wrong.
We get a hint of
that during the first half of the movie when we first meet Nick at Jumbeaux’s
Ice Cream Parlor. Initially, the owner refuses to sell Nick an ice cream
because apparently Zootopia has a prejudice against foxes because of their
inherent sly nature. He even uses the phrase “we have the right to deny service
to anyone”. This is a very familiar instance in our modern world; for example,
a Muslim getting denied service at a store is very similar to this situation.
Here is a link to a more recent example of such an event:
This scene is a
demonstration of “discrimination”, which is held by a certain group of people
and is operated through the actions of a certain individual, such as denying to
sell someone a product.
This realism is
further increased during the second half. See, even though predator and prey
live together in Zootopia, the prey population still has an unconscious fear of
predators. And what Judy says at the press conference only serves to confirm
those fears and results in the entire city living in fear of the predator.
There are even anti-predator rallies in which the prey population tells the
predators to “go back to their home” and other harmful things. This is very
similar to how African-Americans and other minorities of color are still
treated today, especially in the past few years. With the events of the Paris
attacks and the numerous police shootings of unarmed black people, the
population of this country seems to be living in fear of other minorities and
we are experiencing a backlash similar to the one in the film.
And that’s one of
the reasons why I find Zootopia to be
one of the best films of the year. Not only is it entertaining and funny, but
it also understands how prejudice works in American society and tries to
illustrate it through allegory. That’s what the best stories do: they hold a
mirror up to society rather than dropping an ideological piano on their head
(extra point if you got that reference from Dear
White People). And this is how UF 200 helped me view this film through a
different lens. Without the class, I probably would have seen Zootopia as just a good film. But the
introduction of Schwart’s Dynamics of Oppression has helped me to see that it’s
much deeper than I thought it would be. Which is why I consider it one of the
best of the year.
That’s my Thursday
review and stay tuned for when I post my review of Spider-Man 2 on Saturday!
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