Zootopia: An Analysis of the Predator Trope
by Anonymous
Winner of the Prose Category!
Zootopia seems to be a successful, sweet Disney movie filled with quick action and a dynamic cop duo. However, in between the action and the comedy this film takes on some harder issues than just an evil sheep out to take over the city. This film takes on racial prejudice, the harmful effects of it and the subtle ways it can show up in society through its model city of Zootopia. The place where anyone can be anything is not as flawless as it seems. Through the understated characterization of Nick Wilde, Zootopia tries to show the impacts of inherent prejudice and unconscious bias, by showing how ignorance harmed his own self-perception.
In the opening of the movie we see a play put on by animal kids that describes the history of the city of Zootopia, a place where anyone can be anything. We see one of our main characters Judy Hopps, announcing how she wants to be a police officer, one of the first bunny cops. She then becomes one after lots of hard work and she ends up moving to Zootopia. There she meets our other main character, Nick Wilde, a sly fox who hustles people. After some shenanigans they end up going on an adventure together to investigate and find some missing predators. Together they learn that they aren’t just a ‘dumb’ bunny and ‘sly’ fox, through terrifying trials and heartwarming moments. They find that they were both wrong with their initial assumptions. Through this adventure we find out that the missing predators have gone savage and it sparks protests, outrage and rioting against predators in the city. But, in the end we find out that it was ploy by the Vice Mayor, a lamb, to put prey on top and to make prey distrust predators. The movie ends with her getting busted, Zootopia being reunited and Judy and Nick together as police officers, fighting the stereotypes in a world where prey and predators can live together. However, in the real world it's not that simple.
In our world, racial stereotypes play a big role in how people interact with one another. In the United States this is very prevalent especially with African American men and women. Stereotypes and caricatures have been deeply ingrained into the foundation of our country, born from the days of the slave trade where they were used to keep them in their ‘place’ and are still subtly used in the same way today. Rose Hackman, a features writer from the Guardian writes that “black men have historically been depicted as aggressive, hypersexual and violent – to be controlled, to be exploited, to be tamed.” Similarly stereotypical black women are “depicted… as either the always happy, large, kitchen savvy caretaker of children or the loud, obnoxious, aggressive, and opinionated Black woman,” (Debalkew). The use of terms like savage, brute or aggressive have been used throughout history and are still used today; these were terms that were born from slave owners. These stereotypes can and have been used to justify police brutality, racism and xenophobia which is what makes them and so many others like them harmful.
The stereotypes are deeply embedded into American history and are still systematic today, one way is the prejudice that can impact how teachers push their students. Though there was a lack of data in this area, psychologists S. Plous and T. Williams decided to investigate this in 1995, they found that “whites are 10 times more likely to be seen as superior in artistic ability and abstract thinking ability; and African-Americans were 10 times more likely to be seen as superior in athletic ability and rhythmic ability,” (Green). This study shows that stereotypes can be as subtle as how students are encouraged, however this subtly makes them hard to catch which makes them tricky. In a more recent survey from 2016 Sean Nicholson-Crotty, a professor in political science along with colleagues, “found [that] black students were 54 percent less likely than white students to be recommended for gifted-education programs, after adjusting for factors such as students' standardized test scores. But black students were three times more likely to be referred for the programs if their teacher was black rather than white,” (Weir). This shows that this issue is still prevalent now, as discrimination still happens in schools today. These types of discrimination can also help further stereotypes as well because if black students are never pushed to pursue intellectual fields due to a perceived inferiority, even if they are suited for these careers they won’t go into them. Prejudice is a harmful cycle that continues as long as society stays the same, Zootopia shows how societal pressure can affect people through the character of Nick Wilde.
This movie shows how people’s negative (untrue) stereotypes can be so harmful they influence how kids perceive others. After Nick gets closer to Judy during their investigation, he tells her about how as a kid he wanted to join the junior ranger scouts, like our boy scouts, and how he was the only predator in the group. We see how they have an initiation where they cut the lights, putting him into the dark, they push him onto the ground. We hear him whimper and say “no” as they grab him and put a muzzle on him, the leader then says “if you thought we would ever trust a fox without a muzzle you are dumber than you look.” (Howard, et al.). He runs out of the meeting and scratches the muzzle off while crying, alone in the dark. After the flashback, back in the present moment Nick says “I was never gonna let anyone see that they got to me” and “if the world’s only gonna see me as shifty and untrustworthy…there’s no point in trying to be anything else,” (Howard, et al.). After this line we see Judy’s concerned face and her trying to comfort him, a contrast to the loneliness from before. This scene shows the harsh reality of how stereotypes can affect minorities from childhood and can stay with them till adulthood. We see a contrast in the looming prey, being taller and more authoritative than the ‘untrustworthy’ fox showing that their perceived motions were untrue and their bad treatment of him was unjustified. Moments like this can discourage people from breaking out of the molds society puts on them, it is just like how many black people are pushed away from more intellectual subjects as kids. There is lots of darkness in the flashback to show how darkly and negatively Nick’s self-image is as a child, but after the flashback when he finally talks about his past we can see how the sun is rising, adding light, it symbolizes how he breaks out of the stereotypes he's put into. This trauma that Nick gained caused him to further stereotypes, much like what happens in our society today, but this also shows how he’s started to break free from them and become someone new.
This movie also shows the inherent and underlying manner of stereotyping, how they can be in the back of your mind during interactions with people even if you are unaware. With all the missing predators found there is a press conference, after this Nick and Judy have a confrontation. They argue back and forth and it comes to a head when Nick scares her by jumping at her with a wild look on his face and his claws out to prove that she is scared of predators, while the dialogue is important throughout the whole scene we see that the filmmakers intend us to see how much taller and more threatening Nick is than Judy (Howard, et al.). He is taller than her and seems to loom over due to the ‘camera angles’ shown in the animation. This confrontation shows Nick’s distrust with the system of Zootopia and how him acting like a savage predator leads Judy to have proof of her bias, it is just like our society. The way Nick impends intimidatingly shows how he’s back to buying into stereotypes and reverts back to the negative predator box that Zootopia’s society has put him in. It shows how even though we can be close with people different than us we can still have preconceived notions that prevent us from full trust. This fear of people who are different may not even be conscious which is why it can be hard to see, however it can still be harmful as unconscious bias can still influence the way you interact with others.
The ending of this movie shows a world that we should strive for, a world without prejudice where everyone is free to be themselves. After the villain is caught we see prey and predator together again, there are people apologizing for their prejudice, hugging each, embracing their differences and finally Judy giving a speech at Nick’s police academy graduation where she says “change starts with you, it starts with me, it starts with all of us,” while she pins on Nick’s new police badge and salutes him (Howard, et al.). We see him standing tall, not looming like in other scenes, but with good posture and self confidence. He has a genuinely happy smile on his face. Judy's words call to action and reference the importance of the many. Not many things can be changed by one individual. This also seems to show the end of Nick’s character arc as he has finally come into his own and become his own person away from stereotypes. He has worked through the self-doubt that was evident earlier in the movie, that was from his time with the junior ranger scouts. His becoming a police officer is symbolic for a young black student pushing through a teacher’s or classmate’s inherent bias and pursuing academics anyway, it shows how he pushed against the grain and became someone society told him he couldn’t be. This world is idyllic and sweet and it’s meant to give us a sense of hope about our own world, however our world still has a long way to go.
This movie tries to highlight the unconscious racism we have in the United States and the harm that racial stereotypes have; however it falls short. A predator is not the best things to use as a metaphor for people of color, as being predatory and dangerous are already stereotypes about them, “as you can see, it’s the movie’s suggestion that at one time prey animals were right to be suspicious of predators — and might still be, if things were to change just enough,” (St. James). This comparison may further the aggressive, criminal, savage stereotypes many have had and still have about black people, it may be used to justify their hate. The happy, perfect, idealist ending is also harmful as apologies and the main bad guy getting busted is not how racism will be solved, taking out the root causes of prejudice takes more than just an apology and a new fox cop. Racism as an institution is hard to fight and “there's no question that eliminating bias is important, it's easy to shift responsibility for that particular change to individuals and away from institutions,” (Rosenberg). It takes changing a culture, deeply rooted and hard to reform, this movie does not show the hard work our society still has to go through for it to be like Zootopia which is another reason it is not effective as a social commentary. The film Zootopia uses the ignorance of others in relation to Nick Wilde’s character and his own self image to try to address the racial stereotyping and biases we have in our society.
Works Cited
Debalkew, Rowina. “Breaking Down the Stereotypes: Celebrating The Black Woman.” The Women's Network, 10 March 2022, https://www.thewomens.network/blog/breaking-down-the-stereotypes-celebrating-the-black-woman. Accessed 16 December 2024.
Green, Laura. “Negative Racial Stereotypes and Their Effect on Attitudes Toward African-Americans.” Jim Crow Museum, https://jimcrowmuseum.ferris.edu/links/essays/vcu.htm. Accessed 11 December 2024.
Hackman, Rose. “'It's like we're seen as animals': black men on their vulnerability and resilience.” The Guardian, 12 July 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/12/black-men-america-violence-vulnerable-detroit. Accessed 11 December 2024.
Howard, Byron, et al., directors. Zootopia. Walt Disney Animation Studios, 2016.
“Popular and Pervasive Stereotypes of African Americans | National Museum of African.” National Museum of African American History and Culture, https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/popular-and-pervasive-stereotypes-african-americans. Accessed 11 December 2024.
Rosenberg, Alyssa. “Zootopia' and the limits of the Obama presidency.” The Washington Post, 22 March 2024, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A447158036/SUIC?u=mnkroches&sid=bookmark-SUIC&xid=343bed33. Accessed 4 December 2024.
St. James, Emily. “Zootopia wants to teach kids about prejudice. But is it sending the wrong message?” Vox, 7 March 2016, https://www.vox.com/2016/3/7/11173620/zootopia-review-racism. Accessed 5 December 2024.
Weir, Kirsten. “Inequality at School.” American Psychological Association, November 2016, https://www.apa.org/monitor/2016/11/cover-inequality-school. Accessed 15 December 2024.
