More Thoughts on Prejudice in Zootopia

Last time I talked about Zootopia, I looked at the nuts and bolts of how prejudice works within the film, the overall setup of prey vs. predators and the size-based social strata at work.  The big picture’s been taken care of, so now, let’s get down to some of the specifics (contains spoilers.)

It’s easy for Zootopia to think it’s doing well.  Look at their predator mayor!  The police department just hired their first bunny – so progressive!  And on the surface, everyone seems to get along; Judy thinks moving to the city will get her away from small-minded ideas about both prey and predators.  But the cracks are there.  Clawhauser, the only animal at ZPD who doesn’t resent Judy for daring to think she can be an officer, patronizes her (turns out, only bunnies can call one another “cute.”)  Store owners exercise their right to refuse service when they don’t like a customer’s teeth, and how could a fox cub ever think prey would play beside him without fear? 

And just as in life, prejudice sneaks up on the characters.  Judy thinks of herself as enlightened; she groans at her parents’ belief that all foxes are dangerous, but in her time with Nick, her hand reaches more than once for the Fox Repellent Spray her dad foisted on her when she left for the city.  It’s more than an unconscious fear response.  It goes deeper than Judy realizes (I reeled when she complimented Nick for being “articulate.”)  I really like that not just “bad” characters are susceptible to bias.  Judy is a delightful, lovable character, but she’s also been shaped by broken ideas in her society, and she’s unaware of how much they affect her.  In this way, the film is a story about bigotry rather than bigots, which is a vital distinction.  Words like “racist” and “sexist” put people on the defensive, and that “Nuh uh, not me!” reaction closes them off to constructive dialogue.  It’s important that Judy is a well-intentioned bunny with unconscious issues, and that during the movie, she learns to take a harder look at herself and work on them.

Prejudice can be directed internally as well.  Judy initially sets out to tout her belief in Nick and her insistence that his being a fox doesn’t make him a bad animal, but when she realizes that he’s a grifter who conned her, she thinks he’s just like everything she’s ever been told about foxes.  But that’s intentional; years of being dismissed as untrustworthy and feared as dangerous have left their toll on Nick, and after a traumatic experience with bigotry in his youth, he didn’t see the point in trying to convince animals of what they refuse to believe.  And so, he gives himself over to their ideas of him, being the good-for-nothing con-fox because no one expects anything better.

With all this simmering tension, it’s no wonder the city erupts into fear and profiling when the news comes out that the missing predators have in fact “gone savage,” regressing to their pre-evolved ways.  Judy doesn’t mean to start the maelstrom, but as prey, she doesn’t think how it will sound when she explains to the press that every one of the “savage” mammals is a predator (shades of “I’m not saying all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims!”)  That’s when things get really chilling.  The words “biology” and “DNA” get thrown around, suggesting that predators are innately, uniquely susceptible to this regression, that it’s in their nature.  Then it all explodes:  increased arrests, loss of employment, protests, xenophobic jeers, prey edging away from predators on the subway, hate, ad infinitum.  It resonates strongly, the way a community crawls toward progress/unity, and then the actions of a few individuals turn the tide in an instant.  Everything that’s built up gets swept away, and everyone is reduced to their smallest definitions.  Much respect to Zootopia for not shying away from this complex dynamic.

On Prejudice in Zootopia

As I said in my review, Zootopia is a surprisingly sophisticated social allegory for race and gender discrimination.  The film deftly explores both the overt mechanics and the subtle microaggressions of prejudice in modern society; I’m still a little amazed that it exists.  There’s so much here that it can’t be covered all in one day.  This post looks at the general framework for the film’s major metaphors (spoilers.)

Even though plenty of the beats in Zootopiafeel incredibly, depressingly familiar in terms of real-world biases and stereotypes, I like that it doesn’t offer a straight one-for-one analogy.  Yes, we most clearly see hallmarks of racial prejudice when it comes to ignorant assumptions and fearmongering about predators, but there are harmful stereotypes that exist about prey as well.  The film follows Judy’s perspective, and while she’s clearly aware of prejudice against predators (she chides her parents for thinking all foxes are shady,) we open on several demonstrations of ways prey might feel disadvantaged.  Assistant Mayor Bellwether, a sheep, is the most vocal proponent of this idea.  Through her, we see that a number of prey don’t just view predators as dangerous animals to be feared.  Some also view them as the mammals with all the power.  Bellwether confides in Judy about how her lion boss pushes her around and is sick of – in her mind – the predators grabbing all the seats at the table, when in truth Zootopia is “90% prey” and these predators in charge don’t represent the “real” city.

Size is a further complicating factor in the mess of stereotypes and biases permeating through this society.  For instance, Judy, a bunny, and Chief Bogo, a water buffalo, are both prey, but he’s seen as powerful in a way that she’s definitely not.  And the chief places top priority on the Missing Mammals case (all of whom are predators,) but there’s one disappearance he brushes off as less important – the otter, the smallest of the missing animals.  And of course, size isn’t binary the way society tends to think gender is.  An animal isn’t just big or small.  Nick is bigger than Judy but smaller than Chief Bogo, and while Judy is smaller than nearly everyone, she’s practically a Godzilla-esque figure when she chases a perp through the miniaturized neighborhood of Little Rodentia.  And so, while prey and predators create an us vs. them mentality, size becomes more of a pecking order.  When we look at these different dynamics at play with Bellwether, we find that she sees herself being pushed around as a small animal and so blames the predators for being authoritarian bullies, completely missing the fact that “small” and “predator” aren’t flipsides of any coin and that predators have a ton of reductive stereotypes of their own that they also have to deal with.  (Rather than band together as similarly-marginalized mammals, she seeks to create further divisons.  Sadly, this is pretty familiar, too.)

This leaves us with an intriguing intersectional web of identities and potential biases, with herbivore elephants throwing their weight around with carnivore foxes, the lion mayor and his long-suffering sheep assistant, and a fairly equal mix of predators and prey in the police department but – with the exception of Judy – only large mammals.  As a wide generality, you could say predators = PoC and small animals = women, but although the prejudices against both groups bear obvious resemblance to dynamics we see in the real world, there’s more going on here.  (The film increases this ambiguity with its casting.  Obviously, the size of an animal does not determine its gender, and some of the predators are voiced by white actors and vice versa.)  I like that.  All the lines of comparison are there, but it’s not a straight shot.

Zootopia (2016, PG)

Okay, yes, the sloth scene from the trailer is a delight – even having seen most of it more than once in ads, it’s still wonderfully funny – but that alone wouldn’t have brought me to the theater.  I opted not to wait for the DVD for three reasons.  1) I found out that Ginnifer Goodwin voices the lead character, and no matter how hard the the Once Upon a Timewriters often try, they can’t make me hate Snow.  2)  I read that said lead character is a terrifically rootable heroine.  And 3) I heard that the movie was all about stereotypes and prejudice.  The last one was what really intrigued me; the fun, clever “animal city” jokes in the trailer never hinted at that!

In a world where animals have evolved such that predators and prey cohabit peacefully, Judy Hopps – bunny, country bumpkin, and cock-eyed optimist – thinks she’s on the verge of making her dreams come true.  Despite being told all her life that she’s destined to be a carrot farmer like her parents, she’s moved to the city and worked to become the first bunny in the Zootopia police department.  The city, however, isn’t the borderless utopia she’d hoped for, and outdated stereotypes about predators and prey persist, meaning no one thinks she’s up to the task.  But when a major Missing Mammals case hits the docket, Judy shirks her parking enforcement duties to investigate the disappearances and prove her worth.  Along the way, she teams up with Nick Wilde, a smooth-talking fox/grifter, and each attempts to reconcile what they’ve heard about one another’s species with the animal standing in front of them.

I feel like that summary is somehow simultaneously convoluted and oversimplified, neither of which is a good fit for the movie.  To be sure, there is a lot going on plot-wise, but I think the story moves along at a fine pace and hangs together pretty nicely.  Similarly, while the movie makes no pretense about its social allegory, its message is surprisingly sophisticated and gets at a lot of the myriad factors involved in prejudice; I’m going to have to talk about this more another day, because there’s so much to look at here.  On top of being a well-told story with a clear message, it also has engaging characters, clever world-building touches (I love the ongoing attention paid to what infrastructure would look like in a city for animals of widely varying sizes,) and smart, adult-friendly humor (there’s a good reason the trailer shows so much of the DMV scene.)

The aforementioned Ginnifer Goodwin is perfect as Judy:  sunshiny and a bit naïve, but also tough and determined.  Jason Bateman’s Nick is an excellent foil for her – it’s a little hard to picture, since I still associate him so much with Michael Bluth, but he makes a great conman.  They’re especially fantastic as a duo, each playing so well off the other.  Idris Elba and JK Simmons give fine vocal performances as the police chief and mayor respectively (although it drove me crazy that I couldn’t place either one until the end credits,) and the film also features Octavia Spencer and Alan Tudyk in small roles.

Warnings

Thematic elements, scary moments for kids, and a little suggestive humor.

Favorite Characters: WALL*E (WALL*E)

I believe WALL*E is the first non-organic life form to grace the blog, so bully for him; he deserves it.  This is an all-around great movie that I’ve been known to love to bits, and that’s largely because of its leading robot.

Not many movies (especially children’s movies!) could pull off a nearly dialogue-free opening sequence, a long stretch that mainly focus on one character going about his day.  Thanks to the strength of WALL*E’s personality, this movie not only pulls it off – it excels at it.  Watching WALL*E on his solitary mission – taking the massive landfills of the abandoned Earth and converting them into skyscrapers of garbage, one compacted cube at a time – is honestly one of the highlights of the film.  I like the cheerful way he goes about his lonely job, keeping himself occupied by finding whimsical treasures in the refuse and chirruping away to his cockroach companion.  Unlike his broken-down predecessors (and most likely his contemporaries,) he keeps going by repairing himself whenever he gets too rattly, and his enthusiasm never wanes.  His little abode, bedecked with DIY decorations and holding such precious objects as Rubics cubes and a spork, immediately gives us a look into his imagination and appreciation for simple, wonderful things.

It’s also where we see his most beloved pastime:  watching Hello Dolly! ad infinitum.  His treaded-tire dance is, of course, ridiculously endearing, but it’s the rapt attention he pays to “It Only Takes a Moment” that completely and utterly sells you on WALL*E.  His enormous, inquisitive eyes get so wide and so still, and when he brings his clawed metal hands together, trying to imitate holding hands, I defy anyone not to be on his side forever.  He wants sodesperately for someone whose hand he can hold, but, although we don’t even know how long he’s been on his own, he never wallows in it.  He simply keeps on – keeps on working, keeps on dreaming, keeps on finding things to delight in. 

This innate sense of hope, the way he always finds something positive on which to focus, is his best quality, and it dovetails into another – his general irrepressibility.  Over the course of the movie, we see that there’s plenty at which he isn’t adept; EVE rebuffs all his early, excited advances, he’s definitely more gung ho than competent, and he gets himself into all manner of ludicrous trouble.  However, he never stops trying.  He’ll blunder into absolutely anything, and there’s a better than even chance he’ll make a mess of things at first, but he’ll keep attacking the problem until he gets it right.

And usually, he does in the end (there’s a reason he’s the one robot left after all the others have fallen apart.)  He learns quickly and can generally be counted on for his creativity and resourcefulness.  One of my personal favorites is when he’s on a space walk with EVE (who, unlike WALL*E, can fly,) and he uses a fire extinguisher to propel himself.  More than that, he’s so earnest and loving that he acquires allies almost the second he’s put in close proximity to anyone else.  Granted, EVE is a tough nut to crack, but pretty much everyone else is immediately won over by the little trash compactor with the big heart.  From fellow machines to pampered humans, he inspires others to step outside their hardwired routines, connect with one another, and do great things.  Not bad for a robot that hardly counts as lingual.

Annie (2014, PG)

I was intrigued by this movie as soon as I heard the first rumors about it, and the trailer left me charmed and excited.  Unfortunately, the end result is an incredibly middling film on the lower end of the movie musical spectrum.  It has its good points, and I’m not sorry I saw it, but it’s not nearly what I’d hoped it would be.

In this updated version of the Depression-era story, Annie is one of five plucky foster kids unlucky enough to be saddled with Miss Hannigan, a boozy failed pop star who only fosters for the extra cash.  After a chance encounter with mobile mogul/mayoral candidate Will Stacks, our curly-headed hero is taken in by the billionaire, and what begins as a PR stunt naturally becomes something more genuine.  There are a number of new plot elements, many of which don’t quite work, but I appreciate the film’s effort to do something different with the story.

The best thing about the movie is Quvenzhané Wallis as Annie.  She’s so fun and likeable in the role – charming, savvy, and, of course, adorable.  I enjoy seeing her inventive problem-solving techniques, and she’s just generally so winning; if I were an emotionally-distant billionaire, I’d want to adopt her, too.  I also like her ragtag collection of foster sisters (“It’s a Hard-Knock Life” is easily the best number in the film,) Bobby Cannavale does a fine job as Stacks’s unscrupulous PR guy, and I was pleasantly surprised to see Tracie Thoms (Mahandra from Wonderfalls) pop up in a small role.

The best adjective I have for the singing is “lackluster.”  For the most part, the voices range from mediocre to awkward, and most of the songs aren’t filmed with much life.  I like the creative devices used for some of the numbers, especially “Little Girls,” and I like the way songs have been rearranged or rewritten to better suit the modern-day setting, but “It’s a Hard-Knock Life” is the only one that feels like a proper musical performance, energetic with a lot of personality.  Though Wallis isn’t a remarkable singer, she sounds perfectly passable – in her case, the trouble is the spark.  When she’s acting, she’s like a miniature charisma-bomb, but I don’t see that same engaging spunkiness when she starts singing.  I don’t know if it’s the direction, lip-syncing or sound-mixing issues, or maybe just nervousness about her singing, but she doesn’t feel as much like Annie during the numbers.  And she’s far from the only one; Bobby Cannavale has a similarly well-defined screen presence, but he seems listless during his one song.

For me, my favorite Annie is actually the TV movie from the late ‘90s.  It’s astonishingly imperfect (and honestly, so is the stage show,) but I enjoy it, and watching this movie made me nostalgic for the likes of Victor Garber, Alan Cumming, and Audra McDonald.

Warnings

Some drinking, a few veiled references to sexual content, and a bit of gross-out humor.

Top Five Songs: Matilda

Matilda is a sly show with a bouncy score and witty lyrics.  I hope Tim Minchin continues to write for musicals, because his theatrical debut is terrific – not perfect, of course, but brimming with personality and potential.  Here are my favorites.  (Pictures are taken variously from Stratford-upon-Avon, West End, and Broadway productions.)

 

 

“Miracle” – I get such a kick out of this opening number, which plays on the idea of “perfect little angels” and “participant trophy” culture.  Scores of smug children bask in the glow of their parents’ indiscriminate, hyperbolic praise, and in addition to being wonderfully funny, it provides a nice contrast with the disgust and disinterest of Matilda’s horrible parents.

 

Best line:  “Special-ness seems de rigueur. / Above average is average – go figure. / Is it some modern miracle of calculus, / That such frequent miracles don’t render each one un-miraculous?”

 

 

“Naughty” – No surprise here, since I gushed about it in my original review.  This solo is utterly fantastic, smart and spunky.  I like the literary references that show off how extraordinary Matilda is, and the message – in order to take control of your life, sometimes you have to break the rules – is brilliant.

 

Best line:  “Even if you’re little you can do a lot, you / Mustn’t let a little thing like ‘little’ stop you.”

 

 

“When I Grow Up” – This song, with its lovely, simple melody, takes a short break from the action to let the kids in the ensemble muse about life and the future.  They’re all anxious to be older, when they’ll no doubt be taller, smarter, stronger, braver, and able to handle everything life throws at them, yet still maintain everything they like about being young.

 

Best line:  “When I grow up, / I will have treats every day, / And I’ll play with things that Mum pretends / That mums don’t think are fun.”

 

 

“Quiet” – Another solo for Matilda, a nice 11 o’clock-ish number that depicts her breaking point.  What starts as a frantic cascade of facts, questions, and frustrations coalesces into stillness as a sudden, crystalizing calm washes over her.  A fantastic character piece, and a treat for the young actress playing her.

 

Best line:  “I’m sorry – I’m not quite explaining it right, / But this noise becomes anger, and the anger is light, / And its burning inside me would usually fade, / But it isn’t today.”

 

 

“Revolting Children” – Here, the kids follow Matilda’s example from back in “Naughty” – they take control by acting up, turning Ms. Trunchbull’s adjective use of the word “revolting” into a verb.  The rock flair and anthemic chorus bring the show to a rousing climax.

 

Best line:  “We will become a screaming horde! / Take out your hockey stick, and use it as a sword! / Never again will we be ignored! / We’ll find out where the chalk is stored, / And draw rude pictures on the board! / It’s not insulting; we’re revolting!”

Matilda (2010)

 

When this British-import musical performed at last year’s Tony Awards, I enjoyed myself but wasn’t immediately taken.  The number, a short medley performed mainly by the young ensemble, was cute and fun, just enough to make me poke around for a little more about the show.  I hadn’t read the book by Roald Dahl or seen the film from the ‘90s, and I didn’t really get hooked until I found this older video of the West End Matildas at the Olivier Awards.  I was completely taken by this wonderful, charming song and knew that I had to hear more.

 

If you didn’t pause to watch the video (which you really should,) the song in question is “Naughty;” though performed by all four young actresses on the telecast, it’s a solo for the brilliant, diminutive heroine to ponder the veracity of accepting one’s lot.  She opens on literary figures – Jack and Jill, Romeo and Juliet – wondering “why they didn’t just change their story” and positing that so-called naughtiness is sometimes needed to improve an unjust situation.  Winningly, she sings, “Just because you find that life’s not fair, / It doesn’t mean that you just have to grin and bear it. / If you always take it on the chin and wear it, / Nothing will change.”  She goes on to state that even small people with small power aren’t destined to oppression (“You mustn’t let a little thing like ‘little’ stop you”) or being “stuck in [their] story.”  She celebrates tiny acts of rebellion such as “the seed of a war in the creak of a floorboard” and reminds the audience that such tiny acts are how all large-scale change begins:  “Every day starts with the tick of a clock - / All escapes start with the click of a lock.”  In the end, she acknowledges that the only person who can change her story is herself, and she gets ready to do just that.

 

Catchy, clever, and heartfelt – there’s so much packed into this number, and it instantly spurred me to further investigate the show.  Like the book, the musical tells the story of Matilda Wormwood, a 5-year-old genius born to a depressingly-ordinary family that couldn’t care less about her extraordinary abilities.  Matters worsen when she starts school and comes face to face with the tyrannical Miss Trunchbull, whose strictness and inhumane punishments keep the student body in fear, and it’s up to Matilda to stand up to the Man (or Woman, in this case.)

 

The cast recording I own is from the original Stratford-Upon-Avon production, featuring many of the same adult actors who followed the show to London and then Broadway.  The Matildas (three, all of whom are represented on the album) were too old for the role by the time the show moved to London and later crossed the Pond, but it’s nice to hear them on the CD.  Fun fact – the one picture above is Kerry Ingram, who currently plays Shireen Baratheon on Game of Thrones.

 

None of the other songs quite live up to the perfection of “Naughty,” but there’s still a lot to like.  Tim Minchin’s score is bouncy and fun, and his lyrics sparkle with sly wit.  The opening number, “Miracle,” is a cheeky nod to participant-trophy culture and parents who think their unremarkable offspring hung the moon.  “When I Grow Up” is a lovely ensemble piece, “Revolting Children” is an anthemic crowd-pleaser, and I love the clever, quasi-acrostic flavor of “School Song.”  Additionally, “Quiet,” Matilda’s other big solo, is positively gorgeous, a real treat for any young actress.  I’ve gotten tons of mileage from this CD (literally – it frequently occupies my car stereo,) with my only complaint being that it’s sometimes hard to move forward instead of repeating “Naughty” and “Quiet” on a loop.

The Greatest Store in the World (1999)

I wasn’t sure about this one.  The description on IMDb made it sound like “Britain Does Home Alone at Christmas” – full of broad acting and kiddish humor.  However, I wound up pleasantly surprised.

 

In The Greatest Store in the World, a young girl named Livvie finds herself, her mother, and her little sister homeless for the holidays.  With the housing office backed up trying to place people, Livvie’s mother gets the idea of spending the night in an upscale department store.  Mischief and hijinks naturally ensue as Livvie and her family struggle to avoid detection.
 

PC plays the store’s doorman, whom Livvie has nicknamed Mr. Whiskers due to his Facial Hair o’ Evil.  As the man who monitors all the comings and goings at the store, he notices a certain three shoppers going in but not coming out.  Which of course makes the whole “avoid detection” thing that much harder.

 

I was expecting a kiddie-movie comedy villain, complete with pulled faces and whacky pratfalls – he’s even got a mustache to twirl!  But The Greatest Store in the World, thankfully, isn’t that kind of movie.  To a child, he’s the Big Bad looking to catch those who bend the rules, but Mr. Whiskers proves to be a man just trying to do his job, one who isn’t as inflexible as he seems at first glance.  A person, and a pretty relatable one, rather than a Character.

 

It’s not bad at all.  I’m not saying it’s free of kids’ movie clichés, but it’s enjoyable and smart; I like resourceful young characters who can think on their feet.  And for a Christmas movie, it’s kind of surprisingly cynical.  But then, this is Great Britain, where small children enjoy Doctor Who Christmas specials about mass casualties aboard the space-Titanic.  And let’s not forget how Downton Abbey celebrates the holidays.

 

Accent Watch

 

Another Scottish fella.

 

Recommend?

 

In General– Possibly.  It really is a nice little film.  Maybe around the holidays, when you’re in the mood for something Christmasy and have already watched Charlie Brown and the Grinch.

 

PC-wise – Maybe.  The role’s not exactly challenging, but he turns out to be a pretty likable character with a decent amount of screentime and good interactions with the leads.  

 

Warnings

 

A bit of scariness for little ones, maybe, but nothing serious.  This one’s clean.