I loved the graphics, the scenes where Judy was on the train and seeing the territory and the city were mindblowing.
Except that there are genuine, significant genetic differences between predatory and prey animals. So one could also watch the movie and take it to mean that there are physical differences and the only thing keeping that difference contained is fragile willpower.
It’s an interesting point. Racism in some form or another makes a whole of a lot more sense when you are running a society that contains animals that are, in fact, radically different - from tiny shrews to massive rhinos - and includes both biological predator and prey species.
Perhaps part of the ‘message’ is that, even assuming such massive differences, this society has in fact decided, insofar as possible, to eliminate prejudice through an act of will - for the collective good. If they can do it with such disparate material, it ought to be a cinch for us to do it, when all we have are humans who are basically identical in innate abilities other than minor variations in appearance!
One plot hole in the movie, that I saw, was the question of who polices Tiny Town (or whatever it was called)?
Judy’s problem, getting hired, was that she’s a small, weak animal. All other cops are large animals, like elephants, rhinos, and bears. But even Judy was a giant in Tiny Town and looked precipitously close to re-enacting the end of Man of Steel when she was there. How is a rhino supposed to patrol that area of Zootopia? Judy may be small and weak compared to some, but she’s still massive and powerful compared to others. A real, logically organized police department would be trying to recruit people of her size (or smaller) to patrol those areas of town where she was the right size to do the job. And yet, we know that they weren’t.
That could explain why the shrews are the head of the mafia, because that area of town is going unpoliced. But there’s no indication in the movie that, that’s the case.
They could have closed that off by having a mouse patrol or something, and having part of Judy’s character arc not fitting in with either the mouse patrol or the main patrol, being mid-sized. 
Traditionally, yes. Though it tended to be applied to, e.g., Jews and Asians at least as much as to black people:
biography of Asian action-movie actor:
[Quote from a 2015 sociology study on attitudes toward immigration]
(http://soc.appstate.edu/sites/soc.appstate.edu/files/Social%20Currents-2015-Lippard-2329496515604640.pdf):
Stormfront forum, no link because that place is gross but you could certainly find it by googling the quoted text:
History of the University of Virginia, 1922:
P.G. Wodehouse, “The Military Invasion of America”, 1915 (note that this example is satirizing the common slur):
Hope that fought some ignorance. I’m off to take a shower now. With disinfectant.
Heck, all of the ones I mentioned I could have come up with myself. These are really common racist/sexist/prejudicial tropes.
Yeah, that was my favorite gag. It was perfect.
[quote=“Kimstu, post:66, topic:747977”]
Traditionally, yes. Though it tended to be applied to, e.g., Jews and Asians at least as much as to black people:
biography of Asian action-movie actor:
Yahoo Answers query:
Sure it’s an insult. But it’s not necessarily a racist one. You can find lots of nasty words attributed to minorities. “Devious”, “Sneaky” and so forth.
No Dictionary I can find lists it as a racial slur: American Heritage , Collins, Random House ,Webster’s College Dictionary, Merriam Webster, Cambridge, Wikionary- none of these.
And not always an insult:
And when applied to races, they are racist slurs.
Jesus, the knots some people will twist themselves in to avoid being woke. Yes, “shifty” is a racial slur, because it’s applied on a racial basis - shifty Negro, shifty Oriental… Saying “it’s not in the dictionary” is a laughable rebuttal.
And the existence of other uses of the word proves precisely fuck and all. The word “yellow” has lots of benign uses. Applied to East Asians, though, it’s a slur. “Greedy” has legitimate usages too - but tack it in front of the word “Jew”, and it’s a slur.
Yes, pedantically, properly, it’s the whole construction of “shifty Negro” (and as commonly, “shiftless Negro” - like the way racists think Blacks can be devious and dumb at the same time) or “Greedy Jew” that’s the slur. That doesn’t mean “shifty” isn’t the common factor int he various slurs Kimstu was good enough to look up. I hope they enjoyed their shower.
In the UK the film is called “Zootropolis”. I really don’t understand the point of this unless “Zootopia” was taken by something else already; “Zootopia” fits the themes of the film better.
I totally forgot about the Bell / sloth thing. Freaking genius.
[quote=“cmkeller, post:46, topic:747977”]
[li]Spotted two references to “Frozen”. The flower thief is “Duke Wesselton”, [/li][/quote]
“Weaselton” 
Note that they inverted the joke - in “Frozen” the Duke gets called “Weaselton” and corrects it to “Wesselton”; here, it’s the other way around.
The bootleg DVDs we see later include a “Frozen” parody (and a lot of other Disney film parodies as well - e.g. “Tangled” becomes “Wrangled” and features a horse).
When she goes in, the other officer shouts at her to wait for the “tiny officers” to deal with it (I can’t remember his exact words for what he called them). So yes, there are local police.
Saw the movie this Tuesday. I thought it would be a good time to see it with no crowds (8 pm on a Tuesday night) but since it was spring break, we almost couldn’t get tickets!
The animation was amazing. All that fur! And the backgrounds!
I thought the whole thing was an allegory for the crack epidemic, with the government introducing a drug that made a whole group of citizens into savages. But my friend said I took that idea a little too far, and the government-introducing-crack thing was just a urban myth 
Cool movie, very deep. I will watch it again for sure.
Actually, it’s a* damn good rebuttal *as the term “shifty” here is NOT being applied to a race.
:dubious: The point is that various animal categories in the movies are stand-ins for the notion of human racial categories.
Seriously, the term “shifty” is traditionally a well-recognized slur for various non-white groups. Google “shifty Negro” and “shifty Oriental” yourself if you don’t believe me.
It’s not just a random negative epithet with zero specific racial connotations, like “overanxious” or “inattentive” or “clueless”.
And shifty* anything.*
It’s a slur, but not a recognized racial slur. Like I said- no dictionary considers it one.
and note you can’t come up with * specific* racial connotations, since shifty has been applied to Jews, Italians, Amerindians, and what-not. I suspect that in China white people are called “shifty”.
Nor has anyone shown that any species= a given race.
I don’t even know what you’re trying to argue here, DrDeth. We provided a long list of slurs, tropes, and codewords that the filmmakers used to communicate the message of the film. You’ve taken issue with one of them (which I assume means you agree with the rest) despite several people telling you they consider it a slur. The fact that it’s in the movie implies that the writers also consider it a slur, since, again, that’s the point.
So what difference does it really make here? Even if the word shifty itself is not technically a slur, it’s obviously often used as one, or in conjunction with one, right? Doesn’t that mean essentially the same thing here?
A dictionary isn’t the only yardstick of what is “recognized” about language. For example, no dictionary describes “cunning” as a specifically anti-Semitic slur, either. But you only have to google the phrase “cunning Jews” to realize that the word has historically been applied to Jews by non-Jews as a common and specifically anti-Semitic trope.
[QUOTE=DrDeth]
and note you can’t come up with * specific* racial connotations, since shifty has been applied to Jews, Italians, Amerindians, and what-not. I suspect that in China white people are called “shifty”.
[/quote]
Whatever white people may be called in China doesn’t affect the fact that in the majority-white US, the word “shifty” has traditionally been used as a slur applied particularly to various non-white groups (since Jews, Arabs and other “exotic” peoples were not considered “white” until comparatively recently).
If you refuse to take into account the actual textual evidence for the historical use of “shifty” by white Americans as a slur disproportionately and conventionally applied to various non-white groups, I can’t make you. But it doesn’t strengthen your case.
[QUOTE=DrDeth]
Nor has anyone shown that any species= a given race.
[/QUOTE]
Nobody’s attempting to argue that there’s any one-to-one allegorical correspondence in the movie between a particular species and a particular race. The point of the “racism” analogies in Zootopia is that they mix up the racism references among different species. E.g., it’s foxes who are considered “shifty” but it’s sheep who are always getting their hair handled by intrigued non-sheep, and rabbits who have “in-group” expressions that non-rabbits shouldn’t use for them, etc.
The question of whether “shifty” is a racial slur does not depend in any way on whether Zootopia is using a strict one-to-one race-to-species match-up. Your entire attempt at an argument is incoherent.
What is? I mean, if we dont have a source then it’s all:
The Dude: Yeah, well, you know, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.
Nope, since “Oriental cunning” is also a popular phrase. Not a specifically anti-Semitic trope at all.
Sure. Various groups that *arent us. * Whoever “us” is.
If you go back, it was jsgoddess who claimed “shifty” was used to indicate the fox was a stand-in for *Black *people. Not any random minority. *That’s who i replied to. *
*Originally Posted by jsgoddess View Post
“This one was clearly about racism, black people (the fox was called “shifty,” for goodness sake! .*”
Thus, Your entire attempt at an argument is incoherent
Not a uniquely anti-Semitic trope (and I never said it was). But absolutely, the word “cunning” has been used specifically and characteristically for Jews.
[QUOTE=DrDeth]
If you go back, it was jsgoddess who claimed “shifty” was used to indicate the fox was a stand-in for *Black *people. Not any random minority.
[/quote]
You omitted the very relevant remainder of jsgoddess’s sentence there, which doesn’t support your claim at all:
The use of slurs like “shifty” and “articulate” associated foxes with black people, while the use of slurs like “cunning” associated foxes with “wog” groups such as Jews or Asians. Meanwhile, the trope of getting-handsy-with-the-wool associated sheep with black people and foxes with non-black people, while the trope of the in-group/out-group word distinction associated rabbits with black people.
That is, jsgoddess was nowhere claiming that the movie strictly and consistently used foxes as a stand-in for black people. She was commenting on the melange of mixed-up racial allusions that all have specific, often multiple, racial connotations in US culture. (And also on all the accompanying allusions to sexism and other forms of bias.)
As jsgoddess added in a later post:
Which is essentially the point I’ve been making all along.
[QUOTE=DrDeth]
Thus, Your entire attempt at an argument is incoherent
[/QUOTE]
:rolleyes: Now you just look desperate.
Come on, DrDeth, you queried whether “shifty” as a term of disparagement has recognized racial connotations, and I adduced various textual evidence indicating that yes, it traditionally has had such connotations. You can go read any of the sources I linked, or look through any of thousands more that are easily found on the internet, to see the strong tendency for whites to use “shifty” for non-white racial groups, rather than for untrustworthy people in general.
I have absolutely no idea why you’ve become so ridiculously fervent in making this quite uncontroversial issue the hill you want to die on.
“Analogy”, look it up : “species” is /əˈnæl.ə.ɡəs/ to “race”
Hastur, next you’re going to be telling us there’s nothing racial about the crows in Dumbo…