Zootopia Seen it Thread. Spoilers probably

[Siam_Sam]

Thinking Zootopia is racist reminds me of The Gods Must Be Crazy. The Anthropology Department at my undergrad uni screened a special showing of it, but there was one History professor who had spent a lot of time in southern Africa, and he was full of protestations that this movie should never see the light of day due to its “blatant racism.” This was a pretty cool professor, and he was beloved by many students. He insisted on giving a rebuttal to the movie after the showing for anyone interested in hearing what he had to say, and he was allowed to do so. What he had to say was passionate and heartfelt, but really he seemed just a crank when it came to this sweet and good-natured film. He really seemed to be reading a lot into it that was not there.

[Kimstu]

@Siam_Sam

Thinking Zootopia is racist reminds me of The Gods Must Be Crazy.

Who’s suggesting that Zootopia is racist? Not anybody in this thread.

It’s clear that the movie is indirectly to some extent about racism and other forms of prejudice, but I haven’t seen any arguments that the movie itself is racist.

[Lantern]

Zootopia obviously had a message against racial prejudice and profiling; I am surprised there is any debate about that. Personally I found the last half hour or so rather heavy-handed in pushing that message but until then the movie was great, almost on par with Pixar’s best. I think the DMV scene is destined to become an animation classic on par with the marriage montage in Up.

[Siam_Sam]

@Kimstu

Who’s suggesting that Zootopia is racist? Not anybody in this thread.

It’s clear that the movie is indirectly to some extent about racism and other forms of prejudice, but I haven’t seen any arguments that the movie itself is racist.

I think I must have misread some posts. That’s what I thought some people were indeed saying.

[JohnClay]

I was thinking the idea of predators and prey is a bit like racism or maybe mental illness where people go psychotic. There were some funny surprises like that “big” crime boss and the evil mastermind of the movie’s plot. It was also interesting how elephants lived alongside mice. I saw it in 3D which made it even better.

@Omar_Little

What do you call a camel with 3 humps?

Humphrey!

[inmyfirst]

hellow everybody

[MrDibble]

@Siam_Sam

Thinking Zootopia is racist reminds me of The Gods Must Be Crazy. The Anthropology Department at my undergrad uni screened a special showing of it, but there was one History professor who had spent a lot of time in southern Africa, and he was full of protestations that this movie should never see the light of day due to its “blatant racism.” This was a pretty cool professor, and he was beloved by many students. He insisted on giving a rebuttal to the movie after the showing for anyone interested in hearing what he had to say, and he was allowed to do so. What he had to say was passionate and heartfelt, but really he seemed just a crank when it came to this sweet and good-natured film. He really seemed to be reading a lot into it that was not there.

I don’t know what your professor said, but as someone from South Africa, who has spent time with San, yes, the film is undoubtedly racist in the way it infantilizes them. It also very much takes the Apartheid Gov. party line when it comes to the resistance fighters. It’s only “sweet and good-natured” if you don’t think of the San as real people, just bon sauvage stereotypes.

Doesn’t help that the star was financially exploited…

[treis]

@JSexton

There were a lot of lines in the movie that translate directly to real-world stereotypes and tropes:

Bunnies can’t drive - asian drivers
“You can’t touch a sheep’s wool!” - touching African-American hair
A bunny can call another bunny cute, but you can’t - The n-word
Judy calling Nick savage and being unable to take that back - basically any hurtful slur, but also a riff on Hillary Clinton’s “super predator” remarks
Hopps joining the police and getting relegated to menial labor- women as cops or military, or other traditionally make jobs.

Plus the “articulate” and “good father” bits mentioned above, and plenty of others. It’s not accidental. The subtext of the movie could not be any clearer.

I think the problem with the movie is that it was half funny and half statement about racism. We laughed at certain animal stereotypes like bunnies having lots of kids or sloths being slow. But then we are supposed to think it’s terrible that Officer Hopps thinks predators are inherently more dangerous. It’s not logically consistent.

Plus, I’m not sure stereotyping the white people as gullible rubes easily manipulated into being “racist” is a great message.

[Siam_Sam]

@MrDibble

I don’t know what your professor said, but as someone from South Africa, who has spent time with San, yes, the film is undoubtedly racist in the way it infantilizes them. It also very much takes the Apartheid Gov. party line when it comes to the resistance fighters. It’s only “sweet and good-natured” if you don’t think of the San as real people, just bon sauvage stereotypes.

Doesn’t help that the star was financially exploited…

Huh. Well, that makes two people familiar with Africa I’ve come across who feel the same way, so I admit there must be something to it. It went over big in the US at the time though.

[DrDeth]

@Kimstu

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.
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.
: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.

Why have you? Look, *seven different dictionaries disagree with you. * None agree.

Let’s refer to Google.

Cunning as a : 1. Fox, 2. Noun, 3. Serpent, 4. Dunny rat. No “Jews”, Orientals or Blacks. Sure, Jews have been called “cunning”- as well as “Christ Killers” or a whole host of things.

Shifty as a:. 1. a. 2. Shithouse Rat. 3. Jackdaw.

and I wont even both with “articulate”. :rolleyes:

You list just shows how your mind works, not how reality is.

[MrDibble]

@DrDeth

Why have you? Look, *seven different dictionaries disagree with you. *.

Being silent on the matter is not the same as disagreeing.

And it takes either complete ignorance of American racism or disingenuousness to think that “articulate Negro” is nota thing. Just ask Joe Biden.

[GIGObuster]

@DrDeth

Why have you? Look, *seven different dictionaries disagree with you. * None agree.

Let’s refer to Google.

Cunning as a : 1. Fox, 2. Noun, 3. Serpent, 4. Dunny rat. No “Jews”, Orientals or Blacks. Sure, Jews have been called “cunning”- as well as “Christ Killers” or a whole host of things.

Shifty as a:. 1. a. 2. Shithouse Rat. 3. Jackdaw.

and I wont even both with “articulate”. :rolleyes:

You list just shows how your mind works, not how reality is.

It has been my experience that dictionaries do not concentrate much on phrases.

I think you are not broadening your horizons, even the human rights commission in Australia noted it:

https://www.humanrights.gov.au/news/opinions/rda-changes-would-amplify-prejudice

The proposed amendment would make unlawful anything that is reasonably likely to “vilify” or “intimidate” on the grounds of race. Whether an act is reasonably likely to vilify or intimidate is “to be determined by the standards of an ordinary reasonable member of the Australian community”. The exposure draft also contains a wide category of exception covering anything that is communicated “in the course of participating in the public discussion of any political, social, cultural, religious, artistic, academic or scientific matter”.

These would involve radical changes. “Vilify’’ is defined as the incitement of racial hatred, as opposed to its more ordinary meaning of speech that degrades or denigrates. This means that the law would no longer be concerned with the harm that racist behaviour inflicts on its target, no matter how serious or severe the vilification. One could be abused by co-workers, customers or strangers in public as a “filthy coon”, “stupid boong”, “slit-eyed gook”, “shifty Jew”, “sand-nigger” or “Arab terrorist”. But unless such abuse is capable of inciting a third party – a test that has proven extremely difficult to satisfy in existing state racial vilification laws – the proposed law would leave the target without an avenue for seeking redress.

Even Cartman in Southpark knows that “Shifty Jew” is a well known stereotype that depending on context it is a slur. (No link to that, suffice to say is that the comments in YouTube are full of followers of prejudice).

[GIGObuster]

As for the ones pointing at the movie as dealing with racism and other unconformable items, I do agree, this is as old as Aesop and it even has a name:

Fantastic Racism

(Warning, TVtropes link*)

Fantastic Racism - TV Tropes

A subset of the old trick of dealing with thorny issues through metaphor. Instead of having the hero encounter racism between, say, whites and blacks in the American Deep South, or between ethnic Czech and Roma in the Czech Republic, or between Ainu and Japanese, or any other sets of real-world groups, they encounter racism between two-headed aliens and three-headed aliens, or between people with earth-themed elemental powers and people with water-themed elemental powers, or whatever.

Note that this can also cover other types of prejudice: anti-homosexual sentiment, religious differences, and so on. note In which case, “Fantastic Discrimination” or “Fantastic Prejudice” would be a more apt term.

The quote about the movie from their entry under “Films” “animated”:

In Zootopia, the jobs any animal can get is entirely dependent on what they are perceived as being suitable for, which is based on racial stereotypes. So, since rabbits are stereotyped as being timid and dainty, the energetic and determined Judy is hired onto the police force and promptly given the job of meter maid despite having the highest scores at the police academy. Foxes, meanwhile, are generally viewed as being universally predisposed towards being criminals. In fact, the whole reason Nick became one was because after years of being treated like he was going to be a criminal regardless of how hard he tried otherwise, he figured he might as well become one for real.

• The warning is not for the language, but for the propensity of TVtropes of swallowing your day with interesting trivia and background from entertainment, you may not come back.

[Kimstu]

@treis

We laughed at certain animal stereotypes like bunnies having lots of kids or sloths being slow. But then we are supposed to think it’s terrible that Officer Hopps thinks predators are inherently more dangerous. It’s not logically consistent.

I think maybe you’re mixing up human stereotypes about animals in the real world with animal stereotypes about one another in the film’s universe.

In the context of the movie, rabbits having high reproductive rates is just like giraffes being tall or wolves liking to howl: it seems funny to the human viewers when a giraffe gets served an energy drink via pneumatic lift or Bunnyborough’s population counter rolls over at lightning speed, but it’s just part of how the world is for Zootopians. If a human thinks that basic animal characteristics are amusing (or more precisely, that the adaptation of familiar human technologies to basic animal characteristics is amusing), that’s the human’s problem.

What appears to be the serious ethical issue in Zootopia is how animals treat each other. And I don’t really see logical inconsistency in that.

[DrDeth]

@Kimstu

I think maybe you’re mixing up human stereotypes about animals in the real world with animal stereotypes about one another in the film’s universe.

In the context of the movie, rabbits having high reproductive rates is just like giraffes being tall or wolves liking to howl: it seems funny to the human viewers when a giraffe gets served an energy drink via pneumatic lift or Bunnyborough’s population counter rolls over at lightning speed, but it’s just part of how the world is for Zootopians. If a human thinks that basic animal characteristics are amusing (or more precisely, that the adaptation of familiar human technologies to basic animal characteristics is amusing), that’s the human’s problem.

What appears to be the serious ethical issue in Zootopia is how animals treat each other. And I don’t really see logical inconsistency in that.

Right, Foxes are cunning, rabbits breed fast, sloths are slow, lions are leaders, and so forth. These are* animal* stereotypes, not human.

[Kimstu]

@DrDeth

Right, Foxes are cunning, rabbits breed fast, sloths are slow, lions are leaders, and so forth. These are* animal* stereotypes, not human.

But some of them (e.g., foxes are sly and untrustworthy, rabbits are cute, predators are dangerous, elephants have good memories, etc.) are clearly presented in the movie as being rejected by(at least some of) the animals themselves as false and/or offensive.

Others (e.g., rabbits breed fast, giraffes are tall, sloths are slow, etc.) are just presented as neutral facts that all Zootopians take for granted. It may be funny for human viewers to see those characteristics interpreted in a very anthropomorphic way, and it may remind human viewers of conventional stereotyping in some respects, but the animals themselves don’t think it’s funny or offensive to notice them.
Again, it’s all part of the movie’s constant kaleidoscopic exploration of questions like “What are the real differences among people and what are the differences that we just imagine to exist? When is it important or helpful or good or bad to pay attention to differences, and why?”

[treis]

@Kimstu

But some of them (e.g., foxes are sly and untrustworthy, rabbits are cute, predators are dangerous, elephants have good memories, etc.) are clearly presented in the movie as being rejected by(at least some of) the animals themselves as false and/or offensive.

Others (e.g., rabbits breed fast, giraffes are tall, sloths are slow, etc.) are just presented as neutral facts that all Zootopians take for granted. It may be funny for human viewers to see those characteristics interpreted in a very anthropomorphic way, and it may remind human viewers of conventional stereotyping in some respects, but the animals themselves don’t think it’s funny or offensive to notice them.

Right, and this is why the movie is not logically consistent.

[Kimstu]

@treis

Right, and this is why the movie is not logically consistent.

But ISTM that there’s a significant difference between

a) the sorts of biological facts that are noncontroversial in the Zootopia universe (e.g., rabbits breed fast, sloths move slow, etc.), and

b) prejudiced stereotypes, whether they’re negative (e.g., foxes are untrustworthy, predators are savage) or positive (e.g., rabbits are cute—yes but it’s impertinently familiar for a non-rabbit to say so; elephants have good memories—Yax still buys into this positive stereotype even when it’s blindingly obvious that he, a yak, remembers details much better than Nangi the elephant does!).

So no, still not seeing where you’re getting logical inconsistency from this.

[JSexton]

@treis

Right, and this is why the movie is not logically consistent.

OK, so in the real world, some people say that blacks are lazy. They also say that they have dark skin. Is the real world also logically inconsistent?

(answer: yes! And Zootopia presents us with metaphors for our world!)

[Chihuahua]

Am I the only one who spent the whole time thinking about Blacksad?