I agree with this. I was considering writing my own review, but if I do I\'ll be hard-pressed to not have it be redundant with this one, since my opinions are mostly the same as those expressed here.
@BURGINABC Sorry if I made your review redundant. But I am glad you agree with what I have written.
No problem, saves time for me if my opinions are already out there ;)
Besides, I already spent my creative energy writing an overly long-winded comment disputing another review that made the mistake of trying to interpret it as narrow allegory rather than broad applicability.
The applicablity is the strongest thing. It could mean anything and that works.
Exactly.
I\'m with you guys here. I can\'t stand the fact that people hate on this movie for \"getting racism wrong\" when they actually just made false assumptions that it was an allegory of racism in the first place. It\'s better to aim for a broad message that appeals to many people than a narrow one targeted at a select few. Is that not what Disney is all about?
Nevermind that it\'s a damn good movie by itself even if you ignore the themes completely.
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A Film about Prejudice
Let me start off by stating that Zootopia is a good film to let you know my position on the film. It boasts solid acting, a good story, a twist that makes sense upon review and a decent moral. All things people are starting to expect from Disney in the past few years.
What makes this film stronger to me is it's message of prejudice and how vague said prejudices are. With the strength coming from how applicable said vagueness, the prejudice in the film never has a clear definition whether it relates to racism, class, creed, sexism because those things are A) not so easy to cover in real life and B) the cast are all animals with no humans around to show where it relates to us.
With this vagueness the prejudice in the film has been applied in various different ways by many different people to where it needs to be. The basic message is of course that "prejudice is wrong", but with the added bonus of "But don't think learning that means you are free of your own biases".
Judy as much as she shows how she shouldn't be simply judged and profiled, is not free of those flaws herself. She is a flawed character that is still overcoming those issues throughout the film without her ever noticing until the very end. The film also makes clear that while bias may be at work against her, she is a bit too focused on said biases when criticism of her character comes along, such as when Bogo calls her out for abandoning her post and going Cowboy Cop. It shows that prejudice is not so simply defined or that anything around it is easily understood.
I will say go to see the movie if anything about what I say about prejudice has gotten your attention, go and decide for yourself what you think of the movie.
Ultimately I think I will be re-watching this for awhile, it's message is a bit more nuanced than I would have expected for a Disney kid's film, and maybe that was just my own bias at work.