90th Academy Awards (Oscars)

What I heard is the Best Popular Movie category isn't going to be for this year's Oscars, but for the Oscars the year after.

You know, there is no need for a popular movie category...but the academy might want to consider a honorary award for the MCU as a whole next year. Because no matter what you feel about the isolated movies, as a whole the MCU is pretty unique. Considering the cultural impact it has and how much it changed the industry as a whole there has to be some sort of acknowledgement at some point.

Honestly this wasnt how they should have 'branched out'. A lot of trash ends up getting nominated, especially for animation, but a lot of actual good stuff isnt even in contention cause it isnt hollywood.

Shoot Your Name or A Silent Voice didn't even get a nomination but Zootopia did? That is total Shenanigans.

Edited by Memers on Aug 11th 2018 at 2:02:44 AM

Except Zootopia has good reception.

Zootopia was hardly just successful at the academy awards, it also swept the Annies. Hell, the list of animation-related awards it wasn't nominated for is most likely shorter than the list of awards it ended up winning.

Frankly, it was simply a very strong year for animation. I might have replaced Moana with an alternative pick, but every single movie on the nomination list deserved to be there.

And Zootopia itself is rightly praised for being the most political movie Disney ever made. By a long shot.

Eh, I didn’t like Zootopia. It tried to be a clever allegory, but the way they set up the power dynamics didn’t work properly; I thought it failed. I thought Moana was far better.

Same. The "everyone is on an equal playing field and all biases are equally bad" theme seemed clever as a "post-racial" commentary, but within half a year that myth of post-racial America was very quickly dispelled. Also much enjoyed Moana.

Edited by Tuckerscreator on Aug 11th 2018 at 7:29:45 AM

I like Zootopia but I can acknowledge that its themes/allegory could have been worked out better. I enjoyed Moana and I appreciate its representational value, but if I'm completely honest I got a big sense of "been there, done that" with the movie's premise relative to other Disney movies.

See to me it became more relevant because it's very clear any proclamations of prejudice being over are lies the population tells itself. I mean the main difference between the film and real life is that in real life you can just make up lies instead of needing an evil plot, but ultimately they are equally issues manufactured by a political class for purpose of sowing decent and seizing power.

The thing with Zootopia is, outside of Little Rodentia being based off Little Italy, there are no one-to-one parallels between the different animals and real life racial groups. You can make a compelling argument that the predators represent white Americans and the prey represent minority groups, but you can make an equally compelling argument for it being vice-versa. And then there's how the prejudices some animals face are more evocative of prejudices against women than anything based on race.

It's a movie about prejudice, but it's not an allegory for any specific prejudice or conflict.

Yeah. And I don't think that's to its advantage. The vagueness of the conflict means whatever the film's final message was is pretty hazy beyond "reality is complicated" according to Judy. I guess the closest it gets to an actual discussion about power relationships is showing that Judy can still contribute to a society's existing prejudice about a group without being (consciously) bigoted against them, but that's about it.

It isn't necessary that a film concerning social injustices be a 1:1 metaphor for a specific conflict. Mad Max Fury Road is a good example of a movie that efficiently depicts the right to bodily autonomy, toxic masculinity, suicidal urges being fostered through cults of personality, etc, while being its own story in its own world. But it does help to be certain about what specifically your story is alluding to, and I don't think Zootopia is willing to be specific about what it's describing.

Edited by Tuckerscreator on Aug 11th 2018 at 10:30:38 AM

Zootopia made the decision to establish an explicit predator/prey evolution, which I think raised more questions than it answered. In addition, it fell into a similar trap with Worldbuilding where they create a new society and the big plot involves an attempt to undermine the foundation of that world. The bad guy drugging characters to incite fear of all predators including the mayor is where the metaphor got lost (what, exactly, in real world history can that actually apply to), not to mention that a backwoods farmer knew that certain plants could incite feral behavior yet the concept seemed foreign to literally everyone else. The end message about mutual prejudices was solid, though, and I think that is why the plot problems get overlooked.

Moana was a much simpler story, and coupled with some striking Polynesian imagery made it a better film overall, even if it has it's own plot problems (neither the coconut warriors or the giant crab are explained very well beyond facilitating an action sequence).

Eh, I think that falls into the realm of "why does Lord of the Rings have tiny humans that aren't like the other tiny humans, talking trees, and a flaming horned beast".

Or is it more in the sense of: "they show up once and then they're gone". Guess that's a trope too.

Edited by Tuckerscreator on Aug 12th 2018 at 12:02:34 PM

I thought the film's message was pretty clear: prejudice is bad.

The length of time you commit to it is a factor here. By all accounts Moana seemed to live in a realistic island tribe, and the magical/mythical elements as being real sneak themselves into the story. That makes the few things that pop up as being unusual. It's not like Harry Potter where you have an outsider immersed in this other world and you are just scratching the surface.

Perhaps, although it didn't really surprise me considering the first act had already established there were goddesses made of lava and grandma manta spirits and the ocean itself being sapient.

All prejudice equally? If Zootopia meant its message that way, then it moves from "vague" to "not very knowledgeable on the history of power dynamics in prejudgments" (for instance, if a woman asked to a private meeting with a man asks for it to be outdoors or accompanied by another trusted woman.) Which is an essential tenet to social oppression that, the longer it's avoided being taught about, the more hazardous it gets.

Edited by Tuckerscreator on Aug 12th 2018 at 12:50:30 PM

I would say that Zootopia does not treat all prejudices as equal. Yes Nick learns not to judge Judy (heh) as weak for being a bunny, but once things get really bad, Judy learns that the consequences of anti-predator prejudice are actually much worse than what she has been dealing with.

Perhaps, although while it turns out the prey do have the greater societal hand after all (with literally a 90% population disparity), this detail isn’t treated as “this group is stronger because of a long history of possessing and exploiting the social advantage” and more “this group could be stronger if they realized they have more of an advantage than they think”.

Edited by Tuckerscreator on Aug 12th 2018 at 1:41:20 AM

The message of Zootopia is NOT "prejudices are bad", it's "check your privilege and rethink your fears". I mean, Judy Hopps actually thinks that she is open minded and that Zootopia is already the perfect place. She is at the beginning of the movie kind of like those persons who think that inequalities are a thing of the past because we have developed past then. And then she first learns that for one, she as a bunny (female) isn't treated fairly after all and, even worse, has to realize that she herself isn't actually free from this kind of thinking either. It is a pretty good examination of how systemic racism works and how we ourselves can fall into a trap without even meaning to.

One can certainly question if the whole prey/predator allegory works perfectly but overall, it is a really bold movie, especially if you consider the audience.

Plus, animation is not just about story, it is also about voice acting, the animation itself aso. And Zootopia is a gorgeous movie with a number of great voice performances.

I liked Zootopia far more than Moana and Kubo, so I felt that it deserved Oscar.

When Zootopia was first released, I saw a lot of reviews which described it as being about intersectionality, and I agree with that interpretation. The different animals are not intended as direct allegories for specific groups of humans, but the type of discrimination Judy faces in pursuing a career as a cop (and that Bellweather faces a deputy mayor) is similar to the types of discrimination faced by women, while the type of discrimination predator species face (being treated as dangerous) is similar to the types of discrimination faced by, in particular, men of color.

The message of the movie seemed pretty clear to me as, "being a victim of one form of discrimination does not mean that you yourself can't be guilty of other forms of discrimination". Which is an excellent and valuable message.

Edited by Galadriel on Aug 12th 2018 at 9:39:31 AM

Full agreement. I mean, there are a lot of situations which are pretty common thrown into the movie...like, Jody virtue signaling towards Nick, the whole "we reserve the right to refuse service" thing (honestly, the only way this could have been more on the nose would have been if Nick had tried to buy a wedding cake instead of ice cream), Jody not wanting to be a "Quota bunny", Nick touching the sheep wool, someone being removed from the job because it might disturb other people, the moving away in public transport...those are things we are all familiar with. Does it really matter to which group this kind of behaviour gets attached to get the message that this is NOT okay across?

There are a lot of animated movies out there which preach equality one way or another, and it is great that they exist, but very few actually tackle the language and the reasoning behind inequality the way Zootopia does...frankly, I can't think of a single animated movie which does, other than maybe Perfect Blue, which examines sexism within Japanese society.

Honestly, the whole message and portrayal needing to be specific sounds like an arbitrary nonsense somebody made out of thin air.

Applicability is a non existing concept, apparently.

I think it's mostly a matter of people being familiar with Animal Farm and expecting Zootopia to work the same way with regards to the real world.

I am not really talking about a one-to-one comparison with the ethnic groups ie "prey are African Americans." I'm saying that if you were to make a dramatic film about race riots or culture wars, could you transplant the basic story of Zootopia into a similar film. The lion mayor was talking about the whole "predators going feral" issue could get him removed from office just because he is a predator, and it effectively does. Again, this also had a conspiracy that was outright drugging characters in an attempt to discredit an entire ethnic group. There is a semblance of Applicability there, but is not particularly strong and weakens the overall story. The reason is because the moral is about recognizing the harmful effects of racism and prejudice, even within yourself, and laying it on a Bond-villain conspiracy doesn't do it any favors.