You Should Be Watching: Zootopia

When I first saw the trailer for Zootopia, I thought it looked magnificent; funny, well animated, adorable… in general, it was those things. I mean, those scenes with the sloths and Mr. Big would make anyone want to see it.

Except for the heavy-handed political agenda.

I’m expecting to have an unpopular opinion about this, since it has a 99% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and since being Politically Correct and tolerant of all things is the paragon of virtue in our current society.

I shouldn’t be surprised by this, but really, I was shocked. Zootopia jumps onto the screen, claiming that anyone can be anything, using a bunny who wants to be a cop in a society filled with predators as an example.

Ok. I have no problem being like “Follow your dreams!” especially since my chosen career is what many people would thrust firmly into the “out there dreams”. But believe it or not, NOT everyone can be whatever they want to be. Nor should they be. (This is not to say don’t follow your dreams. Please follow your dreams. But, if I dream of being a professional Men’s basketball player, THAT IS NOT A DREAM I SHOULD FOLLOW. PLEASE NO).  But anyway, this is a kids movie, and it’s Disney, so I let that one slide (especially since they amended that statement by the end, adding that everyone has limitations, thank goodness).

But then we got this tension between the predators and the prey when they started finding predators that were going savage and attacking other animals. YEAH. BECAUSE THEY’RE PREDATORS. IT’S WHAT THEY DO. This tension would have been fine because, hey, it’s an animal movie where we’ve created a fantasy land about animals living in harmony and wearing clothes and having human jobs. But then it was like, GASP maybe it’s biological.

YOU HORRIBLE BIGOT. HOW COULD YOU SAY THAT?

Um. Because they’re predators? And they eat other animals? Cause….science?

Like, what is happening right now? What are the screenwriters trying to say?

When the conflict was resolved I was like MEH. SAW THAT ONE COMING. Oh, and then there was this painful scene where Judy had ‘judged’ her fox-friend Nick because he’s a predator and he got mad and then she cried through an apology and I cried through my pain at the political correctness. Like, of course, don’t be racist. Don’t judge someone because they’re different than you. And yes, you should apologize if you’ve unfairly judged someone, especially if you’re friends. BUT YOU SHOULD TOTES JUDGE PREDATORS. JUST SAYING. This is why language is important. A predator is biologically designed to kill and eat prey. Like, go watch The Lion King. We should not be teaching children that words with important and dangerous meanings are actually not dangerous. Or important, for that matter.

I think part of the problem is the metaphor just breaks down really quickly. I get that Zootopia was actually a metaphor for our modern human society (I think the metaphor was about racism? See, it just wasn’t very clear)  But you can’t be like “predators aren’t actually predators anymore, they’re too evolved to attack and eat prey”.  Because as much as everyone wants a pet tiger, THOSE THINGS WILL EAT YOU. Even if you show them love. And kindness. And never raise a hand to hurt them. Heck, my cat scratches the crap out of me if I do something she doesn’t like. And I’ve never abused her.

Sorry. Rant over. I’ll talk about the things I liked now.

There were some absolutely hysterical scenes amid the politically correct circus; most of which were in the trailer, but still, I laughed out loud. I loved the art; Zootopia is made up of a bunch of different ecosystems, and it was really fun seeing Judy Hopps running around the different parts of the city. Her friendship with Nick Wilde, the sly fox, is also fun and entertaining. Judy is adorable, as bunnies tend to be.

Although, on another note, while it’s great that Judy followed her dreams, if I call the cops, I would rather have a super strong like, grizzly bear show up, rather than an adorable bunny. Of course, that probably makes me a bigot yet again. That’s ok, you can have the bunny show up at your house when someone is robbing you. I’ll take the grizzly.

So, I guess if you’re super into political correctness, you’ll love this movie. I enjoyed the funny parts and the art enough to recommend it to most people. My ranting made it seem like I completely loathed this movie, when in reality, yes, the PC stuff bothered me, but if you kind of let it slide, the rest of the movie is very entertaining. It’s a well done Disney movie, though I really hope this isn’t a new trend, because I cannot handle that much PC-ness in my cute animal animated movies.

3 out of 5 stars