Zootopia Essay

Zootopia

The movie Zootopia was directed by Byron Howard and Rich Moore and released in April 2016. An important idea in this film is that you should not judge a book by its cover. We see this in various scenes as Judy experiences Zootopia.

The idea was shown when Judy entered the Bullpen (the meeting room). We see that the police officers are all big and tall. The animals were all lions elephants, Rhinoceroses, polar bears, and leopards, etc. What I released when Chief Bogo was handing out the cases was that specific animals were assigned to the continents that their species come from. Judy was left out because she did not belong to any the continents, plus she was thought as small and weak. Since she was stereotyped as weak and small Judy was given parking duty since it suited her best. “You probably forgot, but I was at the top of my class at the academy” she stated. Chief Bogo replied with “I didn't forget, I just don’t care”. In this point in the film, it shows the audience that Zootopia isn't really the place you can be anything.

Another scene that the idea was shown in was when Judy saw Nick going into an elephant Cafe. Judy instantly thought that he was up to no good since he was a fox. In this scene, Judy actually stereotypes Nick as sly and always up to no good. Judy gets suspicious and decides to follow Nick into the shop. What we see is Nick ordering his son a jumbo pop for his birthday. The owner immediately refused service for the owner assumed that Nick was up to no good, or was trying to cause trouble in his cafe. In the background we see that the customers were annoyed by Nick and his son's presence, they all had annoyed/angry facial expressions. What this tells the audience about the citizens of Zootopia is that everyone thinks foxes are nothing more than sly, mischievous, troublemakers, guilty, untrustworthy, and always up to no good.

At the end of the film, we see Nick and Judy in a police car at least 10 times their size taking on an important case. With this scene the stereotype of small animals cannot be police officers has been broken. Although it took a lot of persuasions and finding 18 missing animal cases at once in a matter of 48 hours for the ZPD to realise that smaller animals can get the job done if not better than bigger animals. The director used this to show us that it may be hard, but never give in for it will be worth it in the end.

In Zootopia Judy experiences being stereotyped for being a bunny. She was being noticed as weak and not useful. Although there were characters who were trying to drag her down, Judy never gave up.  She carried on and kept her head held high. A lesson the movie Zootopia tells us is that assumptions from first glances can be misleading.