Zootopia is a Post-Genocidal Society (and Some Other Theories)
*Spoilers for Zootopia, both literal and figurative. Go see the movie then read the article. Or just go see the movie, it's quite good.*
The weekend has ended and something has finally knocked Deadpool off the top of the box office. Zootopia is cute, cuddly, tame and pretty much everything Deadpool is not, with the exception that they're both very funny and have surprising amounts of heart. But peeling back the outer gleam of Zootopia reveals some shocking amounts of darkness. Zootopia? More like... dys-zootopia? Sure. Let's call it that.
1. Parents Are The Worst
So far this doesn't seem like a dystopia. More like an angsty middle schooler. Bear (haha) with me. The main character of the movie is Judy Hopps, a bunny who wants to be a cop. But before Hopps can join the cops, her Pops hopes her dreams will drop... sorry, I'll stop. Still, both Judy's mother and father tell her that certain animals just do certain things, and that everyone in society has their own role decided at birth. That's already pretty depressing, but thankfully Judy doesn't listen to them, and pursues her dreams.
Still, this isn't so bad. A lot of parents aren't supportive of their children's dreams, especially in movies, and it's just another barrier for the protagonist to overcome. Sure, they weren't supportive of Judy, but maybe they'll be better with her brothers and sisters. How many brothers and sisters does she have? Hundreds.
Yes, I understand "bunnies breed" is the joke of the hundred or so siblings Judy has, but think about that logistically. In actual bunny communities, monogamy isn't the status quo, rather horrifying amounts of incestual breeding and piles of bunny loving. But in Zootopia that doesn't happen, it's just one daddy and one mommy bunny, similar to how humans do it (haha).
This is the problem: how involved in each of their children's lives can they possibly hope to be? Studies have show parents of reality-show-amounts of children frequently miss out on very important things (just google the Duggars, I don't really want to talk about it) and have a drastic financial burden as well. Those few moments we see Judy's parents telling her to give up on her dreams are probably some of the only times in her life where she was the center of their attention.
Human procreation is substantially different than that of other animals, and changes our behavior as a society. Imposing human relationships, but keeping animal breeding practices is a terrifying proposition. Look up how lions, pigs, or rats procreate and then translate that to human society. The rinse your brain with bleach because weird breeding is just the tip of the iceberg.
2. The Government Created Drugs to Make Minorities Violent
This isn't actually something you have to read into. It's the literal conflict of the movie. A sheep who gets sick of dealing with carnivores, finds a drug that makes carnivores violent, so she's justified in removing them from society. She explains that population wise, carnivores are only 10% making life worse for the other 90%, non-carnivores. Sounds like some racial issues are happening. There's not a lot to explain with this one, except that it's eerily similar to a relatively popular conspiracy theory. I should point out, I'm not taking a side on whether or not said conspiracy is true. Just relaying the relevant information to Zootopia.
Basically, the idea is that the crack epidemic was intentionally created by the CIA under Ronald Reagan to destroy poor black communities. The idea is that the CIA introduced crack-cocaine into low income communities hoping that because it was really cheap, and really addictive; it would destroy any small chance a young black man from that area had at a happy life. When an entire community is as systematically screwed as these communities were, the system stops being respected, and crime seems like the best opportunity to keep your family together.
Thus we get young black communities with an entire economy based on crack, until the "Just Say No" campaign decides it's time to take care of the drug problem... with tanks. They used tanks to bulldoze communities looking for drugs, because who needs the 4th amendment when you're looking for drugs? That's the conspiracy theory. "Officially" crack showed up in low income communities because reasons. Then the rest of the stuff happened the same.
And I'm pretty sure Zootopia just took that and ran with it. The drug in Zootopia makes carnivores go "savage", leading to a police officer suggesting something in their DNA makes them inherently prone to violence, and causes the other mammals to fear the carnivores. Seriously, there is so much implied institutional racism in this movie it's almost a Spike Lee joint.
But by the end of the movie, everything is fine. Predator and prey live together in harmony and all is forgiven. Those low-income black communities from the 80s that got crack and tank-bulldozing? They're still not doing so great. A hugely disproportionate amount of young black men are in jail when compared to white people, and a huge percentage of that group are arrested on drug charges. Low-income neighborhoods receive little to no assistance from the government to rebuild crumbling infrastructure and fund schools. Institutional racism is still a huge problem in our society. And speaking of institutional failure....
3. Judy Hopps Ignores a Crime Family That Regularly Kills Animals
So there's this part in the movie where Judy ends up in the hands of an organized crime family of voles because this is a children's movie and it behaves as such. The Vole Father wants to "ice her" which is code for "drop her in the frozen lake until she freezes to death/drowns", because she's a cop and she's seen too much. Thankfully, she gets saved by the Vole-daughter, who she coincidentally saved in an earlier chase scene. Then she just leaves. Actually, I forgot something. Later in the movie Judy needs information from a weasel, and brings him to the Volefather to interrogate him by threatening to "ice him" which is you know... murdering.
I'm fine with Judy using the mob to her advantage for this case, which if you'll remember part two, is about stopping institutional racism. But at the end of the movie, Judy solves the case. It's done. And does she decide, "Hey, that organized crime family that threatened to murder me and my friend, and that I used to illegally interrogate someone needs to be stopped?". Nope. She has to stop street racers then go to a concert. Because it's credits time.
Either Judy is really bad at her job, or she's corrupt. Actually, beyond corrupt. She threatens a witness with death in order to get information from him. That's really dark. Oh, and she totally goes to the Vole-daughter's wedding, while she's on a deadline to solve the case of the feral carnivores. That's a pretty clear indicator of police corruption if I've ever seen one. But corrupt politicians, institutional racism, and police officers in the pocket of the mob isn't even close to the darkest part of Zootopian society.
4. Multiple Genocides Occurred Before Zootopia Became What it Was (or Worse)
There isn't a lot of hard evidence to support this one. But you know what else there isn't a lot of hard evidence of in Zootopia? Birds, reptiles, amphibians, or fish. Zootopia plays up the divide between prey and predator, but every animal on screen, (with the exception of some flies) is a mammal. Thusly, the lack of evidence becomes the key point of evidence.
In the brief history lesson given at the beginning of the film, the relationship between prey and predator is summarized by "we used to be savage but now we're fine". No explanation is given for how top-food chain predators are surviving without the large amounts of protein they would need to survive. Humans are omnivorous, we have teeth that support the eating of animals and vegetables, which is how we're able to go vegetarian if we so choose. But lions, tigers (and not bears because those are also omnivorous) and other cats lack the digestive systems to process vegetation. So how are predators just "fine" now?
Simple, all-non mammals are farmed. Fish, fowl, and reptile must supplant the need for protein in the animal diet, and they aren't seen in Zootopia, because if all animals gained sentience at the same time, it would be rather horrific that entire species are being raised for slaughter. This dark secret could actually be seen as justification for the Sheep's "remove the predator" plan for multiple reasons.
Reason number one: the carnivores really are monsters whose very existence depends on mass murder. Food chains work based on the transfer of energy, starting at photosynthesis in plants, moving up the chain into herbivores, eaten by carnivores. But through this transfer, the majority of energy is lost, meaning that top-chain consumers (lions) have to eat more than lower level consumers (sheep). Therefore even though only 10% of the population is labelled "predator" there is still a substantial need for meat.
Reason number two: it's worked before. Where are the reptiles in this? Most reptiles and amphibians are very lean animals, meaning the meat gained from farming them would be relatively inconsequential. Still, there are many top-level reptiles, Komodo Dragons, anacondas, crocodiles, and Crococondas which is something I just made up but should totally be a sci-fi original movie. Mammalian predators and prey would both stand to gain from the systematic removal of said reptiles from the food chain, and they must have removed them sometime in the proto-Zootopia timeline.
As much as we hate to admit it, humans are no different. America was built on the genocide of the native americans for the simple reason of convenience. Europeans weren't running out of room when they conquered the brave new world. They weren't running out of food, and had no reason to wipe out entire civilizations. But they did it anyway, because they could.
Zootopia's surface very much resembles the utopia promised by the titular pun. But the seedy underbelly of what creates a perfect society also mirrors the darkness of human histories search for perfection. Perfection, by its very definition requires the removal of the imperfect, which is very much open to interpretation by those with the power to change. To a sheep, a lion is an imperfection. To a lion, a crocodile is an imperfection. So it is in our society, made clearer every day the news covers a new tyrant demanding the exclusion of other races and religious beliefs. The term itself, Utopia, means an imaginary place where everything is perfect. By its very definition a Utopia can not exist, and perhaps that is the biggest lesson Zootopia offers: that the search for the ideal brings out the least ideal parts of our own animal instincts.
