Zootopia was accidentally Fascist

 

 

 

I have never been able to stop thinking about this; the2016 animated film ‘Zootopia’ is a defence of liberal cosmopolitanism soearnest and poorly thought-out that it accidentally becomes crypto-fascist.

 

 

A Quote from Matt Zoller Seitz 

"Zootopiais constantly asking its characters to look past species stereotypes, and notto use species-ist language or repeat hurtful assumptions. This all seemsclever and noble until you realise that all the stereotypes about variousanimals are to come extent true, in particular the most basic one carnivoreseat herbivores because it’s in their nature”

 

 

Some Warnings; 

This is me going full schitzo-autist on a funny animalmovie from 2016, AT LENGTH. 

None of my commentary is aimed directly at modern headlinesor intra-group relationships, but the parallels are obvious and are absolutelynecessary to the film itself, so its impossible to talk about it in detailwithout mirroring some of that stuff. 

So BE WARNED, this is what you are in for. If you don'twant to read about that then stop reading! 

 

Not Deliberate 

To be clear, I don't think Zootopia is crypto-fascism.There are no deliberately 'hidden messages'. Instead I think it presents a casefor liberalism so flawed, garbled and intense it accidentally says the exactopposite. 

So I am accusing the makers of being fools, rather thanmonsters. 

 

But What Is Zootopia Patrick? 

Zootopia is 2016 animated film by Disney set in animagined utopian city if sentient, language-using partially humanoid animals. 

“Zootopia is a gleaming metropolis populated byanthropomorphic mammals, divided into several districts including SaharaSquare, Tundratown, Little Rodentia, and Rainforest District.

 

This film begins with a jungle which fades into achildren's play about the history of Zootopia. One day, Judy Hopps, a bunnyrabbit from rural Bunnyburrow, fulfills her dream of joining the ZootopiaPolice Department as the first rabbit officer, however, she is regularlyassigned parking duty by Chief Bogo. During one of her shifts, she ismanipulated by Nick Wilde, a con artist fox. Judy unlawfully arrests DukeWeaselton at Little Rodentia and is reprimanded by Bogo until Mrs. Otterton, anotter, arrives pleading help on locating her missing husband, one of the manyrecently missing predators. To Bogo's dismay, Judy volunteers and theassignment is praised by assistant mayor Dawn Belleweather. However, Bogo getsJudy to agree to resign if she cannot solve the case within 48 hours. With Nickas a key witness of Mr. Otterton's disappearance, Judy locates the fox andcoerces him to assist her with the investigation lest he be charged with taxevasion, which he openly admitted and Judy recorded with her carrot pen, saying"It's called a hustle, sweetheart."

 

After acquiring Mr. Otterton's license plate numberfrom Mystic Springs Oasis, Judy and Nick track the vehicle from the Departmentof Mammal Vehicles to Mr. Big, an arctic shrew crime boss in Tundratown. Mr.Big spares their lives after learning that Judy had rescued his daughterearlier, and informs the pair that Mr. Otterton is his florist and had beenpicked up by his chauffeur Manchas, a black jaguar, to bring him to Mr. Big totalk about something important. However, en-route, Otterton suddenly "wentsavage" - meaning he reverted to a feral state - and attacked Manchasbefore running off. Judy and Nick locate Manchas at his home in the RainforestDistrict for questioning. Manchas describes the attack on him and mentions thatOtterton had been yelling about "night howlers". However, before hecan reveal anything else, Manchas suddenly turns savage himself and chases thepair, but they manage to escape. Judy calls the ZPD for help, but when Bogo andhis reinforcements arrive, Manchas is nowhere to be found. Bogo demands Judy'sresignation, but Nick takes a stand, insisting they have 10 more hours to solvethe case. As the pair leave the Rainforest District, Nick opens up to Judy,revealing that he was bullied by prey animals as a cub for being the onlypredator and subsequently became a con artist, resolving to live out the"sly fox" stereotype, as he felt no one will ever see a fox asanything else.

 

Nick realizes that the city's traffic camera systemmay have captured how Manchas disappeared, and the pair consults AssistantMayor Bellwether. They then discover that Manchas was captured by wolves, whichJudy assumes is what Otterton had meant by "night howlers". Judy andNick locate Cliffside Asylum, where the wolves have detained the missingpredators (including Mr. Otterton), all of which have gone savage, andeavesdrop on Mayor Lionheart consulting with a doctor about their condition,revealing that he is keeping the savage predators hidden from both the publicand the ZPD, and that the cause their strange behavior is unknown. The pairescape, inform Bogo and the police swarm the area, arresting Lionheart andthose involved. Bellwether subsequently becomes the new mayor.

 

Having developed a friendship with Nick throughout thecase, Judy requests that he joins the ZPD and become her partner, which Nickhappily considers. However, a pressured Judy describes the savaged predators'condition during a press conference as them reverting to their naturalinstincts. This confirms Judy's bigotry against foxes to Nick, who angrilywalks out on her offer after he asks her if she sees him as a savage predator(along with her almost reaching for her fox repellent after he asks if shethought he would eat her). When fear and discrimination against predatorsspread across Zootopia, a guilt-ridden Judy resigns, feeling that she madethings worse. During this time, Gazelle holds a peaceful protest and publiclyasks for the harmonious Zootopia she loves to be restored.

 

Two to three months later,[3] Judy has returned toBunnyburrow and rejoined the family business as a carrot farmer. However, shelater learns from her parents and reformed childhood bully, fox Gideon Grey,that "night howlers" are toxic flowers that have severe psychotropiceffects on mammals. Realizing that the flowers are what Otterton was referringto and that they must be the cause of the outbreaks, Judy returns to Zootopia,where she reconciles with Nick. They then locate Weaselton, who explains thathe has been collecting night howlers for a ram named Doug Ramses, who owns alab hidden in the subway tunnels. The pair finds the lab and discovers Dougcreating a night howler serum, which he has been exposing to predators viapaintball-like pellets fired by an air-powered sniper gun.

 

 

Judy and Nick hijack the lab (which is on a stillfunctional train) and race to the ZPD with the evidence but are pursued byDoug's henchrams, whom they barely manage to defeat. The train is destroyed inthe process, but Nick manages to save a case containing Doug's sniper gun andthe serum pellet.

Just short of the ZPD, the pair encounters Bellwether,who insists she takes the evidence. Realizing she is the mastermind of theconspiracy, Judy and Nick try to flee but are knocked into a pit by herhenchrams. Bellwether shoots a serum pellet from the evidence case at Nick andframes a call for help to the ZPD. Nick seemingly becomes savage and cornersJudy, but it turns out the pair was acting in order to trick Bellwether intoopenly admitting her prey-supremacist scheme to take over Zootopia and rid itof all predators, and that they replaced the dart gun ammo with blueberriesfrom the Hopps' farm. With Bellwether's monologue recorded on Judy's carrot penjust as Bellwether made her short-lived threat to frame them as she did withLionheart, Chief Bogo and the ZPD arrive and arrest her and her henchrams uponhearing everything. Upon being informed and interviewed on the matter,Lionheart denies any knowledge of Bellwether's plot, but admits to havingillegally imprisoned the savage predators, claiming it to have been done for"right reasons".

 

 

Later, Judy is reinstated into the ZPD. An antidote isdiscovered for the effects of the night howlers, and all the infectedpredators, including Mr. Otterton and Mr. Manchas, are cured. Months later (abouta year after Judy started her job at the ZPD), Nick joins the ZPD as the firstfox officer and Judy's new partner. The final scene (during the credits) hasalmost all Zootopian citizens attending Gazelle's concert while Bellwetherangrily as Doug, Jesse, and the other prisoners patting on their lap views iton a television set in prison.”

 

 

THINGS THAT ARE TRUE IN ZOOTOPIA 

Ok, imagine you are the average Zootopia resident. statisticallyyou are likely to be a 'Prey' animal. (90% according to the Wiki). 

You surround and outnumber, but are in regular day-to-daycontact with a minority group  who arespecifically designed to kill and eat you, and who could do sorelatively easily. 

But... they don't eat you. Instead they eat Fish, plant proteinand bugs. 

The Mayor of the city, much of the police force, and manyof its celebrities, are all of this minority group. 

So if you did, for instance, suspect that the minoritygroup were secretly killing members of the majority and covering it up. Or, ifa member of this minority group ‘ran amok’, , you would goto the police, who are made up of that minority, and who report to the Mayor,who is also of that Minority. 

It seems that, even when given a free choice, themajority group will vote for, promote or valorise this minority group, they arejust that much more charismatic and powerful .

 

 

There are rumours of the minority group losing control,running amok and attacking the majority. There are rumours of the minoritygroup “disappearing”. 

Its revealed that this has in fact been happening.Minorities have been ‘running amok’ and savagely attacking others at random. Asituation made much more dangerous by their terrifying natural weapons. Themayor, who is a member of this minority, has been secretly imprisoning theguilty parties and hiding the truth while he investigates this matter. 

The Mayor is fired and the deputy Mayor takes his place,this is one of the majority group. 

The police officer who revealed this scheme (one of thefew majority members of the police force), speculates that the minoritiesbiology might be behind these violent attacks. This is in some senses a truism,they a literally designed to kill you and you are their natural food. For mostof history the minority group could not live without destroying you. Theysimply choose not to. 

A chill falls over the city and suspicions rise. 

A beautiful and charismatic Gazelle music star appealsfor the return of normalcy. 

After a short interval, the same police officer revealsthe origins of the situation; the new majoritarian mayor was secretlydeveloping chemical weapons to drive select minority members violently insaneso they would attack members of the majority group, all as part of a plan toput the majority group fully in charge of the city, this whole situation arosebecause of Her scheme. 

The Majority group mayor is imprisoned, and the oldMinority group Mayor is back in charge. He says imprisoning violent members ofhis own group secretly was ‘the wrong thing, for the right reasons’. 

The problem now solved, you and the city relax,everything is back to normal. 

............

 

Now, let me know at what point any of this reminds youof; 

Blood libel conspiracy.Hitlers fantasies.Modern headlines.Alex Jones.The internal sound of your brain melting as you suffera schizophrenic break. 

 

Predators and Prey are Fundamentally Adversarial 

.. and this is the point of the film. From theWiki; 

“The primary issues centering the film, as mentioned,are prejudice and preconceived notions based on stereotypes. To furtheremphasize this, the creatures that inhabit Zootopia were limited down tomammals, to portray a sense of segregation between animals of predator and preymentality; animals such as birds and marine life were left out like most, ifnot all, are consumers of other living organisms, making it difficult to narrowthem down within the status quo of the story's conflict.” 

Of course, if you imagine a world of sentient, tool-suingand civilised compulsory carnivores, living in close integration with equallysentient prey animals, what you have is a moral horror story. All of the goodstories using this as a premise include some element of moral horror because itis inherent to the setting.

 

And ‘Zootopia’ was very nearly this. Again, from the Wiki; 

“In response, the story was tailored to center therelationship between the "predator and prey" group while reflectingmodern day society by having the story serve as an allegory for racism andprejudice. In this version, predators, despite having evolved, were generallyviewed as dangerous threats and were forced to wear electric shock collars as ameans to keep their "aggressive natures" under control at the handsof prey. The "tame collar" concept stuck through most of the film'sproduction, even being approved by John Lasseter, but when screened for theteam at Pixar, the response was negative. The city of Zootopia, in this stateof being so blatantly unjust, was deemed too unlikable, and the story too dark,whereas the goal was to create a city that the audience could fall in love withwhile making a film that—despite its serious subject matter—can still be a funfamily film”

 

 I Get "Don't Think Too Hard About It" 

But Zootopia DEMANDS you think about it! It was designedspecifically as an allegory for racism from early development. It is a very,EXTREMELY values-laden film. 

It’s all about the greatness of cosmopolitanism, howwonderful diversity is and how evil twisted members of the majority group mighttry to destroy that wonderful peaceful diversity with evil schemes. 

It is a very, very, very earnest film that is intenselyanxious about having 'something to say'. This quite intense seriousness iswritten through the whole of the film

 

 Zootopia demands you pay deep attention to exactly the ideas it cannotsustain 

One thing that hit me very hard on viewing Zootopia wasthe gravity of the scene where Judy Hops states that the minorities that ranamok were reverting to their natural instincts. 

This is treated with deep and overwhelming seriousness bythose in the imagined world and by the structure and tone of the film itself. itfeels like a grave sin against the rules and ideals of this world. 

I must be autistic as fuck as I may have been the onlyperson in the room thinking "Well yea, they are wolves, lions and tigersof course they are biologically dangerous to fucking rabbits or whatever". 

I know what the film intended. The deep tragedy,gravity and sinfulness of this statement only makes sense if we view Zootopiaas an allegory or metaphor for relations between human groups. 

In a statement about humans saying "Well theyare just biologically dangerous, of course they were going to flip out and killsomeone, its inherent to them" would be monstrous and this matches thefeel of the scene 

But as a statement about Lions and Tigers and Wolves it’sjust obviously true. 

And Zootopia insists we think about this. 

Or more precisely, it demands we think about this in preciselythis way and no other. It is so confident of its argument, itspremise and the way its scenes and message are meant to be felt and considered,that it just leaps ahead. It is a story for an audience that already knows whatthe answer is and is just waiting for the story itself to fill that in 

Prejudice  = bad 

Brining up biological differences in discussion of violentacts - horrible 

they clearly didn't think, or were so confident, or so half-Intelligentthat they didn't even consider that anyone would possibly read it any other way

 

 The Fascist Reading of Zootopia 

You surround a minority group of biologically dangerouspotential killers. 

It’s considered social death to point this out. 

This is very important; saying the wrong thing, making assumptionsabout someone’s nature just because they, for instance, have teeth and claws,is considered very terrible. so you have to not mention these very clear and obviouslyphysical and innate behavioural differences. 

Just don't bring it up. Don't bring it up or our fragile societywill implode. 

There are rumours of attacks by the minority. 

There is confirmation of attacks by the minority. 

They have been going crazy and TEARING APART members ofthe majority at random. 

The city government has been covering this up. 

The city government is headed by a member of the same minorityand the police force is dominated by them, so essentially they rule over you. 

Later another conspiracy is revealed, the conspiratorsare of the majority faction. 

They have been triggering the dangerous minority withdrugs made from certain commonly available garden flowers. The old Mayoris returned and the conspiracy ended, everything is fine now. 

You still surround a minority of potential killers,  and they could be triggered to kill randomlyat any time by the use of a commonly available chemical. 

So this is hell, surely? It’s the Liberal Polity as seenthrough the eyes of a Fascist. Fundamentally opposed groups bound together by atissue of lies under the leadership and control of elite members of thepowerful minority group with anyone who defies the lie by pointing out basic biologicaland historical fact ostracised and driven into poverty. 

 

Beastars is Zootopia Done Right

Beastars – is an animated series based on almost exactlythe same setting and concept as Zootopia; an urbanised society ofanthropomorphic sentient animals which hands, language and tools, but stillmassively different body types and huge differences in natural capacity, andwith obligate predators and obligate prey animals “trying to get along”. 

Beastars is a weird, queasy, sometimes disturbing storyand the main reason it works as anything at all is because it directlyacknowledges and is largely about the massive innate differences betweenPredators and Prey and the fact that this society is a thin strand ofcompromise over a roiling churning mass of potential conflict.

 

 

In Beastars Predators do occasionally Run Amok, and eatPrey citizens. Its not quite covered up but is down-valued by the media.Predators have secret meat markets where they go to eat flesh and criminalgroups who supply them. Many Prey-citizens live in a state of quiet helplessterror about being killed, many Predator-citizens live in a state of consumingdysphoria and self-loathing about their own nature. 

Despite being a pervy, weird, strange and intense storyBeastars feels more moral and sane than Zootopia because the characters in itare grappling directly and honestly with the unresolved darkness at the centreof their society while in Zootopia; it was all an evil conspiracy by badmajority group members and things are back to normal now.