Bias, Hypocrisy and Mixed Messages in Zootopia: An Exploration Through Canonical and Deuterocanonical World Elements

   Well, first off, let me start with Vi Hart's annual rant on why pi sucks and is overrated. Even on this, the roundest of pi days.

   It's settled. If I ever open up a pizzeria, I'm going to call it the Tau, and all the pizza it serves is going to be double-decker, two pie stacked on top of each other...

   Zootopia. The negative reviews. I've read, all two of them. And they've got good points, which is terrible, and I guess is why I haven't responded to the objections raised till now (though a lot of what I've got to say below in regards to that, I'd originally written for the one-week retrospective on Friday-- which, being basically a dump of every thought I've had on the matter, spiraled ridiculously out of control, so I trimmed it down a lot, and there's a lot more where this came from. (In other words, I won't be short on blog post material any time soon...))

   Most of the criticism (I think, yeah, 100%) boils down to how problematic it is to have jokes about wolves liking to howl and sloths being slow and yaks being nudists, all in a movie with a lesson against prejudice and bias (oh, those yaks, always so naked all the time...!) Also, Gazelle is sexy, and that's just weird. Ignoring that second point, and focusing on the criticism of some apparent mixed moral message of the film: some have accused this brand of criticism as completely missing the point, reading meaning into things where there is no meaning meant-- which yeah is decently fair, but  I think this is an interesting and ("crunchy" is a really good adjective) crunchy enough case to tackle on its own merits, treating the argument with the validity it does have.

   I mentioned before, in the second of the Fridge Logic posts, regarding the theme of truth to self-identity, and whether it's possible to take that too far (the answer, of course, being yes-- which, makes the theme all the crunchier (see?), introducing grey areas into the mere act of living out your life. It's a perennial favorite furry theme, even on a higher meta-level, because it ties into the idea of the acceptability of being "furry" in the fuuuuurst place.)

   So. Self-identity, self-expression? Self-...location, let's call it. Skunk Pride Parades are mentioned a couple of times throughout the tie-in books, some case that Nick and Judy have to peacekeep at when they first become partners. The film ending instead with the delightful gag reveal of the mysterious speed demon, however, any mention of Skunk Pride appears to have been excised from the movie. Which points straight to our faces, a very interesting question: does the notion of Skunk Pride add to the message, or detract from it?

   First off: is there even a message in this world? Lessons can be applied to our world, parallels between their life experiences and ours, of course, but there's no "moral" intrinsic to the canon, so, maybe not. It's not like they turn straight to the camera at the end and... "we all have limitations, we all make mistakes, which means, hey, glass half full, we all have a lot in common," right.

   But then... that makes part of the moral of the film about how life is more messy than a slogan on a bumper sticker. Like how Rosebud being 75-YEAR-OLD-SPOILER at the end of Citizen Kane is still ultimately worthless knowledge, because of how Jerry himself concludes it to be just a missing piece in a jigsaw puzzle, and even such an important significant word can't explain a man's life. Skunk Pride is totally a thing that would happen in a furry world, but it has no real-world analogy. It's just, a thing. Like the stereotypes that are reinforced or broken throughout the film, they're all just, things. Sloths are slow. Skunks are smelly. Rabbits breed, lots. Camels have goshdarn humps! They're all just, things. Neither positive or negative. Just things.

   Still, the idea of prejudice... pre-judice, judging something prior to having all the applicable facts... is a major theme, and could never be knocked out of the window entirely (I tried to "smurf" the word "defenestrate" once, and it didn't go over so well.) There are still stereotypes. There is still bias. Bunnies are cute-- positive stereotype, but how condescending! (Judy's cuteness was something of a cloying factor to, well this probably says a lot, but, the same reviewer who thought that sexy anthro animals was weird.) If you're a flabby doughnut-loving cop, and acknowledge the fact, are you still a stereotype? even if you yourself sometimes stereotype others? even if there's more to you than your own stereotypes? even if the stuff "more to you" is just an obsession with said sexy anthro Gazelle? These are great questions.

   Stereotyping is not necessarily bias, though that matter does come in a lot. Foxes are sly and mischievous-- negative stereotype, and prevalent. There's a whole goshdarn brand in this world named Fox Away! And nobody has a problem with it. It's just, casually in there, like this is the Deep American South in the mid-20th century and we're, lynching watermelon or something just so casually blatantly racist like that. Foxes aren't to be trusted, it's a stereotype everyone already believes in, even Bonnie, usually the one to call Stu out on his speciesism.

   There's no need to expose any foxes to Midnicampum holicithias, make everyone fear those, because they already do...

   Getting back to the overall idea of identity management. The Art of Zootopia book really is as glorious as it is gorgeous... although they really honed the film thematically down to the sharpest edge of what it is and isn't, there's a lot going on in the realms unexplored by the final product (what I wouldn't give to get my hands on the scripts or even specs for some of the early drafts of the story...) At one point, not long after learning the real-world statistic how prey really do outnumber predators 10-to-1, the development team ran with this idea to the extreme that preds were a minority, untrusted and kept in check with tracking collars. Which is delicious to think about, and I could do a whole post on the thematic underlay of that, and whether that's justified, whether it adds or detracts like the Skunk Pride stuff would or wouldn't, but for now I'm just going to tie that back into self-location.

   At one point, over the many-storied course of deciding Nick's role in the story, he operated this amusement park called Wild Times. Although its own appearances and role in the story had their ups and downs as well, what remained consistent was its role in the world of Zootopia: Wild Times was for CHOMPERS ONLY, like the sign says-- in other words, it was a predator-specific theme park, where preds could be themselves, hang up their collars and vent their predatory nature in a world 90% prey.

   This is the most direct conflict we've seen of the two ideals, at least to me. The best head-on collision of the dark side of self-location and the light. You can tell if a conflict is good, if it leaves you feeling directly conflicted, and I'm conflicted, because I can't tell which side represents which. On the one hand, it's an exercise of release and freedom in a world that treats preds as second-class citizens and forces them to be something they're not. On the other, well, frankly it's shudder-inducing to think what sort of activities such an amusement park could offer, to be indulged or over-indulged in, that can genuinely provide such an escape from such a world. Is such a valve safe? Is any valve safe? If a behavior is proscribed so strongly, even a negative behavior, if it ever does reveal itself it's generally going to be in far stronger a form than what would have happened had the behavior never been repressed at all...

   The sheer existence of the conflict means that there won't be easy answers to this; I can imagine arguments for and against, either side, and... funny thing, the distillation of those arguments seem to come from two opposite ideals, both alike in dignity, both rooted in Jungian, cognitive function, stuff. In Meyers-Briggsian terms, the entire conflict is one between the Judging attitudes, Thinking and Feeling; in Scott McCloud's terms, it's a conflict between the Formalist and Iconoclast schools. It's slipping rapidly away from me, sorry about that, back on focus.

   Just from that, the ease of, slippage, though, we can readily see (I think) how perfectly the collision is set up to slip: this conflict, self-location, identity management, is this idea at the root of furrydom, in both meanings of the word-- anthropomorphism of animals, and fanship of that-- and (particularly with that first definition) it resonates up the branches of Zootopia, which causes that film to have a vibration even greater against the word's second definition, even if we couldn't articulate why.

   Coming back to the questions raised that the critics found problematic: "anyone can be anything," but "a leopard can't change his spots," cancelling each other out: I don't think that ever was the message in the first place, that the outward message trumps the hidden underbelly. I don't think it was even intended to. I can't speak as a writer of the film, or anything, but from my perspective: yes, they do seem to contradict. But, yes, they say that right in the movie. And they don't seem to contradict, they do, on profound levels, but all coming back to that central conflict, at the root of the tree. Foxes can't grow up to be elephants! Should they stop trying? I don't know.

   And that's, I guess, the beauty of it.

   Well, I guess it's, about time to wrap it up... if anyone out there has any additional thoughts, I would be glad to hear them.