Race Relations and Zootopia

            Disney, as a company, has a tradition where they take serious and complicated topics and present them in an easily digestible and accessible manner for kids. Even many adults are bewildered by some of the topics Disney takes on. Disney tackled LBGT topics in their smash hit Frozen, it re-envisioned the play Hamlet, a story absolutely rife with adult themes and topics, and baffled the world with an accurate and entertaining portrayal of emotional psychology in the film, Inside Out. However, there is one topic that Disney has traditionally had the hardest time presenting. That is race relations and that has been an ongoing problem.

            Back in the 1940s, Disney released the film, Song of the South, a film about the singing adventures of possibly a slave or a freedman—the film is rather mute about that point it taking place before or after the Civil War. Besides the film portrays the time period and black people living harmoniously with whites when they are in servile capacity. Suffice to say, the film did not age well and has still yet to receive a modern DVD release. On a more popular film, Dumbo has its racial hiccup with the Crows who down the mannerisms of a racist stereotype of black people. Specifically, the crows demonstrate the Sambo character of

            Now on to Disney’s most recent foray into racial politics, the film Zootopia attempts to portray the current problem of racial discrimination by police, but unfortunately its pursuit falls prey to its own logic. In the film, society is broken down into two primary groups and those are predators and prey. The prey are allegorized as versions of white Americans and conversely the predators are intended to represent African Americans. Yet the film is rather imprecise in how it chooses to shine its critical light on. In the film, predators face discrimination and social restrictions because of the fact that they are predators. However, in the opening scene of the film, it is established that predators have at one point in their history actually preyed upon prey for nourishment. Thus, the film insinuates that the prey characters have a historically justifiable reason to discriminate against the predator characters since they in the past have preyed upon the non-predators. Yet despite the racism that these characters face, predators within the film hold substantial sway in the politics in the city. For example, Mayor Lionheart is the mayor of the city, there are several predators in the police force, and they are naturally stronger than the other animals in the city.

            That being said, Disney, I assume, had the best in mind when they decided to create a film with such difficult topics, but it should have been better thought out. The fact that topics such police zealotry and racial discrimination are expressed is important. However, they must be properly directed or else they end up criticizing a system of discrimination with befuddled goals.