Saturday, March 5, 2016
Zootopia
Tonight, the Madisons and I went to go see the new movie Zootopia. I was pleasantly surprised at how deep the movie turned out to be while still being lighthearted, cute, and funny. Throughout the movie it became apparent that many of the things that were said and many of the plot points could be thought of as direct allusions to the events of racial prejudice that have been occurring lately. (WARNING SPOILERS) The movie followed a bunny who's big dream was to be a cop. Everyone, even her parents told her that it wasn't possible because of who she was, there has never been a bunny cop before. But she worked harder than anyone else and became a cop. When she got on the force, no one took her seriously and wouldn't give her any real jobs. When she finally did get her own case, it ended up that all of the predators (African Americans) were the ones going crazy and hurting people, while the prey (white folks) were completely innocent. There has always been a prejudice between the two, and the bunnys parents even made her carry around pepper spray for predators. But now, it went out of control. The prey outnumbered the predators 9:1 yet they all thought of the predators as bad and scary... And clumped them all into the one stereotype. As it turns out (SUPER SPOILER TWIST ENDING GO WATCH IT YOURSELF ITS REALLY GOOD) the predators were going crazy because a certain faction of the prey were drugging the predators in order to convince all of the other prey to go against the predators. The writers put in a lot of not easily noticeable but extremely smart allusions to recent events. It was extremely well written and an all around worth the watch movie. I found that it fit in nicely with our recent discussions of Europeans stereotypes on Africans found in Things Fall Apart.
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The racial and prejudice aspects of this movie to me where almost shockingly obvious, which is why it was almost strange that it was a kids movie. It had endless jokes/ references to things that most kids would not understand, but made it more interesting for someone that is older to watch and analyze. One of the main focuses of the movie is the growing relationship between the bunny and the fox. The bunny starts out being prejudice against foxes because they are sneaky and normally "up to no good," but as the movie goes on you learn that the fox is a really good person, and acts the way he does because of the circumstances he was born into. This sort of mimics what Achebe is trying to do through his novel, by showing us both the good and the bad about Umuofia clan. The directors of the movie don't try to hide the bad traits of certain animals, including the fox, but they also expose the good and open your eyes to the reality of Zootopia. Similarly, Achebe does not hide the negative or questionable aspects of the Umuofia culture, but opens our eyes to the good aspects and the reasons behind why they act how they do.
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