Disney's newest animated film, "Zootopia," is a piece of cultural history. Offering insight into today's struggle with inequality and justice, a facet of the social atmosphere is preserved like a bug in amber. Positive reviews are stacking up in applause of the film's discussion of race, gender, stereotypes and the power of media to name a few. I especially appreciated how this film re-wrote the good guy/bad guy archetype so commonly portrayed in children's media.
The relationship between hero and villain usually encourages a fundamentalist worldview that allows for people to be categorized into "good" and "bad." The formula is simple; the good guys have nice comb-overs, symmetrical and attractive body types, badges, capes and a disarming personality. On the other hand, the villains are unattractive or asymmetrical in physical appearance, portrayed as an outcast, undesirable and mean-tempered.
But the script has been changed!
"Zootopia" adds a twist the hero and villain complex. The heroes and the villains are cops. This poses quite the dilemma; does this mean our future children won't play cops and robbers, but cops and...cops? This is the brilliance of "Zootopia," and the power of media in writing the script of our children's realities. I imagine the questions that might arise in the car after the movie as young families head home for dinner:
"Dad, why were the bad guys cops?"
"Do cops go to jail, too?"
"Mom, was the fox a good guy or a bad guy?"
How will we answer these questions? When our kids ask us what jail is, how will we answer? Is prison the place bad people go so they can't hurt us?
Before we can answer these questions for our children, we must be able to answer them for ourselves. "Zootopia" had some scary parts for young children. There were scenes of vicious animals with big teeth and mean eyes, but I think the film reached into a deeper fear inside of adults; the unknown. It reminds us that the stereotypes we use to predict (and control) our environments are not reliable. They are an illusion we perpetrate to cope with an uncertain world. Living within stereotypes is nothing more than subconscious math. Its a game of statistics where we identify patterns based off of variables in order to predict an outcome. We predict a person's trustworthiness with a variable such as skin color. And if we compound multiple variables such as skin color, neighborhood, communication skills, and clothing, we can better predict a possibly negative outcome. So our response is subconscious fear and avoidance. This is where we must make a choice; do we want to operate like a computer and allow statistical analysis to shape our reality, or do we want to be human?
It's easier to believe that all people in jail deserve their punishment than it is to realize it's a mechanism of social control, not justice.
It's easier to believe a badge (or skin color) determines one's character than it is to realize all humans are complex and somewhat unpredictable.
It's easier to believe a person's situation is solely the result of their own choices than it is to realize one's environment exerts tremendous forces that shape life trajectory.
It's easier to believe a stereotype than realize the human before you contains a world unbeknownst to your own.
Overcoming stereotypes is more than embracing all people equally, it's about increasing our ability to embrace uncertainty.
Thank you "Zootopia," for challenging us to welcome the unknown and live above the social equation.
