I'm sure if you're reading this, no matter who you are, there's no way you haven't heard of the new Disney movie "Zootopia" by now. It has been advertised and highly anticipated since at least around Christmas time, and now that it's out, people everywhere are buzzing about it. Rumor has it that "Zootopia" is even a movie that's finally received higher ticket sales than "Frozen" did (and now that I've seen it, I can understand why).

I work in a movie theater (and simultaneously a restaurant, the Movie Tavern to be exact) and I worked there last week while home on spring break, arriving home just as "Zootopia" was hitting theaters, so I've seen just how popular it has gotten. One of the employee benefits I receive from MT is free movies for myself and anyone else I want to join me, so on my day off last Friday I decided to go in with a friend and finally see this acclaimed movie for myself (after only seeing bits and pieces of various scenes while working). I was blown away.

But just why is "Zootopia" so amazing?

Well, for one thing, it is certainly very adorable and entertaining. As Disney movies usually are. The storyline follows a young rabbit named Judy Hopps who goes to a city called Zootopia because she wants to become a cop and believes this city is an ideal place to make a living. She learns quickly that this is not quite the case. Judy does get hired in the police department, but they assign her to menial tasks like parking duty because they believe since she's "just a bunny" they can't take her seriously enough to do the work of a cop.

Then Judy comes across what she views as a perfect opportunity to prove herself. She happens upon an otter complaining to the head cop, Chief Bogo (who appears to be a ram), about how her husband has been missing for 10 days. Chief Bogo tells Mrs. Otter that the department can't do anything about her missing husband, but Judy won't stand for this matter going unsolved, and thus decides to take the case (much to Chief Bogo's irritation). So Judy teams up with a fox friend of hers, Nicholas Wilde, who she ironically met while trying to exercise her duty as a cop on him (because she'd believed him to be selling things illegally).

The pair soon learns that there is much more to the case to crack than simply one missing animal. Many other animals have gone missing, and when Judy and Nick find all of them locked up in what seems to be either a jail or sanitorium, they come to realize all of these animals are locked up because they've somehow changed and "gone savage" and all of them are only animals considered to be predators. More and more animals are suddenly turning violent for seemingly no reason, and it is only happening to predatory animals. The movie follows Judy and Nick's mission to find out why.

Although the two main protagonists do crack the case by the end of the movie, I won't spoil the ending for you. (Assuming you'll go see the movie, which you MUST. Especially now that I've led you on like this!) But at this point it's probably fairly clear that the situation in the movie has led to a lot of prejudice going on in the city of Zootopia. Because of a few predatory animals suddenly turning "savage" for unknown reasons, all the other non-predatory animals are becoming fearful and judgmental of every predator they see, even perfectly innocent predators. Animals are losing their jobs and being banned from various public areas. Suddenly the predators who are small harmless children, or someone's neighbor that they've known for years, become threats just because they're predators.

Zootopia is not at all the perfect, ideal, utopian town where everyone gets along, like Judy Hopps believed it was before she moved there. Injustice, inequality, and unfair stereotyping are running rampid there. The town has gone to chaos, all because of its residents jumping to conclusions about an entire group just from a small amount of extremism they see.

This movie "Zootopia" seemed to me on the surface a simply cute and funny Disney movie, but it is so much more than that.

The film speaks volumes about prejudice in our society. It is evident that Disney attempted to make a statement with this movie about the immense prejudice, in the form of racism and xenophobia, running rampid in our own society, and they did a wonderful job of it. The utter chaos that goes down in the city of Zootopia proves that no problems can be solved if everyone is pointing fingers at each other and judging entire groups based on the actions of a few. I also picked up on a statement about police brutality, since the other characters (not Judy) who were cops were the ones who felt the most like they needed to "do something about" the predators.

This is why I believe this movie is fantastic and important for anyone of all ages to see, kids and adults alike. Especially now that we have Donald Trump running for president.

But besides all the meaningful points it gets across, it also really is just a cute children's movie. It teaches children other important things they should know about in life, like how to say sorry and own up to their mistakes in a reasonable way and great ways to develop friendships without any judging. It's very entertaining and will have you laughing consistently no matter who you are. And of course, as Disney does most of the time, it will give you all sorts of feels, lots of feels.

So, what do you say? Now that you've finished reading this, I think it's time for you to Hopps in your car and get yourself to the cinema to see this Wilde movie!