I recently watched the animated film "Zootopia" with my boyfriend in a foreign country with Spanish subtitles and I'll say that was the most interesting movie experience I've had yet. But, what made it even more interesting was the story behind the movie.
This movie has been debated recently in the media with the "hot topic" questions behind it: "Does it explain race for children? Does it explain segregated city life? Does it have the components for a heroic tale?" I think that this movie told the tale of an underdog, in this case, it was Officer Judy Hopps overcoming the status of being little and stereotypically known as "dumb bunny," and Nick Wilde, the clever fox, overcoming the stereotype of a harmful "predator" towards the other animals.
I think when you go to the zoo, don't you see different animals? That only make sense to me but moving on... the way the media is treating this movie so far is awful, especially since it had an 8.4/10 rating from IMDB, a 99 percent rating from Rotten Tomatoes, and 4/5 from Common Sense media which you can google for yourself. In my opinion, it deserved a 10 for some bringing up some elements and offering a new look at the animal kingdom from Disney. That hasn't really happened since "Madagascar 2." "Zootopia" was a neat little story about a rabbit and a fox saving the city of "Zootopia" from themselves as a whole. The villain isn't even what you'd expect and she is normally rendered harmless. That screams to me a heroic tale, not racial or segregation propaganda.
I sat in a movie theater with at least 35 other children, a majority of which spoke Spanish, to watch an English film and read it aloud to their parents so their parents could also try and learn English. I don't think the cause was so that they could go home with their parents concerned over what their kids watched as "racial" or "segregated," but what the lesson they took from the movie was, overcoming your stereotypes and obstacles and being whoever you wanted to be. I see no race-related or segregation-related content coming from a Disney movie anytime soon other than theaters kicking us young adults out for singing along to the songs or mouthing the words but hey, that's half the fun.
