Movies may seem to be just for enjoyment, however more often than not there is some way that sociological perspectives can be applied somewhere along the plot. One of Disney’s popular films, Zootopia, demonstrates just that. This movie shows how a little rabbit, overcomes barriers such as prejudice and stereotypes by becoming a police officer first in her class despite the social obstacles against her. Not only does she face disadvantages, she manages to save zootopia along the way. The point is, although it appears to be a cute kids movie about talking animals living in a utopian metropolis, many different sociological perspectives apply. In this paper, I will analyze how sociology is shown significantly throughout the movie.
One of the first topics shown in the film was the subject of prejudice. Prejudice is defined in sociology as “prejudging” of some sort, usually in a negative way. We are shown prejudice in Zootopia when we learn that there are predators and there are prey. It is made clear that there are prey who are perceived as weak and incapable such as a small rabbit like Judy. The predators are made out to be menacing and threatening much like Mr. Manchas the black jaguar. This falls under prejudice because these characteristics are perceived by the animals and involves judging a group as inferior.
More interestingly, when Nick Wilde asks Judy if she’s afraid of him because he might be predisposed to going savage she answers “No..you are not like the others!” This shows how people can have prejudice toward a particular group (in this case, fox) and contradict their behaviors toward an individual person belonging in that group. Otherwise known as “exceptions to the rule.”
Along with prejudice is the labeling theory. This theory states that the labels people are given affect their behavior either deviance or conformity. Basically, when people are given a constant deviant reputation, that person will eventually see themself as being deviant. Nick comes to mind when mentioning this theory. In general, foxes are deemed sly, and unreliable. When Nick was young and going through initiation with the Ranger Scouts and was treated harshly because “you can’t trust a fox.” Because of being labeled as untrustworthy he decided that if that is how people are going to see him, then he may as well act that way.
Due to this, he grows up to be a successful con artist. Officer Hopps even made the comment that he never had the guts to try to be anything else besides a popsicle hustler. Not that what he does it right, but after looking at the labeling theory, it may give reasons to why people engage in deviant actions.
A topic more implicit is the topic of gender. The issue of gender is not stated blatantly since they never say their genders, but is implied due to their voices. The issue of gender comes when she arrives at the ZYPD. Most of the officers were large and male, while she was small and female. Chief Bogo saw her to be not as valuable as the others and therefore assigned her parking duty rather than on the missing mammal cases. People then called her “meter maid” and “not a real cop.” This accentuates the fact that women have less important jobs than men. The same instance goes for Bellwether, the mayor’s assistant. The mayor with power is male, which parallels the ideology in our society. For example, all our presidents have been male. Bellwether states she is just a “glorified secretary” who is underestimated and under appreciated, which commonly expresses women in society.
An even more subtle idea of gender is emotion. Women are often shown to be more emotional, but the movie does a good job at portraying the idea that men can be equally as emotional. For example when Hopps leaves her hometown to embark on her trip to Zootopia, her father was the one to cry, not the mother. It is a very subtle detail, but it does fit with the analysis. A more easily defined example is when Nick opens up to Judy about what happened to him as a kid and expresses his feelings. At one point he said “you bunnies are so emotional,” but his reveals that there is equal emotion being shared between men and women.
Stereotyping plays a huge role in the movie as well. Stereotypes are assumptions of what people are like, whether it is true or false. When Judy first arrives to the police academy, she was called “cute” by a fellow cop. She called him out for stereotyping because being called cute implies she is little and incapable. This then fits with many stereotypes in society today such as women aren’t as smart as men, or women can’t do as good of a job as a man. This is insulting to her, therefore she says it is only okay for other rabbits to call her cute. Zootopia even throws in a sly comment about Judy’s driving. At the end of the movie, Nick asks, “Are all rabbits bad drivers?” For those that picked up on his remark, we know it was the common stereotype that females are bad drivers.
A more noticeable sociological perspective is the concept of deviance. Sociologists use the term deviance to refer to any violation of norms.This can be minor such as speeding or something as big as murder. The whole movie basically encompasses the idea of deviance and it was not just one character. There is the robber stealing from the store in the beginning, the Mayor becoming exposed for imprisonment in the middle and the Bellwether at the end proving to be the ultimate villain. Sociologists term deviance as a neutral term stating that the actual act itself is not deviant, but how we react is. Therefore, robbing isn’t considered deviant, but due to the laws in society, we react to it badly because it is breaking the norms.
Same goes for imprisonment. The mayor was imprisoning the savage animals and kept it a secret which goes against the rules causing society to frown upon the behavior making it a deviant act. Bellwether had the most deviant act of all by attempting to turn predators essentially back into biological predators. This completely goes against what Zootopia stands for. She is trying to break up the cohesion of the city and segregate predators from prey leading to segregation.
Going along with that idea, discrimination also shows up in the film. Towards the beginning of the movie, before we know of Nick’s cunning ways, we see how he is treated in public. Upon arriving at the ice cream shop Nick is discriminated against. The ice cream shop is occupied predominantly by elephants and the worker made the comment: “What, there aren’t any fox ice cream joints in your part of town?” This implies that they are segregated by different parts of town and that he is not being treated equally because of it. Sociologists describe discrimination as unfair treatment directed towards someone. This can be based on many characteristics such as age, sex, skin color, etc. In this case, Nick is not getting served by the worker due to him being a fox and we have already discussed that foxes have a negative reputation. The term fox has such as negative connotation when said by the elephant worker which is when Judy intervenes.
The class system makes an appearance in Zootopia as well. First of all, the class system is form of social stratification based primarily on income, education and prestige of occupation and is placed at birth. Although we don’t know how much education these characters had, or what their salary was, we do know how certain jobs gave people a different status. To look deeper, this is demonstrated when several times in the movie it was made clear that Officer Hopps came from a family of carrot farmers which has a negative connotation to it. She was called a carrot farming dumb bunny which evokes the feeling that her family does not fall under the elite job category, but rather the working class. A class system does however allow social mobility.
Social mobility is the movement up or down the social class ladder. In the movie, Judy becomes a police officer which is a higher ranking then her family of carrot farmers. In her case, she moved up the social mobility ladder which means improving one’s life. Not that being a carrot farmer was a bad life, but it drove her to want more. Judy wanted to make a difference. Through her determination and hard work, she was able to move up the social class ladder. At the end of the movie when she felt defeated and went back to Bunnyburrow, that was also an example of social mobility, except she was moving down the ladder.
In conclusion, Zootopia is an adorable kids movie with a deeper meaning. It is a great example of sociology because it highlights many different sociological perspectives such as gender and deviance and many more not discussed in this paper. It truly portrays the issues in our generation while not being explicit which is very well thought out and clever. Watching Zootopia is great way to connect what you know about sociology.