Zootopia: A Metaphor for Modern-Day Racism Against African-Americans

Disney’s Zootopia serves as both a clever and powerful metaphor for modern-day racism against minority groups in the United States, which has been one of the most successful of its type due to its near-perfect representation of the issue in its complexity. The story, which follows an aspiring bunny cop as she endures systematic discrimination in a traditionally male (and predator) position until she proves her worth through exceptional service, outlines the countless ways in which minority groups are continuously stereotyped and thus discriminated against as a seemingly natural and unavoidable part of their everyday lives.

Nick the fox, for example, is portrayed through the hegemonic (prey) eye as a deviant character whose biology has predisposed him to live a deviant lifestyle. Analogous to the way many members of the white male hegemony—especially those in positions of power—view African-Americans in contemporary American society, Officer Hops forms an instant suspicion of Nick due to his predator identity and the consequential stereotypes that make him a perceivable criminal. This is demonstrated through her use of fox spray as a safety precaution in case Nick were to spontaneously perform an act of violence against her, as well as the inkling that she might be able to catch him in the act of doing something illegal if she were to continue following him. Little did Officer Hops know until halfway through the film that not all predators require such constant scrutiny.

In much the same way, predators are repeatedly referred to throughout the film as former “savages” who would be a threat to society if they had not been socially tamed to behave otherwise. As stated by numerous prey, “it’s in their biology,” which is a favorite scapegoat for members of the hegemonic group when camouflaging their discriminatory thoughts and actions against subordinate groups. This brings to mind demeaning stereotypes that have permeated the co-existence of whites and African-Americans throughout the decades, such as fabricated ideas like the “jezebel” stereotype that have formed as justification for the inherent racism and exploitation of African-American women by white male perpetrators. Most obviously, this social phenomenon is represented in the film when it is revealed that every animal “gone savage” is of various predatory species, which reaffirms the notion that those “others” who are unlike the hegemonic majority are naturally more prone to acting criminally.

Part of what makes Zootopia an enlightening representation of real-life social truths is the implicit bias that is revealed by several predator characters against others of the same marginalized identity. This is demonstrated in part through Nick’s discriminatory comments against the cheating weasel, as well as the lion mayor’s fear that his position might be compromised if it were true that the “savage” acts were a simple matter of biology. In both of these cases, the predators succumb to what Theodore R. Johnson calls “implicit bias” in his article, “Black-on-Black Racism: The Hazards of Implicit Bias,” which refers to the commonality of same-type bias that emerges as a product of socialization in a nation dominated by the white male hegemony. Perhaps it is the “power of the machine” or the danger of “non-conformity with the system” that hinders marginalized groups from being entirely indiscriminate toward one another, if Herbert Marcuse’s insight regarding capitalism in One-Dimensional Man is applied through a sociological lens with respect to racism (pg. 2-3). Whatever the origin, both explicit and implicit bias will continue to perpetrate discrimination as the norm in contemporary American society until it is met with greater oppositional forces like that of a media industry that follows in the footsteps of Zootopia.