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Still haven’t quite got Zootopia out of my thoughts. I think Dawn is considering me obsessed at this point with how I keep bringing it up in our conversations, but so what? It was a good flick with a surprisingly mature moral message that adults can and should take to heart as well as kids.
I’ve heard some criticisms that a message of “prejudice is bad” is something most of us don’t need beaten into our heads, or is muddled by the heroes of the movie themselves engaging in problematic behavior. But that’s exactly why I’m impressed, because the muddle is fully intended by the filmmakers. The film is not afraid to purposefully assign negative traits and actions to its protagonists, but how they deal with being confronted with their screw-ups is a big part of what makes them the good guys in the end. “Change begins with you,” Judy Hopps declares in her closing speech.
I won’t go into many more details than that since the movie still hasn’t been out for long and a lot of you may not have seen it yet (though if you can afford it and have the time, I strongly recommend). Don’t worry, it’s not as preachy as I may be making it out to be. Sometimes it tells, but more often it’s wise enough to just show and let the audience see what they see and take what lessons to heart that they will based on their own experience, as evidenced by my blog of last week. Prejudice takes many forms, and we have to guard against it in ourselves at least as much as we look for it in others.
Zootopia doesn’t advocate perfection. In fact it rejects the notion and presumes (quite realistically) that we will all have our slip-ups from time to time. Even the nicest of people are capable of the occasional dick move. And that more than anything is where the criticism that the film is not telling you anything you’re not already aware of — because you’re an enlightened person who is never, ever prejudiced — breaks down.
Case in point, at least one person on my Facebook feed talking about how much they loved the movie but then almost in the same entry making a nasty, denigrating joke about furry fandom. For that matter there was controversy leading up to the film regarding Disney reaching out to the subculture, a subculture even most nerds have traditionally looked down on. Even then, the org chart at that link does distinguish between “Furries” and “Erotic Furries”, a distinction lost on many who see someone dressed in a fursuit and automatically assume whoever’s wearing it likes to keep it on during sex.
Is there a certain percentage of that fandom that does like that? Sure, but applying it globally makes about as much logical sense as assuming your average superhero cosplayer likes to “get their spandex sticky”, so to speak. And even so, let him or her without fetish cast the first fuzzy handcuffs, right? We all have our kinks, and if they’re going on privately between consenting adults, then — pardon the pun — what’s the fucking problem? The fact I or anyone else finds it deviant or weird shouldn’t apply.
And yet a younger, less self-critical me would probably have been right there also making the erotic furry jokes right in the wake of watching a movie about tolerance, and thinking nothing of the irony. Conventional wisdom is that you’re supposed to get more closed-minded as you get older, but I’ve been finding the opposite to be true. I used to think it was impossible for two people to be married and in love while maintaining an open relationship — such a setup was doomed to failure, and anyone claiming otherwise was deluded or a fool. But now, I know a couple who has been happily and contentedly doing just that for over a decade, and in the face of that evidence I felt I needed to re-examine my prejudice in the same way I’d hope someone unconvinced about male-female platonic friendships would when faced with my own experiences.
What does this all have to do with the subjects this blog usually covers? Eh, I might be arguably off-topic. But then again, haven’t I written before of the importance of empathy in writing? Expanding your worldview, fighting past the blanket reductions and knee-jerk reactions to find common ground with the “other”, is an ongoing process and a difficult one. And being the opinionated bastard that I am, you better believe I stumble or lose patience from time to time. I’m still not sure I’ve found my common ground with those who prefer the Star Wars Prequels to the Original Trilogy.
Failing, including failing on interpersonal relationships, is just part of being human. It’s how we learn from the failures that counts.