If Zootopia 2 ever have Birds and reptiles and make the film about Immigration, or segregation, how would it be executed???
Well the crux of it is whether it’s a topical moralityparable or is it going to have depth and substance? Is the intent to tell aninteresting and challenging story or placate an audience? You can guess theeasy way, forget subtlety and pay lip service to popular politics. Sympathetic
immigrants who’ve done nothing wrong are treated with suspicion by the
Zootopians who are for some strange reason racist again. We have another false
flag conspiracy plot that gets foiled, everyone learns to get over their
xenophobia and sings kumbaya at the end. Oh and uh...an annoying gerbil that
looks like Donald Trump. Everybody claps, box office approves. Now if Disney
would allow a project with some actual substance. Hm…
For this we must remember the innate subtlety and political
complexity of the first film. As
I’ve spoken of before, It’s very
Zootopia as being an allegory for any one group or issue. So, this
question as several angles to go by.
Firstly, we have to ask ourselves if there are any legitimate
differences between avians, mammals, and reptiles (as
discussed before). One of Zootopia’s greatest narrative accomplishments is
that it doesn’t skirt on the issue of humanization. (Bunnies are bunny sized.
Elephants are elephant sized etc.) The only problem, if one is to have direct political
parallels, is that this creates legitimate issues. It was (and still is) literally
in the biology of predators to eat other animals. That’s…in no way comparable
with any problem faced between groups of humans in any categorization.
Likewise, is there a good reason why integration with other
groups hasn’t happened until this point? While perhaps not favorable to the topical
subject matter, one would hope so for the sake of internal story integrity. Think,
if you will, of the dolphins in our world (save aquatic mammals in Zootopia for
later), many people believe them intelligent enough to qualify for personhood.
This is to say they have graduated to sapience from mere sentience (the two
words are popularly misunderstood to mean the same). However, being so
different in nature to ourselves, few would truly consider introducing Earth to
aliens as the planet of Humanity & Dolphins.
If Zootopia sticks to its guns, then birds won’t have hands.
Perhaps the reptiles have “lizard brains”, do not possess the complete
emotional spectrum we would consider vital for social stability (IE: they’re
all socio-paths). If Zootopia comes at it with thought of “Our differences are
only skin deep” then its doing itself a disservice.
That being said, it wouldn’t be out of line for some people (*cough*
Judy *cough*) to think that way. To assume that because a sheep and a wolf
learned to get along, clearly all obstacles are illusory. If the first movie
was about overcoming prejudices, what if the second movie challenged itself and
asked not “if differences are irreconcilable” but “when do differences matter?”.
I doubt that will happen of course, but its food for thought.
Remember that Zootopia is an experimental city in its own
universe, there is no other place like it. We may in such a way consider the
presence of Avians and Reptiles to be the first step to greater social change.
That this was a long-planned endeavor in the experiment that is Zootopia. Akin
to the first days when predator and prey first willingly came together and/or
Zootopia’s founding days.
Alternatively, you could imagine a scenario in which a
disaster forces groups that were otherwise reluctant to integrate to do so.
There is an environmental catastrophe and now lizards/birds find the city of
Zootopia to be a favored option among a list of bad options.
What if the Avians and Reptiles don’t get along. Few would
say they do in nature, and now the mammals find themselves playing referee
between two hostile forces. Indeed, what if both these new factions’ true
intentions from the start is to actually turn the mammals to their side in a brooding
war? Perhaps it is actually the above mentioned race war which has caused two
factions of refugees to seek shelter in neutral ground.
Thusly the pro-segregation crowd is actually the immigrants
themselves. They don’t consider themselves Zootopians, they don’t want to be
Zootopians, they don’t like what Zootopia stands for. How can our heroes be heroic
when the corrupting forces are the very people they thought they’d be
They have an impossible choice: destroy all the progress
Zootopia has made for the sake of trying to make two hostile factions fit into
that dream OR expel the malefactors, seemingly proving their own philosophy of
universal cooperation flawed.
You could, of course, have the learn-to-get-along ending
where the sides ultimately reconcile. But I would personally favor the majority
of each faction being resolute in their beliefs, and we have a bitter sweet ending
of only a few true believers from the Avians and Reptiles sticking around to forge
a new path at a very, -very- slow pace.
vaporwave
tangentwithtanner
theartofmadeline
areudirty
pixelskylines
snowghoul
