In Defense of Judy Hopps
I keep seeing people coming for my girl. So I have to come on and defend her real quick.
So the thing about Judy is that she's an optimist. She's an almost pathological glass half full kind of person. She's also hugely insecure, though she does everything she can to hide it. But she is extremely insecure about her place in the world, her place on the force, and her place as Nick's partner. She is the first bunny cop, and she had to work extremely hard to get where she is and she still feels like people don't take her seriously even after everything she's accomplished.
Nick is different. Nick is practiced at not caring what people think, and in fact, genuinely seems to only care what Judy thinks and even tries to pretend like that isn't even true. But Judy sees anyone questioning or making fun of either of them as a personal failure on her part. She seems to believe that if she takes it all on, if she works hard enough, she will prove once and for all that she deserves to be where she is, and she wants Nick to feel that same acceptance, so in her mind, everything she does to preserve their places in the ZPD and their partnership IS for them, for him. Nick on the other hand, sees her outward focus as her devaluing their partnership because she cares more about what other people think than what he thinks.
Now don't get me wrong, Judy makes a lot of rash decisions in this movie that ultimately make things worse before they get better. She is constantly throwing herself into danger and acting like she's doing all of this on her own instead of remembering she has a partner. And it does feel like Nick receives the brunt of the consequences of Judy's actions.
However, I don't think it's fair to say that Judy was being unreasonable, or that Nick was clearly right in wanting to run away. Running away wasn't just about safety vs danger, it was also asking Judy to give up everything she's worked for and cares about (her career, her life, her ability to see her family again) maybe forever. If they ran away and let the trail get cold, it wasn't just the Lynxlys Nick and Judy would have to contend with. They would also have to deal with being fugitives accused of working with basically terrorists, and I think also the attempted murder of Chief Bogo? Nick may be fine with letting that all stand and skipping town, but Judy never would be.
So not only does she want to clear her and Nick's names so they don't lose everything they've worked for, she also has this blazing self righteousness and belief in making the world a better place. She has information about what seems to be a great injustice, and a creature that needs her help. This is not a case she would have been able to turn her back on even without the external pressure of wanting a clear name (because of course Judy wants justice for herself and Nick).
And while Judy's flaws are well on display during the movie, Nick's are too.
Nick is selfish. He always has been a selfish character, but in this movie his selfishness has less to do with his own physical well-being, but his emotional well-being. Nick is terrified of something bad happening to Judy. He admits it later but his actions alone are enough to tell the audience that he is willing to do just about anything to keep Judy out of danger. That all might sound sweet and good and not selfish but the movie actually shows us how Nick is trying to hold Judy back.
He isn't doing it maliciously. I doubt he would even think of what he's doing as holding Judy back, but he is doing that. It's pretty brilliantly shown in the movie through two car chase scenes lol. In the chase scene in the beginning, Judy is driving, and when she goes to jump and prevent the truck from smashing into a parade, Nick reaches out to try and stop her. And the thing is, in that moment, Judy is doing the RIGHT thing. It's a dangerous thing, yes, but it's also the best thing she could do in the moment to prevent a lot of people from being hurt or dying. And Nick tried to stop her because, in the trolley problem, Nick will clearly pick the one person he cares about over the group he doesn't lol.
Now the second car chase scene. Nick is in the driver's seat and when Judy goes to jump, he doesn't stop her, he takes her hand and they jump together. We'll get to the Nick being in the driver's seat later cause that's also a perfect culmination of their arc in this movie as much as Nick jumping with Judy is. But let's focus on Judy for a second.
What I love most about Judy's arc is that Judy is an optimist, and the narrative doesn't tell her she's wrong for that. She believes with all her heart that if people work to make the world a better place it will *become* a better place. And she puts the responsibility of saving the world entirely on herself. She doesn't expect Nick to do it, although she does assume he feels similarly about doing good after he helped her in the first movie and joined the force. She has no idea he did all that *for her* because Nick goes out of his way to deflect instead of being open about how he feels. (I'm not saying this makes him the bad guy by any means. I don't think either of them are the bad guy.)
A big part of Judy's growth in this movie is actually well summed up by Gary who is a great foil for Judy. He is also an optimist. He also believes in a better world. But he knows he can't do what he needs to on his own. He tells Judy that no one animal should have the weight of the world on their shoulders because that is a lesson Judy really needs to learn. Pawbert is also a great foil for Nick and I really liked how Judy was confronted with a team that seemed to be very different and yet totally united in a cause (operative word in that sentence being *seemed*). That's what she wants out of her partnership with Nick. That's what she thought they were until Nick said he didn't care about the case.
This is unrelated but Nick also didn't seem that enthused by Pawbert cosying up to Judy at the gala, which to me, shows that Nick is not okay with losing Judy in any capacity. Not to their job, and not to a personal life that doesn't include him lol and that only makes Judy going with Pawbert and Gary that much more painful because I think Nick did see they hit it off and Pawbert was obviously more aligned with Judy's mission than Nick himself in that moment at Honeymoon Lodge so. You know. Pain. Angst. I love it.
And to continue this brief tangent but make it more relevant, STOP BLAMING JUDY FOR GOING WITH PAWBERT AND GARY. She was tranqued!!! It was not a decision she made. Yes she was wanting to go with them in the heat of the moment but as soon as they told her that the ZPD had her partner she hesitated. She wanted to go back for Nick and save him but she was also in a building that was actively crumbling and confronted with her one chance of solving the case that would help her and Nick and Gary who she had been wanting to help this whole movie. It was kind of a tough spot for her to be in, for a lot of reasons, and I don't think that having a moment in the chaos of everything where she was ready to jump ahead into the next clue of the investigation she's been fixated on without thinking of anything else makes her a bad person. A thoughtless person, sure. But that's been a well established flaw that we see Judy work on later in the movie so she can be a better partner to Nick.
We honestly do not know what Judy would have chosen in that moment because the choice was taken out of her hands. So you can't say that she abandoned Nick when she wasn't given a choice. If she had a choice, maybe she would have left with Pawbert and Gary anyway. But maybe she would have insisted on staying with Nick. We don't really know, and I don't think it's the character breaking, unforgivable moment some people are making it out to be.
In this movie we see that Nick is very protective of Judy, to the point that when he is upset with her, it isn't even about her endangering his life. He's upset that she's endangering hers. Nick spends a lot of this movie chasing after Judy, begging her to reconsider. He doesn't seem to understand that cutting their losses and running away is a huge ask for her. As much as Judy is entrenched in her own worldview and has a hard time coming down from it to even think that other people might have a different perspective, Nick is also stubbornly set in his point of view. He's just quieter about it and cracks jokes to deflect.
Honestly both of them do a much better job than I, a person who has seen this movie all of once, ever could to explain their flaws and motivations and why they are the way they are. That was an amazing scene lol.
I said that I loved Judy's arc because the narrative doesn't tell her she's wrong for being the optimist she is. Gary is a prime example of this. Even when Judy herself is about to give up hope, Gary believes they "shall succeed". And while Judy learns that she needs to take a step back and take Nick's thoughts and needs into account to be a good partner and not just charge ahead alone, Nick learns that Judy doesn't need someone to pull her back, she needs someone to *have her back*. Which is why him opting to jump with her in that last car chase instead of grab at her to try to stop her is such a beautiful culmination of them learning to accept each other for their differences, and to embrace them. Which of course is the theme of the whole movie.
In conclusion, BE NICE TO JUDY HOPPS OKAY SHE'S DOING HER BEST AND SHE JUST WANTS TO MAKE THE WORLD BETTER.
