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There’s a scene in Zootopia that I can’t stop thinking about. It’s a bit of a mild spoiler, but I wanted to discuss it.

It’s the scene in which Nick and Judy start their investigation at that… “naturalist” club. You know, where all the animals are doing naked yoga or whatever (A++ conveying awkward nude bodies without being explicit, by the way). The receptionist (who I think is some kind of yak?) is like “oh yeah I know Mr. Otterton, he came here every week!” and proceeds to take them to the yoga instructor, who is an elephant, and who the receptionist insists remembers EVERYTHING. Now, as a viewer, you’re chuckling to yourself thinking, “yeah, it’s that old saying, ‘an elephant never forgets!‘” But then, the whole time, she has no idea who he’s talking about, even when the receptionist starts relaying a bunch of facts about the day of the kidnapping. Frankly, the whole bit is a hilarious piece of subversion of expectations, ending with him saying something like “sorry I couldn’t help, I wish I had as good a memory as she does.”

It makes me wonder, is the idea of elephants having good memory a [perhaps internalized] stereotype in their culture? It’s a positive stereotype for sure, but clearly not true in all cases, and certainly shouldn’t be the elephants’ defining feature. The concept of that scene is so interesting to me. It’s not just a matter of “negative stereotypes affecting that group of people in a negative way,” but also a matter of “positive stereotypes about a group of people making other groups unaware of their own talents.”

It’s as though the yak character was thinking, “well gosh, if the Elephant can’t remember what happened, I guess no one can” or “I can’t help these officers because I’m not an Elephant.” Even though the whole time, he was recalling weirdly specific details (right down to the license plate number). It was written as a joke, I’m sure, but damn if that isn’t some clever commentary as well.