When people mention animated films, they often assume those films are for children. However, in 2016, Disney produced an animated comedy called Zootopia which both adults and children could enjoy, and it ultimately won the 2017 Oscar for the best animated feature film. In the film, directors Byron Howard and Rich Moore created an imaginary world called Zootopia as a metaphor for New York City. In Zootopia, animals from different species lived together peacefully in superficial harmony; however, various social problems continued boiling under the surface. Foxes were discriminated against as having sticky fingers, and female bunnies were stereotyped as too weak to be a cop. For young children, Zootopia is a fairy tale, but for adults, it has some hidden meanings involving social situations, 112which evoke deep thought. Although the slogan of Zootopia is “Anyone can be anything,” it turns out that this imaginary perfect city still has serious social problems such as sexism and racism that contradict the slogan and reflect the real world.
Zootopia begins with the story of Judy Hopps, a bunny that dreamed of becoming a cop. After years of effort, she realized her dream in Zootopia. However, after being stereotyped, she quickly found that the city was not that perfect. To prove herself, she took a mysterious case to find 14 missing predators and mistakenly solved it together with a sophisticated fox called Nick Wilde. By investigating the case, Judy found that the missing animals had become savage. Her finding caused a panic in the city since the residents were afraid that the changes in those animals occurred naturally because of their DNA of predators. Suddenly, the harmony of the city, together with the friendship between Judy and Nick, was broken. After accidentally finding a clue, Judy finally unveiled the truth that the whole scandal was schemed up by Bellwether, a sheep and the vice president of the city who wanted to control it and gain power for the prey animals.
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In the film, Zootopia reflects the problem of sexism in society using the contrast between female animals and male animals, especially in the job field. Although female animals get the same job as males, they are always underestimated and fail to be treated fairly. Take the main character, Judy Hopps, as an example. When Judy realized her dream in Zootopia and entered the police station, she seemed like a dwarf who fell into the giants’ world. All the other cops in the station were large and strong, and, most importantly, they were all males. Although Judy had proven her ability by graduating as the top student from the police academy, her appearance still gave her boss a feeling that as a female, she was too small, too weak, and too emotional to be a real cop. Therefore, the chief of the police, Bogo, only let her work as a meter maid. He said “get back on the carrot farm where you belong” to Judy which was similar to “get back in the kitchen,” an extremely sexist phrase that came from Batman Beyond. To achieve the same level of acceptance, Judy had to work harder than male cops which brought audiences to think of the real-life experience of women in the job field. In the real world, researchers from Yale University once made a study about sexism in the job field. By analyzing the data, researchers found that when science faculty members face two identical resumes with a male name and a female name, they were more likely to choose a man as the employee, offer him a higher salary, and more willing to offer him mentoring opportunities (Moss-Racusin). This fact testified that gender biases truly affect how women were evaluated and treated. In the end of the film, the plot showed that as the first female cop, Judy was finally accepted by the society. Her experience pointed out the sexism in the real society as well as an ideal social condition which all females would urge for.
In Zootopia, directors not only talk about sexism, but also magnify stereotypes and discrimination against different species which reflects the racial problems in the real world. In the film, different species represent the different races and ethnicities in our society. By using tokenism, the directors reflect racial problems, but, at the same time, prevent the movie from hinting at any direct correlation for racism in our real world (“Zootopia”). When Nick, a fox, entered an ice-cream shop, he was immediately expelled by the store owner with a sign of “we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone,” because the owner thought all foxes will steal things. However, discrimination toward a specific species was not the worst problem in Zootopia. There was discrimination toward whole groups of animals, and this discrimination started at a very young age. In the film, DNA was mentioned frequently. In Zootopia, animals were either predators or prey depending on their DNA. When Judy was a child, she was bullied by a fox because that fox thought prey cannot become cops due to their DNA. However, Nick, as a fox, had the same experience. When Nick was 8 years old, he wanted to join the Junior Ranger Scouts; but during the initiation, he was bullied and forced to wear a muzzle simply because he was the only predator in the troop and other children did not trust predators. Nick said that this lesson taught him “if the world’s only gonna see a fox as shifty and untrustworthy, there’s no point in trying to be anything else.” Both Judy and Nick were deeply affected and hurt by their childhoods’ experiences. After being bullied, Judy was afraid of foxes, and Nick started to abandon the idea he had of himself, which indicated the serious negative effect that discrimination caused him at a young age, and this effect happens in the real world. A new UC Riverside study found that children were sensitive to and suffered from it at ages as young as 7 years old, which had negative effects on their development. Among black and Latino teens, these impacts manifested in the form of substance abuse, depression, and risky sexual behavior (Warren). Related with the real world, the film not only reflects the racial problems in society, but also shows how discrimination would ruin an innocent life in childhood, which is a serious problem that needs to be solved.
In addition to dealing with racism and sexism, Zootopia inspired thinking about the relationship between minority groups’ rights and power. Michel Foucault once explained the relation of rights and the power of speech. If one does not have rights, then he or she does not have the power of speech. They can only get the knowledge that was defined by those who have the power of speech; however, since they do not have the power to define themselves, they have to live under the definition from others. Thus, rights and power cannot be separated (Kennan). In the film, the assistant mayor, sheep Bellwether, was the best example of Foucault’s words. As a female prey, she was discriminated against and underestimated by the mayor, a lion named Lionheart. She worked like Lionheart’s secretary, and her words had no power. However, after Bellwether took the job of Lionheart to be the mayor by plotting a conspiracy, she successfully gained power for prey although using an extreme method—she made all predators be discriminated against. Bellwether’s example proved that power and rights were closely associated with each other. Since she did not have the same rights in the job field before, she did not have the power to defend her rights. Bellwether’s experience indicated that in real life, the formation process of social problems was a vicious circle. It was important to find the interrelationship between different social problems in order to solve the problems thoroughly.
Like every other Disney films, Zootopia has a “happy ending”. The harmony of the city was restored and the discriminations were reduced. The film ends with the speech from Judy, “Real life is messy. We all have limitations. We all make mistakes. Which means?hey, glass half full!?we all have a lot in common…Try to make the world a better place. Look inside yourself and recognize that change starts with you. It starts with me. It starts with all of us.” … In Zootopia, directors not only use allegory to shadow the problems from the real world, but also point out the solution of these problems. Disney was saying that it is not hard to solve sexism or racism as long as everyone opens their mind; then, the vicious circle will be ended and the world will be better.
Works Cited
- Moss-Racusin, C. A., et al. “Science Faculty’s Subtle Gender Biases Favor Male Students.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 109, no. 41, Oct. 2012, pp. 16474–79. Accessed 28 Nov. 2018.
- “Zootopia Uses Metaphors in an Imaginary World to Explain Real Problems.” The Tartan, https://thetartan.org/2016/3/21/pillbox/zootopia. Accessed 28 Nov. 2018.
- Warren, J.D. “Study: Children as Young as 7 Suffer Effects of Discrimination.” UC Riverside, https://news.ucr.edu/articles/2018/10/22/study-children-young-7-suffer-effects-discrimination. Accessed 27 Nov. 2018.
- Keenan, Tom. “I, The ‘Paradox’ of Knowledge and Power: Reading Foucault on a Bias.” Political Theory, vol.15, no.1, Feb 1987, pp 5-37. Accessed 27 Nov. 2018.
Hamlet’s Love For Ophelia
Throughout Hamlet, the profound love he once confessed at Ophelia’s funeral is now being questioned by many readers if whether or not this was true love. We have to ask: did Hamlet really love Ophelia? In this essay on Hamlet’s love for Ophelia, we look at that. The word love is the intense feeling of affection toward another person. It’s a profound and caring attraction that forms an emotional attachment. Hamlet demonstrated the opposite of these characteristics; his love for Ophelia was influenced by many traumatic experiences he encountered in his own life. He transformed into a self-centered man who was only devoted to finding revenge against his evil uncle, King Claudius. Although Hamlet claims his great love for Ophelia, his actions say otherwise.
Hamlet faced many obstacles that led him to question his love. He witnessed his own mother marry the brother of her dead husband months after his death. His mother’s deceiving behavior made him incredibly weary of love and poisoned his idea of it. He winds up transferring a lot of this anger – already poised to hop from one woman to another – to Ophelia. As he has lost his faith in his beloved mother, he lost his faith in Ophelia because those were the two most important females in his life. Hamlet is dangerously strict about love and sex. He is appalled by Gertrude’s show of her pleasure at Claudius’ touch, and now he clearly loathes women. Hamlet strongly believes that women’s love is only temporary, “Ophelia “Tis brief, my lord Hamlet.
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As woman’s love”. As he feels discouraged by love, the reason being that if he allowed himself to love Ophelia, he feared discovering that what happened to his mother would happen to him as well. This shows in Hamlet’s change of attitude and rejection: ‘I lov’d you not’ and his sexual innuendo that he doesn’t love Ophelia. Hamlet states that beauty doesn’t define who you truly are or what you’re capable of. “That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty’. Since beauty’s power can more easily change a good girl into a seducer, then the power of goodness can change a beautiful girl into a virgin. He believes he has solved a great puzzle that he used to love her.
Hamlet accuses women of contributing to the world’s dishonesty by painting their faces to appear more beautiful than they are. Working himself into a rage, Hamlet denounces Ophelia, women, and humankind in general, saying that he wishes to end all marriages. As he storms out, Ophelia mourns the “noble mind” that has now lapsed into apparent madness. The reality she experiences is murky and overwhelming. Hamlet suspects that Ophelia’s love for him is insincere; his suspicions are reinforced when he catches her acting as the decoy for Claudius and Polonius. She is one of many people who betray or abandon Hamlet, as far as he’s concerned. His father betrayed him by dying; Claudius betrayed him by ‘coming between the election and my hopes,’ usurping the kingdom that was rightly Hamlet’s. Gertrude betrayed him by siding with Claudius. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern betray him by agreeing to spy on him.
Ophelia betrays him by agreeing to break up with him and then agreeing to become a decoy in her father’s plot. Hamlet starts to explode with anger: If thou dost marry, I’ll give thee this plague for thy dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery; go farewell. Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go, and quickly too. Farewell”. Hamlet has not confided in Ophelia about his anger and condemnation of Gertrude’s ‘incest,’ and so she’s shocked and confused by the accusations of disloyalty and ‘wantonness’ he displaces onto her. (Smith 97) Ophelia’s betrayal hurts more because it’s similar to his mother’s betrayal, having them both make pacts with Claudius, and also because he had feelings for her. Hamlet is now realizing that everyone he trusts and loves has let him down.
Thus, it is my that the thesis statement real love he has for Ophelia is proved by the declarations he has made. Ostensibly the promise would have been kept except for her acceptance of his invitation to enter his chamber and engage in sex, but just as likely is the possibility that the young man never intended to marry her, his ‘promise’ being no more than a cheap but successful seduction scheme. The sexual double standard leaves him with impunity, unfazed, but ruins her., “He took me by the wrist and held me hard, Then goes he to the length of all his arm.”
