I haven’t seen Zootopia yet but it seems like a good movie. Some people are saying it deals with themes like white feminism and police brutality, and that’s awesome! But also I really liked the sloth joke in the trailer, so even if it’s two hours of sloth jokes I’ll be happy. Anyway, there is nothing wrong with Zootopia itself, but why on earth do people keep trying to explain the concept of a world in which animals do human things like that is a hard thing to understand?
Like, watch the teaser trailer:
Anthropomorphism! Foxes wearing shirts! This is not hard stuff to grasp, Disney! I could have let it slide if they just didn’t have enough animation done and needed to put something in a trailer, but reviews have followed suit!
“Zootopia takes place in a universe populated entirely by highly evolved animals who wear clothes (except for the naturists among them), have jobs, and live together in civilized, not quite perfect harmony.”
“Zootopia is a sprawling city where talking, walking animals live their lives as humans would, and its populated with all the usual suspects of human society, from police officers to politicians to DMV agents.”
NPR:
“The wild and furry landscape of Zootopia, Disney’s new self-contained world of talking animals, is a remarkable place.”
YES WE KNOW, THE ANIMALS SPEAK ENGLISH AND DO HUMAN THINGS. A few of the reviews point out that the plot of the movie hinges on the arrangement that all the animals live in an alternate reality and are ignoring their predator/prey instincts to live together in some sort of tolerance, but again, we could have figured that out. Presumably that’s what’s going on in, oh I don’t know, Bojack Horseman, The Rescuers, Kung Fu Panda, The Wind in the Willows, or Disney’s Robin Hood which already had a sexy fox in a shirt.
It’s cool, we got this.
LOOK AT THIS FRESH NEW MOVIE. SO NEW. SO FRESH. TALKING ANIMALS. WEARING CLOTHES. NOT TRYING TO EAT EACH OTHER. NEVER BEEN DONE BEFORE. *mind blown*
I read this in Donald Trump’s voice.
I like to think there was just one higher up in the marketing department who thought the idea was so strange and new it needed lots of explainatin because they’ve been isolated from all children’s media due to growing up on that S&M island in the 1994 comic thriller Exit To Eden.
On the other hand, there’s a lot that wouldn’t need to be explained to them.
And here I thought I was the only person who had ever seen Exit to Eden.
A few of the reviews point out that the plot of the movie hinges on the arrangement that all the animals live in an alternate reality
YOU DON’T SAY
I think it comes down to the fact that most reviewers don’t really want to wrestle with the themes that Zootopia is presenting. It asks some pretty hard questions for a children’s animation that are made much harder if you think about it as analogous to real life. Much easier to point out how Other it is and not at all like what we have going on in our reality at all.
More than the reviews, this comment has just convinced me to try to see the movie. I am intrigued now. I want to see the themes that make people uncomfortable. Yes.
Basically, it points out that simply saying ‘we all get along now’ does not eliminate institutional racism and feminism. I’m not saying it’s a landmark film or anything, but for a cartoon fox and rabbit, it’s pretty damn awesome.
Bless you Toast for your solid coverage of sexy foxes in shirts.
Even in the nerdy shirt, this one has still kinda got it!
Sexy foxes in shirts 5ever. <3
Jason Bateman’s VOICE though. *fans self*
Lordy is it /hot/ in here? *sits down deliberately*
Came here to say this!
I AM ALWAYS HERE FOR THE FOXY FOX. Seriously though, and sadly, this one is no Robin Hood.
Studio executives and their marketing teams already live in an alternate reality where women and visible minorities barely exist, so I’ll give them a pass for not being aware of what previous movies exist in our reality.
Hey, they got a formula and they’re stickin’ to it, damnit.
I’m too old to introduce a new sexy fox in a shirt to my life. I’m as monogamous as a vole on this point.
Oh that I had not been forced to babysit so many times in my youth and could be blissfully unaware of the massive genre of cartoon films with animals acting like people.
THANK YOU I couldn’t figure out why NPR felt compelled to explain that there are no humans in this world.
it takes approximately thirty seconds to explain the premise in its entirety in the actual movie, if it’s your first cartoon and you need that explained, but it’s probably unreasonable to expect movie reviewers to be as quick on the uptake as small children
omg YES thank you for voicing this.
Read a review earlier today saying how weird it was that the animals were anthropomorphized (obvs they didn’t use that word for it) and I felt like “ummmmmmm isn’t this the point of fiction though? To do things you can’t in real life? Come on people, the movie is imaginary WE ALL KNOW THIS can we move on please & thank you.”
I’M pretty sure all the explanation is because reviewers are doing their damnedest to put a distance between this movie and furries’ dream world.
I dunno, considering Disney’s marketing firm apparently actually reached out to the admins of a few furry websites…
lin-manuel says daveed diggs has a voice cameo in it? does he say WHAAAAAAAAT or what?
I would like to second this request! Please, someone, spare me having to watch this whole movie for the (presumably) single awesome line.
a rap is at some point present
The Toast’s ongoing obsession with sexy cartoon foxes. Long may it continue.
Why is Robin Hood the Fox so attractive, though? (I feel it, just want to know WHHHHHHHHHHHHHHY.)
#lifemysteries
There are some things in life we just don’t question.
I’ve actually put a lot of thought into this since realizing that confusing prepubescent Robin Hood feelings are practically universal among my demographic (obviously this realization could never have taken place without The Toast, thanks Toast) and I feel like in addition to their very compelling faunal charm (and bushy tails, my all-time animal kryptonite) there’s something fluid about their very feline-seeming caninity and the accompanying delicate facial structure/cheekbones that makes them especially easy to anthropomorphize into very convincingly handsome cartoon characters?
AM I OVERTHINKING THIS YES I AM
Also: robbing the rich to feed the poor. *swoon*
Nope! Works for me.
Raccoons have this, too.
They had such sincere love faces. SO SINCERE.
For us lady-attracted types, it holds equally true for Marian. HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE.
I truly truly feel that that version of Robin has the BEST British accent of any British accent I’ve ever heard in my entire LIFE. His voice was simultaneously devil-may-care and serious. I don’t understand it but I LOVE IT.
Did they do the same for Cars or Robots?
Cars, definitely. Robots… I don’t remember reading anything about whatsoever.
Simeone definitely has, if Disney hasn’t. I can’t remember the name of the film or who made it, but it exists.
I forgot that Robots existed until you mentioned it, but apparently at least some of the reviews did, like Ebert’s: “This world is inhabited by robots who are human in every respect except that they are not human in any respect, if you follow me.” A lot of the other reviews I skimmed were largely fixated on the “hey! this is computer animation from somebody other than Pixar and it doesn’t look bad!”.
“I forgot that Robots existed until you mentioned it”. I generally get the impression that everyone did. It wasn’t exactly groundbreaking or brilliant, but it’s still curious that it seemed to sink without a trace.
This is slightly off-topic, but that Disney Robin Hood was the first thing that gave me, ahem, FEELINGS, and it was extremely confusing. He’s a fox. A cartoon fox. But he’s…sexy. I think this is wrong? Is it wrong because he’s a fox? Or because he’s a cartoon? Is there something really wrong with me?
(Went on to have lustful feelings about 2 other cartoon characters – Shaggy and Trent from Daria. I think Disney broke something inside me).
You just described all of fandom though. Like, I’m sitting here trying to think of ANYONE I know who DOESN’T have pants feelings for fictional and/or animated and/or anthropomorphic characters, and I’m like… my dad? But maybe he just doesn’t talk about it like the rest of us do.
TL;DR you are not broken.
personally, i would be incredibly grateful to avoid a conversation with my dad about how much he wanted to fuck Disney’s Robin Hood
Never even realized I missed this one when making my list of conversation topics to avoid around my dad, but it is going on there PRONTO
pants feelings!!!
I think I need more interesting friends. I can only get 2 of them to admit to anything like it, and one of them is my cousin!
Robin Hood was my first ever crush. Ooh-de-lally indeed.
(I think Mighty Mouse was my second!)
No, Trent was really hot. Zero shame there.
Except the part where I actually dated real life versions. Turns out the cartoon version is way sexier.
Yep. That was a painful life lesson.
Almost always the case. Real life Mr Darcy? Total smug asshole. Stay away.
I have spent a huge amount of my adult life questioning and worrying about being attracted to various animated characters. And then I asked myself, “What about Jessica Rabbit or Esmeralda or any of the countless other attractive women that are clearly designed to be attractive to straight men? Do men go about questioning their attraction to something made to attract them?”
In my experience, the answer is very, very rarely and most count them as formative to their sexual awareness. So I have decided to be like these menfolk, have not to question it and just accept it as a gift from the animators and move on with life.
(That is the acceptance stops, as I’m also not going to be weird about it like some people. No Dimitri body pillows or anything for me, thank you.)
Plus, every woman I’ve know has a thing for Robin Hood. It’s odd but very much a normal, shared experience.
theory: robin hood time traveled or was reincarnated or something and this (for some reason) is his new job.
haven’t seen the movie, but when I do, this will be my mindset.
Oh man, the furries have been going nuts with the Robin/Nick thing, hehe. I don’t think it helps that they both wear green shirts and are as smug as the day is long. I ran across a comic back when the first trailer came out that had him talking on the phone with his mom, Maid Marian. For the sake of not sending you to Google Images and the howling maw that is the furry fandom’s response to this film, I tracked it down again.
There’s also been a lot of art going around of Robin passing the baton of sexy fox-man to Nick (as well as some, uh, “baton-passing”, but, um, yeah…), and I kind of really love it. My favorite piece is probably this one (which is safe, I promise). It gives me the happy sads.
That’s my thinking too. Robin Hood was the medieval period of this anthropomorphic world, and Zootopia is the present day. Modern fox dude is clearly a descendant of Robin.
Toasties, take heart. I am pretty sure every single person who is in their thirties and who is attracted to male-gendered beings had a serious crush on Disney’s Robin Hood. As somebody pointed out, IT CANNOT BE EXPLAINED.
IT SIMPLY IS.
What I think is so remarkable about the media surrounding Zootopia is the fact that NO ONE HAS YET BROUGHT THIS UP. Zootopia is clearly (to me, anyway) Disney’s attempt to get all those thirty-somethings who were hot for Robin Hood back into the theaters to gawk at another sexily smirking anthro fox in a green shirt. Why isn’t anybody on the blogs calling this like it is? I have no problem with the reality, but I see the reality when it stares me in the face (with its fox eyes that will haunt my dreams.)
The only surprising thing about the universality of crushes on Fox-Robin Hood is that not everybody who was born between 1965 and 1985 ended up in the furry fandom.
I am 26 and I still have the Robin Hood crush.
I’ve been reading Mari Ness’s “Disney Read-Watch” series over on Tor.com and she just SKIPPED THE DISNEY ROBIN HOOD MOVIE. Just skipped it! She said it wasn’t a great movie and they re-used a lot of the animation from ‘The Jungle Book,’ so let’s just skip to ‘Winnie the Pooh’ because it’s more significant.
And I was like…insignificant? How is it insignificant? I’m pretty sure it’s actually the MOST significant to my preteen development.
But then I realized Mari Ness is actually quite a bit older than me, so I suppose that makes sense.
I’m blaming this on Cracked.com and the Everything Wrong With series being so childhood-souringly literal about everything.
Soooooooooo it’s… NOT a documentary?
?
oh my God, yes. But also can we talk about how some reviewers are Completely Missing the Point of the predators being ostracized? I’ve seen people say “well the metaphor is broken because they’re predators!” but 1) all the animals are so evolved that they don’t have those predatory instincts, and 2) the way they describe “savages” is comparable to how native people and Africans and Asians were called “unciviled,” “animalistic,” etc., for our culture, ways of dressing, etc, and 3) the movie hinges on the fact that we have ideas of animals having stereotypical personalities. Like how the yak says the elephant will definitely remember something because she’s an elephant, when in fact she doesn’t because that’s supposed to be a stereotype. (I did like the fact that the yoga instructor was an Indian elephant with an Indian accent though!!!!)
Also you can think of the predators as POC because POC are often seen as predatory — whether we’re immigrants stealing jobs or impoverished people relying on welfare. Also, the idea of POC being prey is definitely a concept that I’ve only seen recently!!!!
But you can also see the prey as POC but non-black POC who are corrupted by power and engage in anti-blackness.
Also I like the subtlety of the bunny being a woman because she’s implied to be hysterical (for pointing out the jaguar was “going savage”) and being too small to do “real” police work (another form of sexism yo).
Ok I’ll stop but sometimes I read analysis and I’m like “um have you talked to any POC about this?” because almost all the reviewers have been white….
y
it seems like the takeaway an awful lot of people with columns got from the movie is that stereotypes are generally true, but it’s rude to acknowledge that, which strikes me as several decades of mainstream liberalism in a nutshell.
BoJack commentary kills me. It’s such a good show with so much depth, and I’m the kind of person who likes to go down wormholes of reviews and opinions after I latch onto something. You could cut SO MANY FIRST PARAGRAPHS that awkwardly introduce you to the show’s “world where horses – and other animals – and humans – have lives and jobs and relationships! WACKY!”
I totally agree. I love BoJack Horseman. Some of the best writing in TV/streaming media/whatever we’re supposed to call it nowadays.
Right now I’m looking at a knitting pattern called ‘Faux Triceratops Dinosaur Head.’ Because, yknow, some knitters just let that whole ‘maker’ label go straight to their heads.
Meanwhile, on the same page, how dare Walden the Narwhal mascarade as a living, breathing creature!
Oh god why did you bring up fox Robin Hood. I’m already very… distracted by Lin-Manuel Miranda tonight and now I’m getting overwhelmed.
Honestly, I think large=large and prey=prey. They deliberately left the metaphors kind of fuzzy both out of verisimilitude and so that each hierarchy could potentially map to multiple real-world ones in different situations as needed to make the point.
Yeah, precisely what I understood it to be as well.
Zootopia sucked. It was a lazily-written, half-assed attempt to address the issues of racism, sexism, and bullying, but did not actually handle any of the subjects with care or depth. And it was marketed as a kid movie. It was not a movie for small kids.
I think the author’s take on the marketing is correct, and might actually point to the uncomfortable task the marketers were saddled with: Take this craptastic movie that represents a waste of all of the collective time it took to produce, that is rated PG and not particularly appropriate for children, and go ahead and market it as if it is a normal disney animated feature aimed at kids 2-100.
They couldn’t, so they showed what they could and over-explained it…
Are you trolling? Because I’m honestly not sure.
FWIW this was the best movie I have seen in years… and my kids agree.
I think we’re conditioned since childhood to accept the concept of anthropomorphic animals. Explaining it like the teaser did actually just makes it seem weird and confusing, possibly for the first time ever. So, well done there!
That's interesting… I think the whole point was that the Prey/Predator distinction was meaningless. It's okay the predators weren't actually predators and it was actually the so called prey that were doing all of the negative things. There was actually nothing different about predators in the movie. So it shouldn't bother you because the whole point was that the whole distinction was mental, not real. e.g., even rabbits go rapid and attack from the serum.