March 4, 2016 saw the release of yet another Disney blockbuster: "Zootopia," a movie about personified animals in an eerily familiar setting. Seriously, just imagine every inhabitant of New York City as all sorts of animals in a suit and tie and carrying an iPhone, and you might as well be in the glorified city of "Zootopia." This movie chronicles the adventures of Judy Hopps, a bunny police officer who embarks in a quest to solve the mysterious disappearance of an otter. All the characters of this movie are animals, but the story it tells is undoubtedly human. "Zootopia" is set in a world plagued by tensions between “prey” and “predator”, discrimination between different species, and prejudice that is all too similar to the human world we inhabit. These animals figured out the errors in their ways before it was too late, teaching us homo sapiens a thing or two in the process. Here’s three valuable life lessons “Zootopia” taught us:
1. Don’t judge a book by its cover.
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Growing up a bunny, Judy Hopps was always taught to fear foxes. She was told they were wild, sly, and cunning. It didn’t help that she was bullied and attacked by a neighboring fox when she was young. She wanted nothing to do with foxes, but life had other plans for her. She is forced to team up with Nick Wilde, a fox and con artist, to help her find the missing otter. She was apprehensive at first, but after spending much quality time together (and surviving some near death experiences), Judy realized Nick, although a fox, was very similar to her, and surprised herself by liking him. In fact, they became so close that Judy wanted him as her police partner. This goes to show you, we can never know anyone unless we take the time to engage with them.
2. The self-fulfilling prophecy is real, and we are feeding it.
The self-fulfilling prophecy is textbook psychology. It is the expectations about a circumstance, event, or person that affects people’s behavior in a way that realizes those expectations. Such is the case with con artist Nick Wilde. At the beginning of the movie he appears as the sly, cunning, and apathetic fox Judy believes him to be. However, during one of his conversations with Judy, Nick reveals what drove him to become the fox he is. When he was a kid, Nick wanted to join the boy scouts and was excited about his initiation. Sadly, it did not go as he expected. The other kids ridiculed and taunted him and put a muzzle on him, telling him they would never trust a tricky fox. Nick’s heart broke, and he gave up trying to show his true self because no one ever saw him as anything but stereotypes. The way we feel about others is obvious through the way we treat them, and assigning stereotypes to others aids in them becoming reality. Nick summed it up best when he said, “If the world's only gonna see a fox as shifty and untrustworthy, there's no point trying to be anything else.”
3. Boundaries are meant to be broken.
Dreams do come true. This statement is often thought as one of the biggest clichés, but it is true, and Judy Hopps shows us this. In a world where only the biggest and the baddest animals become police officer, Judy becomes the first bunny cop. This was her dream since childhood, and she was always told to be realistic and just stick to farming, the family business. However, Judy never gave up on her dream and graduated the police academy as the valedictorian. Even after she became a police officer, she was not taken seriously, but this did not stop her. She was determined to make the world a better place and show that she was as good a cop as any other. Judy went where no bunny had gone before, and she made her dream a reality.
