chocmarss
Zootopia is probably the best Disney movie to come out in the last 23 years. Or ever. It certainly marks an unprecedented depth and subtlety to the Disney repertoire.
It digs into class, race, and gender issues in a manner that Disney usually shies away from, and acknowledges that life– and the social constructs and systems of oppression we live with– are complicated, nuanced, often intersectional, and fundamentally flawed. There will be no perfect answer that fixes everything overnight. Yet, it still hopefully declares that progress is worth fighting for, even if it is just one piece at a time.
More subtle was the simple fact that the Fox and Rabbit did not overtly become a couple in the end. They formed a very close friendship. They became partners. Their entire relationship can be read platonically and that seems to be canon.
Media has always insisted that if a man and a woman have a conversation, it must inevitably lead to a romantic or sexual relationship. It teaches young people that men and women can’t be friends if they’re still single. That friendship is inadequate or implausible. This toxic notion plagues our society today, and erases the potential of very many beautiful friendships!
Society insists that there MUST be a fundamentally hungry or even predatory nature to single men, and that such an awful “default” should be *celebrated.* Disney rips both of those notions to shreds by having a literal predator animal befriend a female prey animal on equal terms.
Now I get why people want to ship them, besides the obvious subconscious cultural narrative of compulsory heternormativity. They actually do have a *great* dynamic and my favorite ships are always friendship-first ships. Both my wife and I ship them. But I’m also delighted that it’s just shipping. It’s not a canon romance. It would have lost the impact of that equality and friendship message if the predator animal swept the prey animal off her feet. It is a fantastic friendship between two people whom society insisted could never be friends. I think that’s just excellent, don’t you?
godasenpai
angelrin89
yaushie
ruinedchildhood