I see everyone has picked up on the movie’s general theme of bias and prejudice, but I have yet to see anyone pick up on what I see in the movie. It’s an important part of Judy and Nick’s character arc. It’s a bit more of a subtle message, but I hope everyone will recognize it.



Everyone has biases and perceptions of others.



Sometimes they can be justified

Other times, they’re mistakes.



But you can’t force people to respect you. You can’t flash your good grades or awards at people and demand respect from them.



The only thing you have the power to control is how you handle things. Its through your excellence that you will show them they were wrong about you.

This is a critical part of Nick’s and Judy’s character arc. Judy has to prove herself in the eyes of her superiors. Yes, Bogo probably started out with a prejudice against the judgment of a rabbit. But Judy was able to overcome that by showing everyone that she had the courage and strength of character to be an excellent officer.



Nick went through an even greater struggle. He embraced and lived up to everyone’s low expectations. He thought his problem was the the prejudice of everyone around him, but by the time we first see him, his problem is his own behavior. People saw him as shifty and untrustworthy, and they were right. It wasn’t until he meet Judy that he started to show himself as courageous and dependable.



Judy had the right strategy when dealing with this. Her resolve to write 200 tickets was her saying “Not only am I going to meet your expectations, I’m going to surpass them.” Her drive to surpass people’s expectations of her species eventually rubbed off on Nick who eventually made the decision to do likewise.



This ties into what Judy was saying at the end: Change starts with you. You can’t control how people see you, but you can control what they see from you. Judy’s affirmation that “Change starts with you” is first and foremost an invitation to make yourself a better person.



When I watch Zootopia, I see a movie that does more than just talk about prejudice, it offers a solution to it.

