Zootopia is very unique in my eyes. Not because of its animal world, or message against prejudice, or the fact Judy is not a princess (except on her wedding day Woo!). It’s the fact that when you think about it, or read the title to this post, it becomes apparent that Nick Wilde is the moral center of the story.

We can even completely ignore the fact that Nick is a (almost) legitimate business man while Judy proceeds to overstep her authority immediately and break so many laws the rap sheet rolls like Santa’s list. What I’m talking about is the fact that it was Nick being emotionally hurt by Judy that drives the story. And I don’t mean that whole pred/prey dynamic, we’ll get back to that but for now and focus up.

Nick Wilde, as a male, as a friend, had his mental state unsettled by Judy, the female protagonist , and it mattered a lot. He was completely in the right. She was completely in the wrong, and it was up to her to analyze herself, correct her behavior, and apologize in order to move forward.

Go ahead and think, ponder longer and hard even, about how often the situation plays out, if you can even think of another example that is. This is not a case mutual spears thrown into each other’s heart. There was no trade off here. This is not a case of our female protagonist clumsily botching her attempt to reel in the target male. This isn’t a case of her having to realize something was messing up their dynamic because the male’s stubbornness wasn’t going to. She had a wrong and harmful view that ended up hurting the MAN’S feelings, whose emotional well being was emphasized as something of importance. Judy had to go out of her way to make amends.

When it comes to breaking barriers, I think that was Zootopia’s biggest triumph. Otherwise Zootopia is a very gender neutral movie, or indeed it is because of that explicit caveat that this dynamic was allowed to take place. Which is why I’m not one to stay quite any time people mention feminism and Zootopia hand in hand. In fact, to show how absurd this argument is let me approach it from the opposite angle.

If you want to look at Zootopia through the female vs patriarchy lens, then might I incline you not to stop at “Judy Hopps represents women in the work force” but follow your intersectional analogy through. In the past one group (preds/male) abused another group (prey/female), and though equality had technically been established, preds were still disproportionately represented in positions of power (police) and authority (mayor). Also in crime and poverty but forget that detail right?

So what ends coming from this? People think preds are, get this, predatory toward the victim status prey, indeed they can’t control their “biological impulses”. Thus we end up in a situation where Nick has the gall to be offended that Judy still carries around pepper spray and despite being one of the “good ones” is still ready to use it on him at moment’s notice.



Hide your kids, hide your wife, there is a man nonchalantly sitting on a train!

So where do we end up? Well it turns out that the entire incident, which had done massive damage to the lives of preds, was actually caused by someone who fought fervently under the banner of prey. A person who went around intentionally fabricating falsehoods to further her agenda. Certainly can’t see any analogy I can place in there.



So with all I just presented is Zootopia suddenly about men’s rights? No, of course not. As I’ve stated before, Zootopia’s message is expertly crafted specifically not to address any particular issue or group. The only true claim one could make on Zootopia’s intersectionality is that the story is multi-faceted. Like a kaleidoscope, people are bound to draw different conclusions from viewing the same item. While this is great for most works art, when dealing agenda-oriented people the intentional non-assignment can be lost. And that my friends, is something we must always be vigilant against.