I was joking when I said the whole thesis thing but apparently it’s time for me to actually tell people this

Alrighty take a seat

No one in any case or form is denying that they are in an opposite sex dynamic. That’s the “hetero” part of things. That’s how you’d read them if they were human, as an interracial HETEROSEXUAL pair.

And this is where the problem occurs, because you’re mistakenly reading these fluffy animal characters in an animal world built for animals by animals through the lens of real life HUMAN dynamics.

In a realistic setting people don’t think about about the definition of hetero in terms of humans because humans only date humans. That’s how it is, because no other species evolved to think like humans, and humans trying to screw animals is gross. In Zootopia this whole schtick goes out the window, because all animals are intelligent enough to relatively interact and form social dynamics- and this opens the door for new dimensions of judgement on these matters.

Evolutionary default is heterosexual. That’s the socially acceptable, “Normal” bond that serves some kind of procreative purpose. In this universe’s case, it’s Bonnie and Stu, male and female rabbits, having dozens and hundreds of little rabbit babies. Or if that seems extreme, Mr and Mrs Otterton with their two (three? Can’t remember) kids.

Then you’ve got Bucky and Pronk, kudu and oryx. Both male, probably married, both antelope, minor difference in species but hardly noticeable on a larger scale. Homosexual? Most likely.

Then there’s Nick and Judy. They’re not even remotely close in terms of genus. The moment you introduce radically different species into a dynamic, the “default hetero” definition of “attraction between male and female” goes out the window ENTIRELY. And if cartoon logic were to go out with it- they’re not even biologically compatible. If you choose to draw from real life science, then Nick and Judy are as non-straight as it gets. What do you call that? Closest real life definition is pansexual, which is “attraction REGARDLESS of, etc”. But they most definitely do not fall into THEIR socially accepted definition of het.

Face the facts. Nobody in this anthropomorphic universe is going to look at the fox and rabbit in love and think, “well that sure is a totally nondescript pair of heterosexuals if I ever saw one”. No one is looking at them and thinking “male and female- it must be love!” because they aren’t socially wired to think that way- they assume Judy would “naturally” desire to date other rabbits and Nick other foxes. Animals would look at them and think “haha no dude they’re just FRIENDS what is it with you and making everything be not straight”. And then Clawhauser would be like “what is with YOU why does everyone HAVE TO BE STRAIGHT in your world huh HUH??” and so on and so forth.

The point being that the one time Nick and Judy’s relationship was ever interpreted as non-platonic in any form of canon(?), her dad suddenly wanted to take her away from the city, because she’s “not acting like herself”. Their aversion to Nick is meant to be interpreted in a race context- but interpreting Stu’s perception of Judy’s ties to Nick in a non-het context as well makes a hell of a lot more sense. In his eyes, his daughter is doing “unnatural” things.

And in Disneyland, they don’t bother to hide it. They’re just straight up macking on each other in public, which is completely in contradiction to the platonic relationship presented in the movie. The question is… Why? Do they feel… Welcome to be out that way? Is it easy to be out when they’re away from every social obstruction in their own world? Is that the point of it? Yeah this is getting too meta

tldr it is baffling to me that anybody thinks shipping them is a “straight” thing, that there’s anything straight about them, and I don’t buy that shipping them is taking away from “platonic representations of male/female friendships” bc son I’M PRETTY SURE THEIR UNIVERSE WOULD PREFER THEM IN THE CLOSET AND IT APPEARS THAT SO DO YOU!!



(?) yeah, take “canon” lightly here because they deleted that scene