Zootopia’s Big Problem
I’m all for big movie studios taking risks, and Disney’s Zootopia is no exception — you may have heard about how willing the film is to tackle subjects like ingrained racism. That’s all well and good, but unfortunately Zootopia missed the mark in one rather glaring department.
It struck me during the scene where our bunny heroine Judy Hopps chases a criminal through a small mouse village, where everything is scaled to fit their size. The lifespan of a mouse is incredibly short; they must be dropping dead every few years. Why aren’t there constantly shots of mice, hamsters and other small rodents keeling over and dying, and why isn’t there an industrious ostrich or something who runs a funeral home, making money claw-over-fist with these little bastards? Why isn’t the fox’s scam selling life insurance to guinea pigs? Is it because he faces the grim spectre of death in just 5 years himself, and he just can’t put that thought away long enough to make tons of money? What does the fox see when he turns out the light in his bedroom? Do the faces of the animals he’s wronged flash by him? Is he constantly wracked with guilt, smashing every ticking clock he sees to escape thinking about death? This is the only valid excuse for not selling life insurance to smaller animals.
Why does the bunny get saddled with a pretty obvious rookie job like handing out parking tickets? Why isn’t she consigned to driving a snowplow through the streets, scooping up dead toads and squirrels etc. from every conceivable district and disposing of them in a swamp, where a crocodile could pop out of the water and say “Now I gotta deal with THIS for 30 to 50 years”?
Why aren’t animals constantly dying in the DMV scene? It was already a great joke to have the whole department operated by sloths, but they could have taken it to the next level by having a chipmunk crying “Please God, let me see my children again” or “My lifespan is 1–2 years, the 3 hours I have spent in this line is like you spending 75 hours here”? You could get a great joke out of the sloth apologizing for wasting the squirrel’s precious time this way, and it would take so long for him to say the words that the squirrel might either kill himself or leave. Either way, great capper to a nearly-perfect scene.
If a lion really did manage to make his way up the chain of bureaucracy within 14 years to become mayor, why isn’t he constantly saying things like “I spent half of my life in this job — 7 years!” or “My son just turned 4 and he’s having one of those obnoxious quarter-life crises”? Why doesn’t a white rhino, who can last up to 50 years, have that job instead?
In fact, why aren’t white rhinos or whales or tortoises treated like elder gods, passing down information from generation to rapidly-decaying generation to keep Zootopia running, and why aren’t they saying things to the rabbit and fox like “I knew your great-great-great-great-great grandmother,” sending a chill through their blood? Why don’t we meet a 100-year-old parrot called The Timekeeper, and his whole job is repeating ancient scrolls he’s memorized? I imagine John Ratzenberger as The Timekeeper.
What even is time in Zootopia? How do these wildly different species measure days, months, or seasons (particularly since the different biomes appear to be climate-controlled)? Do they really all share the same clock? How depressing it would be to only celebrate five measly birthdays as a fox. Since Zootopia is about promoting equality among the species, you’d think they’d extend the same courtesy to celebrating individual lives, and that’s why the film really missed out showing us more animal birthdays throughout. In fact, when Judy runs through Little Rodentia, we really should be hearing a cacophony of “Happy Birthday” being sung, from nearly every apartment window and restaurant, in haunting overlapping echoes. These smaller animals should be constantly celebrating their birthdays, we should be seeing cake and presents utterly littering the streets.
When the water buffalo chief gives Judy 48 hours to solve a case, why doesn’t she say “Your version of 48 hours, or mine”? He lives about 5 times as long as she does (in captivity, at least — which for our purposes, is the same level of comfort and safety as Zootopia), so does he mean that as a rabbit, she has only 9.6 hours to crack the case? Why isn’t she screaming? When will it be her birthday again?
When Gazelle sings her song at her big stadium show, and everyone is dancing along, why is the song not “Happy Birthday” and shouldn’t it be more clear that this is the birthday present of at least 200–300 of the attendants in the audience?
Good movie, just feel like it could have done more with the premise.
