Zootropolis (Film) Critique 1/5

This is one of my favourite films. Judy goes to Zootropolis, becoming the first ever rabbit police officer. She searches for missing predators with the (begrudging, coerced) help of the hustler fox Nick. Turns out the missing people turned savage, ‘reverting to their old ways’. Along the way, we see discrimination between different mammal species based upon assumptions and stereotypes.

 

*****SPOILERS*****

 Night Howler (Supposed) Plot Holes

 
If night howlers are known make people savage, how did people not know night howlers were the cause of the savagery?

Even though Judy was a farmer who knew enough to identify the plants by the scientific name, even she didn’t know they turned people savage. So how is the general populous of urban Zootropolis meant to know that night howlers turn people savage? The plants aren’t used for food so they’d have no reason to go near them, let alone connect them with savage behaviour.

Mayor Lionheart relocated all the predators that went savage, meaning the public didn’t know about savage behaviour until Judy’s press conference. If it’s the first-time people learn about this, why would they counter the completed, official explanation? At this conference, Judy connected savage behaviour with predator’s historic instincts. We see throughout the film that prey discriminate against predators so Judy’s news fits with their biases. If an official’s explanation suits your narrative, why would you question it?

If so, this would mostly apply to prey only. So what about predators? Perhaps internal bias kept the predator discontent hushed up. Maybe they, not wanting to seem like they’re making excuses for the savage, wouldn’t speak out. Society had shifted even more against predators, leading to protests and open abuse, so fear could have kept predators silent, too.

Also, all the savage mammals are predator species. Even if people knew about night howler’s effects, they’d know prey are equally impacted, too. Considering prey are nine-to-ten times more common than predators, people who knew about night howlers would expect savage prey species, too! The fact no prey animals are savage leads to those who know about night howlers to not even consider their involvement. (Most people wouldn’t jump to conspiracy theories. Occam’s razor, and all.)
 
Why steal the plants when they were easy to buy?

If they were bought legally, there would be an obvious paper trail that would lead the police directly to Doug, hence exposing the plot. Of course, theft is illegal which would make the police investigate, but the trail might not be as clear.

Also, the police are making the disappeared mammals the priority, so why would the police take officers off these cases and put them in stolen plants, instead? Sure, officers were in pursuit when Weaselton’s crime was in progress, but no-one looked into the reasons behind his actions. He was even back on the streets within days!

There are risks and benefits to both options, so Bellwether choosing theft isn’t bad. Plus, for either option to be a problem, the police would have to piece together all the clues together. (If it weren’t for Judy or Nick, these pieces would have remained unconnected.)

Perhaps Bellwether just doesn’t have the funds to keep buying night howlers. Yes, we see Doug raising them from seedlings, but they could have easily died at any point. Plus he might have needed adult night howlers before the seedlings were ready for harvest.
So stealing the night howlers isn’t a plot hole.
 
 
 
Bellwether’s Name
 
Assistant Mayor Bellwether is a sheep; a bellwether is a sheep-related term in real life. Using a sheep term for a sheep name was good.
 
But is calling this ewe ‘Bellwether’ appropriate?

A bellwether is a wether (castrated ram) that wear a bell around its neck, allowing the shepherd to hear where the flock is located. Calling any ewe ‘Bellwether’ thus seems off. However, many shepherds report that they place a bell over their leading ewe, the one that decides where the flock goes. These ewes (because they serve the same purpose) are thus termed bellwethers in their own, non-castrated and non-male right. So Assistant Mayor Bellwether having that surname despite being a ewe isn’t too farfetched.

Furthermore, Bellwether is her surname. Many people are called ‘Smith’ or ‘Potter’ even though they’ve never done those activities. Plus, surnames om English don’t usually change just because of the person’s gender (many women have Johnson as a surname, for example.) So there would be no requirement for Assistant Mayor Bellwether to be a Bellwether in any sense. Just the ancestor that was first given the name is acceptable.

Also, a bellwether in politics is a constituency/state that always votes for the winning party. By looking at the bellwether’s local result, the national result can be predicted. In a sense, they lead the way. Considering Assistant Mayor Bellwether leads the way in her master plot to bring down the predators, her name in a political sense is perfect. (Particularly when she herself is a politician.)
 
But how did the term ‘bellwether’ develop in the world of Zootropolis?

Bellwethers are individuals who have been castrated. But why would the individuals in the world of Zootropolis castrate anyone? This isn’t something many sentient men would agree to. It is hard to imagine bellwether’s political sense be developed without the shepherding sense coming first, after all.

Maybe it was the same sort of thing as eunuchs. That is, because fertile men can’t be trusted around women, infertile eunuchs could be. Castrating a male not only removes the most visual thing about masculinity (male genitalia) but it also changes the behaviours/desires associated with developed genitalia. Zootropolis shows no signs of eunuchs, but neither do real life modern countries that once had eunuchs (China and Turkey), so why would modern Zootropolis show signs?

Perhaps this castration practice was developed by the predators before peace was secured? (There would be no way for peace between predators or prey to develop before sentience, meaning the predators still had to be eating prey once they had developed sentience. Or perhaps only predators developed sentience at first and only turned away from predation once prey became sentient, too?)
 
 
Questions
 
These are mere curiosities, not causing deep questions like with Bellwether’s name. Nonetheless, there’s still the space to ponder these, too.

I wonder how the Tundra is kept cold whilst nearby there are hot environments like the Rainforest and Desert? Perhaps it’s like a fridge, whereby heat is taken from the place where cold is desired (Tundra/inside the fridge) and this heat is dumped elsewhere (Rainforest and Desert/outside the fridge). Mind you, in the summer the Gobi Desert is hot yet there can still be snow. There are plenty of possibilities.

Nick is a red fox, a species that usually has a white tail tip; however, Nick’s tail tip is brown and black. As there are no other red foxes to differentiation Nick from, this deviation from normality isn’t required. Yet some red foxes do have this colouration, so this isn’t a matter of false representation. Thus it’s only an artistic choice and, as it is aesthetically pleasingly, this artistic choice can’t be criticised.

Judy has a pair of neighbours that live together. Presumably they have the same sized tiny room as her. Are they friends, gay, brothers, roommates? It’s unclear. However, this ambiguity allows the audience to think what they want. It means people can be happy that gay people are represented but, because it’s not directly stated, homophobes can’t get angry.
 
 
Predator Problems

If predators are no longer savage hunters, where does their food source come from

Only mammals are shown in this film. We can thus guess that only mammals are sentient. Do predators still eat meat, only not from mammal? Reptiles, birds, insects, amphibians etc? But the film makes such a big deal over predators no longer being savage hunters: surely still eating meat would veto this representation?

Although it’s like how some humans don’t consider fish meat. Or perhaps predators farm the non-mammals and farmed animals aren’t hunted. Possibly predators aren’t considered savage for eat the non-sentient.

The other solution is that they don’t eat meat at all. As stated before, considering the film goes for ‘not savage anymore’, the basic question of predators’ food source needs answering. On one of the many occasions where people said predators overcame their instincts, a quick sentence like, “and now they eat bugs” or “and they turned veggie” or something would have eliminated this problem.
 
Questions surrounding mammal sentience kept cropping up.

The Mammal Inclusion Initiative is an odd name. We only see mammals in this world: how can mammals be included in something if they’re the only available option and are hence already in that something? The ‘Mammal’ seems to be a stand in for ‘Small Mammals who haven’t yet been hired by the police’. So perhaps something like ‘Police Inclusion Initiative’ would have been better because it does exactly what it says on the tin without any hang-ups.

Mr Big’s grandmama was buried in the skunk’s butt rug that Nick sold him. So they use the skin/fur of each other? This film doesn’t show non-sentient mammals so it’s hard to think they exist at all. Skunks shouldn’t be a non-sentient exception.
 
 
Minor Problems
 
There were a few out-right mistakes.

Judy’s landlady was an armadillo who was wearing her clothes. Under her shell. Which would mean she has to take off her shell to put on her clothes. This doesn’t make sense because an armadillo’s shell is their skin. The thought the landlady has to take off her skin to dress? Nope.

Bellwether says that, “prey outnumber predators ten to one.” But earlier, Bellwether said that the city is ninety percent prey. As such, that ratio would be nine to one. If two facts about the same topic disagree, at least let different characters state them; this would present it as two different opinions, rather than one Bellwether being inconsistent.

Judy, a rabbit, is taller than Mrs. Otterton, an otter. Otters are much bigger than rabbits in real life. I see no viable reason for this film to make their otters smaller than rabbits. Sure, the sizes of all mammals have been modified so that they fit in this world, but these modifications should still be in proportion with each other.
 
Two things made little sense.

Bunnyburrow’s sign has its population on it. Having a settlement’s population written on its sign is such a weird concept. Why on Earth would anyone do this? It’s random and unnecessary. Plus it would change often so it would be an unnecessary cost on the local council’s behalf. So yes, the population going up is funny, but adding this weird detail for a little joke is bonkers.

When Judy chases the weasel, she rips off her hat and vest. So, that’s the main character portraying littering as if it’s okay. That’s not an appropriate message to give children. Also, why does Judy takes these things off? She has a full range of movement whilst wearing these items, plus they are light, so they wouldn’t hold her back whilst running. Especially considering how healthy she is! Everything about this is odd.
 
 
Nonsense Problems
 
Judy’s parents have many kits (as does the rest of Bunnyburrow), resulting in many issues. (Even though the joke is funny.)

Judy’s parents have two hundred and seventy-five kits. If every rabbit couple had this amount of children, there would be severe overpopulation. (This is before even accounting for other species that have loads of kids!)

Now, because predators no longer hunt prey, this means prey numbers aren’t culled. Plus, they live in a modern society with hospitals, meaning death can be prevented. How, then, can the world of Zootropolis support so many herbivores?

The space and resources required for so many individuals would be immense. Yes, we produce enough food to feed over eight billion humans (the amount of food waste in wealthy countries is enough to feed food-deprived people), so productive on a massive scale is possible. But extrapolating based on Bunnyburrow’s population, the number of prey in the world of Zootropolis would far outstrip our number of humans in our world, meaning massive food production literally couldn’t keep up with the population of Zootropolis’ world.

One could argue that only Judy’s parents have this many children, thus eliminating this whole concern. However, when Judy leaves Bunnyburrow, the train goes past its village sign which shows the population continually increasing. That number is far above the two-hundred and seventy-five count that Judy’s parents claim to have. Hence that continual uptick in Bunnyburrow’s population size means other rabbits are giving birth to many offspring. As such, Judy’s parents having that many kits isn’t an anomaly but a pattern.
 
At one point, we see a doughnut between Clawhauser’s collar and his neck.

But this doughnut doesn’t appear until that very moment. Indeed, earlier Clawhauser moved, meaning this part of the neck was exposed, and yet only moments later a doughnut magically appears in this same gap?

Theoretically it could have ridden up. But if that were the case, there doughnut would have bulged his shirt (but there was no bulge). Also, considering the size and shape of the doughnut, the probability of that riding up is very minimal. As such, the doughnut ridding up isn’t a valid explanation for the doughnut’s sudden appearance.