19th May 2016, 2:01 PM
It is there DJ, I feel like you're looking at things from an angle that doesn't quite fit here. You walked away from Zootopia thinking it had messages of racism but it's actually talking about types of people in general and the preemptive judgements we make. Like seeing a cute girl trying to do "man's work" or a literally sheepish desk clerk never being able to lead or make decisions. Instead of race look at the visual joke of the sloths working at the DMV. This isn't an accusation of race, its a trope we all understand because the DMV is always slow. Did you catch what the fox is? Poor people, lower middle class, who have very little except baffling egomania. The country fox that beat up Hops when she was little grew up and became an adult who sells pies and apologized to her for being a douche and that leads in to the larger scale of the story: maturity. This is made visually literal by having a straight up ex con dress as a baby. This also leads in to another factor: just because women are smaller and weaker doesn't mean they can't be a peacekeeper, or a mayor, or a murderer. Small being powerful is show over and over, the possum father ("Mr. Big"), the weasel that none of the larger animal officers could catch, the bustling city of Rodentia, our ex con baby and so on. You can't judge people by appearance or by their upbringing, or even who they used to be. Did you notice that only males are targeted by the conspiracy leader? the leader hates males and wants a future where males are kept in cages because she's sexist and again the surprise here is that you totally didn't see it coming because there's no way to figure a person out and think 'all women...' or 'all men...' do anything. Unless you're a wolf... then you have an uncontrollable desire to howl. Which fits nicely in to the younger mentality of boys who get caught up in organized crime that hoot and holler every time they do anything - notice that they're wolves who just want to be praised for doing good, they're praised for doing bad. Another jab at social structure.
Race has nothing to do with Zootopia. They're not saying all white people should go work on a carrot farm or all black people are dangerous. THAT would be racist, what's being talked about is that we falsely categorize people as a means to keep things under control for our own sake and it only leads to more problems because we lack the maturity to critically evaluate everyone on an individual basis. A deeper point Zootopia attempted to make was the evolution of man through civilization and social awareness, remember the chubby tiger that works the front desk? Eats junk food, acts nearly androgynous, loves his phone apps? He's a completely emasculated male and Hops even reels back when she meets him, uncomfortable because she's never met a male like this. In stark contrast is the extremely masculine tiger who works on the force who is terrifying to Hops. This is a big jab at people who are caged animals - caged in the social constructs of civilization, and of what is acceptable and not acceptable. The tiger at the front desk is eerily close to people we actually know and can be compared to a eunuch, a process done to men to make them more docile. In terms of maturity, remember how the lion mayor tried to hide that he was using the same app on his phone (the singing with shakira one)? he's embarrassed because its not a masculine thing to do and he's trying to keep up an appearance of how he wishes to be viewed by others - that's the immaturity that creates the panic in the city as well. Try watching the movie again without looking at ideals of racism, it's extremely well written and I was dumbfounded by how deep a movie aimed at kids was able to go while maintaining a family friendly scope. Also, Inside Out is genius you should see that too.
Back to BvS, remember that in film writers show instead of tell. They want you to accept that the story has a surface and layers beneath it, the perspectives of the characters is one layer, the perspective of the audience is another and can be totally different things. You're judging the whole painting from what you know now without even attempting to learn the technique, brush stroke, color pallet, choice of medium and etc to fully understand it. Good writing takes ass loads of research and more often than not the audience isn't aware of the things researched to create that end goal, which is how movies can 'grow with you' and take on more meaning as we gain more experience and knowledge. Kubrick was a God at that.
Zack is a funny guy, he's fixated on sexuality and death and most story tellers are but he takes it to literal extremes. To put it in a very generalized nut shell his layer methods are to take current events and repackage them. 300 is the war on terror that in his opinion can not be won (similar in prose to a much more talented director and writer Ridley Scott's view of the "holy wars"), the muslims are demonized, our progression of war against their ideals is made out to be heroic and in a big socioeconomic push the people who don't match our ideals as Americ... Spartans are ignored, categorically round filed and find their independence by joining the muslim's wealth. Suckerpunch is blatantly explaining the victim roles of women, comparing them to children, having them fantasize about all the things women have not or cannot do (from samurai's to world war 2 heroes) and ultimately explaining that happiness can only be found as a woman by killing off the part of their minds that yearn for freedom in an oppressive society, hence the time frame before women's liberation and the "suckerpunch" felt by men who were raised in a belief system where women are indefinitely children to own and order. Watchmen systemically explains that "Someone" (in this case the world's smartest man) caused and capitalized on what is blatantly 9/11 and how the complacency of man in a civilization that is free of terror will create their own terror upon themselves and there is necessity in an outside force to build our resolve and constitution within our borders, so that the terrible act can create a new found patriotism and brotherhood among its peoples and other nations which is exactly what happened after 9/11. See a theme? His Man of Steel brought Zod, a person who carries with him his vast knowledge of his people's history and even their genetic materials with a hatred for anything or anyone that is not his ideals, Zod is introduced as a religious zealot - he is a Muslim extremist who wants to "change the world to fit his people" in this case literally changing the gravity and air. To stop him, Superman had to get dirty.
When the smoke settles we have a monument at "ground zero" for Superman and the people who died during Zod's attack. We have a nation scared shitless (launching a nuke almost the moment something comes out of Zod's ship in BvS), and everyone questions the motives of Superman because his salvation from the alien terrorists came with a heavy price of destruction, America is quite capable of destroying the entire world and acting like a nosy neighbor sticking its nose in to everyone's business. This is made literal as Superman in these series of films is as much a spy as anything else. He even floats in space orbiting earth listening to EVERYTHING just like the patriot act is with satellites and planes (it's a bird (eagle), its a plane (government), etc). Give it another chance before you go comparing anything to the carebears move ever again jesus christ.
Ryan/ yes. Wait until you see the scene where Superman does something in Mexico while celebrating the day of the dead. The religious overtones are a whole layer in BvS which made literal when a badguy says "God vs. man" and then "if man cannot destroy god... then have the devil do it" Also, there is a painting that connects some powerful imagery that fits in the scope of the story extremely well.
Race has nothing to do with Zootopia. They're not saying all white people should go work on a carrot farm or all black people are dangerous. THAT would be racist, what's being talked about is that we falsely categorize people as a means to keep things under control for our own sake and it only leads to more problems because we lack the maturity to critically evaluate everyone on an individual basis. A deeper point Zootopia attempted to make was the evolution of man through civilization and social awareness, remember the chubby tiger that works the front desk? Eats junk food, acts nearly androgynous, loves his phone apps? He's a completely emasculated male and Hops even reels back when she meets him, uncomfortable because she's never met a male like this. In stark contrast is the extremely masculine tiger who works on the force who is terrifying to Hops. This is a big jab at people who are caged animals - caged in the social constructs of civilization, and of what is acceptable and not acceptable. The tiger at the front desk is eerily close to people we actually know and can be compared to a eunuch, a process done to men to make them more docile. In terms of maturity, remember how the lion mayor tried to hide that he was using the same app on his phone (the singing with shakira one)? he's embarrassed because its not a masculine thing to do and he's trying to keep up an appearance of how he wishes to be viewed by others - that's the immaturity that creates the panic in the city as well. Try watching the movie again without looking at ideals of racism, it's extremely well written and I was dumbfounded by how deep a movie aimed at kids was able to go while maintaining a family friendly scope. Also, Inside Out is genius you should see that too.
Back to BvS, remember that in film writers show instead of tell. They want you to accept that the story has a surface and layers beneath it, the perspectives of the characters is one layer, the perspective of the audience is another and can be totally different things. You're judging the whole painting from what you know now without even attempting to learn the technique, brush stroke, color pallet, choice of medium and etc to fully understand it. Good writing takes ass loads of research and more often than not the audience isn't aware of the things researched to create that end goal, which is how movies can 'grow with you' and take on more meaning as we gain more experience and knowledge. Kubrick was a God at that.
Zack is a funny guy, he's fixated on sexuality and death and most story tellers are but he takes it to literal extremes. To put it in a very generalized nut shell his layer methods are to take current events and repackage them. 300 is the war on terror that in his opinion can not be won (similar in prose to a much more talented director and writer Ridley Scott's view of the "holy wars"), the muslims are demonized, our progression of war against their ideals is made out to be heroic and in a big socioeconomic push the people who don't match our ideals as Americ... Spartans are ignored, categorically round filed and find their independence by joining the muslim's wealth. Suckerpunch is blatantly explaining the victim roles of women, comparing them to children, having them fantasize about all the things women have not or cannot do (from samurai's to world war 2 heroes) and ultimately explaining that happiness can only be found as a woman by killing off the part of their minds that yearn for freedom in an oppressive society, hence the time frame before women's liberation and the "suckerpunch" felt by men who were raised in a belief system where women are indefinitely children to own and order. Watchmen systemically explains that "Someone" (in this case the world's smartest man) caused and capitalized on what is blatantly 9/11 and how the complacency of man in a civilization that is free of terror will create their own terror upon themselves and there is necessity in an outside force to build our resolve and constitution within our borders, so that the terrible act can create a new found patriotism and brotherhood among its peoples and other nations which is exactly what happened after 9/11. See a theme? His Man of Steel brought Zod, a person who carries with him his vast knowledge of his people's history and even their genetic materials with a hatred for anything or anyone that is not his ideals, Zod is introduced as a religious zealot - he is a Muslim extremist who wants to "change the world to fit his people" in this case literally changing the gravity and air. To stop him, Superman had to get dirty.
When the smoke settles we have a monument at "ground zero" for Superman and the people who died during Zod's attack. We have a nation scared shitless (launching a nuke almost the moment something comes out of Zod's ship in BvS), and everyone questions the motives of Superman because his salvation from the alien terrorists came with a heavy price of destruction, America is quite capable of destroying the entire world and acting like a nosy neighbor sticking its nose in to everyone's business. This is made literal as Superman in these series of films is as much a spy as anything else. He even floats in space orbiting earth listening to EVERYTHING just like the patriot act is with satellites and planes (it's a bird (eagle), its a plane (government), etc). Give it another chance before you go comparing anything to the carebears move ever again jesus christ.
Ryan/ yes. Wait until you see the scene where Superman does something in Mexico while celebrating the day of the dead. The religious overtones are a whole layer in BvS which made literal when a badguy says "God vs. man" and then "if man cannot destroy god... then have the devil do it" Also, there is a painting that connects some powerful imagery that fits in the scope of the story extremely well.