Disney studios always comes up with fun movies and is the king of animation undoubtedly.
Did you watch its 2016 blockbuster Zootopia? Okay, if not, let us tell you the plot in brief (spoiler alert!) It features a story about an unlikely team between a rabbit police officer and a fox who is a con artist to uncover a conspiracy case of animals’ disappearance in a city called Zootopia. TADA!
Is that all? Well, no.
As easy and casual as that brief plot sounds, it has a lot of layers; layers that you, as a parent would want your child to uncover and learn from.
Hence, Zootopia is not just a movie. It is a lesson wrapped in the paper of animal faces and once the wrapping comes off, your child will be entertainingly schooled.
Everything in the movie is a reflection of our real life. Everyone has their own unique ability. Here we have put down 4 lessons from the movie that should definitely make you go watch/re-watch it with your child to give him/her the much needed gyaan disguised in fun.
- Chase your dreams!
The movie begins with the main character, Judy Hopps, a bunny, putting on a show for her classmates. She talks about opportunity and openly announces she wants to be a cop when she grows up. Her parents try to talk her out of it because it is a dangerous job, and “no bunny has been a cop before.” Judy doesn’t take her parents’ word to heart; instead, she says: “I want to be the first!” Everything about this is brilliant because it tells children (and anyone, really) that just because it’s never been done before, doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Fifteen years later, Judy is at the training academy, taking a step closer to her dreams. She fails at the first tests, but she refuses to give up. She decides to try harder, and eventually makes it through the tests. Judy shows that not everyone succeeds in the first try, but with the right amount of determination and practice, anyone can accomplish anything.
Hang in there and chase your dreams. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
- Stereotypes are bad and can lead to prejudice.
Such heavy words for your 5 year old-Stereotype and Prejudice! To make them understand these words, you will have to ask them questions and examples. “Yeah, like when kids think that I can’t do well in my judo classes because I’m a girl or because I’m little.” That’s exactly it. We can help them understand that stereotypes are sometimes true about some people, but certainly not always true about all people. The movie quite cleverly shows how stereotypes can harm both the people doing the stereotyping and the people being stereotyped. Judy is stereotyped—but she also stereotypes other characters. She somewhere feels that foxes cannot be loyal and hurts her friend Nick.
Unlike other movies, Zootopia breaks the stereotype that it is always the big animals who are the villain while the smaller ones are the victims.
Now what is Prejudice? It is when stereotypes are used to differentially treat people. This is where kids often go to the “it’s not fair” portion of their understanding. In the movie, prejudice forces Judy to do meter-maid work instead of the job she trained for or the tragic flashback scene where young fox Nick Wilde’s dream of being a part of cub-scouts is tarnished when his friends muzzle him up for ‘a fox can never be trusted’ prejudice.
Talk about your child’s opinion on such scenes and if they ever experienced something like that. This way we can actually help our children to better identify prejudice when it is happening. We can help them to connect empathically with those who are the targets of bias. We can ask them how it feels to be treated that way and encourage them to think about times when maybe they treated others in prejudiced ways. The idea here isn’t to make kids feel guilty, but rather to learn empathy and identify behavior that they might want to change.
- Fighting prejudice and changing.
Change isn’t easy. In Zootopia, Judy and Nick become friends. They hurt each other and make mistakes, but they also forgive and decide to work together to overcome bias. Of course, one of the best ways we can illustrate this ability to evolve and support each other is by embracing it ourselves as parents and thus modeling for our kids. How often do your children see you connect to those who are different from you in race, sexuality, or class, to name a few? How often does your child not have the hesitation to walk up to those and be friends? This might be the most valuable lesson contained in Zootopia: By connecting across our differences, we can make the world a better place just like Judy the bunny and Nick the fox.
Judy Hopps: Life’s a little bit messy. We all make mistakes. No matter what type of animal you are, change starts with you.
- Never let tough times get to you.
When Nick helps Judy escape the wrath of Chief Bogo, he tells her to never let anyone’s harsh words get to you and steal your spark. Sometimes, no matter how tough or how challenging the situation is, you just need to have the courage to keep moving forward with the gut and determination even when everything is falling apart and never let anyone get the best of you. Children should be taught this resilience to fight the tough world they are going to enter as adults.
So much so for Zootopia, parents!
Are you still reading? Go grab your child and a bucket of popcorn and play this movie right away.
Enjoy the Zootopia express!