Creators of “Zootopia” Intended It Originally as an Allegory on Stifling Political Correctness
30th June 2016
Hint: It didn’t work.
The hit Disney kids’ movie Zootopia about a city where talking lions lie down with talking lambs came across to me as something that must have started out culturally rebellious but then got throttled by the test marketers and executives into the usual You-Go-Girl fare.
Here the creative team talks about their original vision, which is pretty great: the prey have subdued the predators with “tame collars” that shock the predators any time their predatory instincts start to kick in (much like the Ludovico Technique does to Alex in A Clockwork Orange). The hero fox, Nick Wild, discovers when a doctor temporarily removes his collar that he feels free and happy. So he comes up with the idea of a Chompers Only speakeasy / amusement park, Wild Times, where predators can get their collars illegally removed and enjoy their innate selves.
In A World Where white guys are publicly resented, incessantly, for still having much of the talent, it’s not surprising that the talented are getting tired of being the rhetorical punching bags just for being white guys. This surreptitious rebellion of the talented explains a lot about what’s going on.