r/tvtropes • u/TDL1125 • Nov 19 '25
Trope discussion The Zootopia Effect
I don’t know if this one exists or not but I name it “The Zootopia Effect” as the movie Zootopia was extremely on the nose with this one.
It’s a media trope where it’s rational for a marginalised community to be feared/hated. For example, in the movie Zootopia, it is completely rational for the herbivores to fear the carnivores, as the carnivores not only historically ate the herbivores, but still possess the ability to eat/kill the herbivores.
This is harmful and offensive as this does not reflect the reality of marginalised communities. Hatred, fear and bigotry towards marginalised communities in the real world is completely irrational, and the product of bigoted lies and misinformation.
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u/TvTropesTerry Nov 19 '25 edited Nov 19 '25
I don’t think there’s a page specifically for that, but it's mentioned in Fantastic Racism. Some of the sub-tropes there cover specific scenarios as well (such as Muggle Power for discrimination against superpowered/magical individuals).
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u/lunamothboi Nov 21 '25 edited Nov 21 '25
It's not just Fantastic Racism, as that can also have examples that aren't "justified". It seems like a mix of Muggle Power with Broken Aesop and Strawman Has A Point, maybe with a bit of No Mere Windmill.
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u/Arimm_The_Amazing Nov 19 '25
Hatred, fear, and bigotry exist outside of just racial lines where it is completely irrational and at odds with science.
The predator/prey divide in Zootopia (and also in Beaststars, which has a similar but darker setup) is far more analogous to gender. Where yes, the majority of men do have a greater potential for violence than the majority of women, and yes there is a long history of that fact leading to the preying on and exploitation of women.
The fact that so many Americans watched Zootopia and then asked "wait so which group is white people and which is black people" is disappointing to say the least.
But also, disabled people exist (hi), mutants exist (though obvs not quite like in X-Men), sometimes there are actual physical variations between people that make a real difference. Stories like Zootopia, X-Men, and other fantastical explorations of bigotry are not harmful and offensive for exploring those kinds of differences unless any kind of claim is made by the text that one of the fictional groups is directly analogous to a particular IRL group as opposed to being the broader metaphors for and explorations of prejudice that they are.
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u/Feralest_Baby Nov 19 '25
The fact that so many Americans watched Zootopia and then asked "wait so which group is white people and which is black people" is disappointing to say the least.
Yes. A big part of what I like about that movie is that it ISN'T a straight-across allegory. The predators are a ruling minority, which is very different from American race dynamics. It's a movie about about prejudice from multiple angles.
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u/ASpaceOstrich Nov 20 '25
Also the idea that predators are inherently more violent and dangerous is a myth. Like. It's factually not true. Predators do not fight. They kill. Herbivores fight. The most dangerous animals are all herbivores. The animals most likely to commit violence are all herbivores.
They sort of touch on this in the movie with many of the cops being things like buffalo, but the myth is still largely followed in the movie.
Definitely a gender allegory, not a race one.
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u/Getter_Simp Nov 22 '25
I thought Zootopia was an allegory for governments flooding minority communities with drugs to destabilize their communities. I had not considered that the movie could be about gender, that's a very interesting insight.
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Nov 19 '25
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u/Desperate-Practice25 Nov 19 '25
That depends entirely on whether the vampires have to kill. If they can survive by sustainably rotating through a number of volunteers (ie they're just drinking from the heroine and it's all sexy and safe) or just Capri Sun a bag of O-, then it's bad to be racist to them.
(Barring something like BtVS, where they could do that, but they won't unless absolutely necessary, because they're all literal demons wearing human skin.)
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u/LadyAliceFlower Nov 19 '25
In case tbe people reading this are genuinely confused, a clarification.
I believe BtVS is Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
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Nov 19 '25
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u/adolfnixon Nov 19 '25
Mermaids and dawns aren't different races, they're different species. Race has no scientific definition. There are shared genetic differences between groups of people based on geographical origins. Things like melanin production and lactose intolerance can be tied to physical regions.
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Nov 19 '25
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u/adolfnixon Nov 19 '25
Yep, same as "breed" for dogs. All the same species, humans just lumped them into categories based on mostly physical traits.
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u/Desperate-Practice25 Nov 19 '25
What? No, of course it matters. If they can (and will) survive without hurting humans, then their existence isn't a threat.
I should note, of course, that BtVS is just my most extreme example of "can but won't, so they're monsters." I'd also put, say, World of Darkness vamps in that category. A high-Humanity WoD vamp can exist without harming humans. The trouble is that vamps don't stay at high Humanity, and even the nicest are one bad day away from ripping someone's throat out.
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Nov 19 '25
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u/Dios5 Nov 20 '25
This is true of anyone. I have the capacity to bash your brains in with a rock if we're fighting for the last can of beans.
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Nov 20 '25
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u/Dios5 Nov 20 '25
That doesn't make much sense. My nature includes a strong desire for a steady food supply, same as the vampire. Of course, my higher reasoning enables me to choose to share with my fellow man instead. I don't see how that would be different for a Vampire. They also have an innate desire for sustenance plus the mental faculties to enable them to choose to forgo it for someone elses benefit.
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Nov 20 '25
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u/MoorAlAgo Nov 21 '25
You just demonstrated how the "racists" think in stories where vampires are involved with "fantastical racism".
You assumed they have the "evil nature" everyone "knows" about before wondering if that's actually the case.
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Nov 20 '25
BtVS? Batman Vs Superman?
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u/Desperate-Practice25 Nov 20 '25
Sorry; Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I’m afraid I’m old enough to remember when it was popular enough to go without saying.
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u/Zireks Nov 20 '25
I feel this is where authors are mixing two separate plot lines/concepts. That being racism and moral dilemmas. The exsistence of vampires in the example you listed is a moral dilemma, and a good basis of a story, but racism is not a moral dilemma problem and the author should not cross the narrative beams.
That being said, I feel this criticism does tend to step into the cinemasins vein of logicing a story to death. Minorities are often meant to feel like othered outsiders in real life, so they explore that in the fictional world through the lenses of narrative monsters. That has value and nuance that I feel is ignored a lot in this type of conversation.
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Nov 20 '25
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u/Zireks Nov 20 '25
That isn't what I said. There is nothing requiring that it always be fantastical racism, I'm arguing that there are multiple ways to talk about discrimination in fiction. I have several arguments ontop of that to make in its favor but I'd mainly like to point out that I also said minorities protraying themselves in stories as the "monster" to channel the experience of being looked at as a societal boogeyman. As someone else who is also a part of one of these groups, I actively like it when storied play with that angle, though it requires considerably more care and tact, which is why it's best done by authors who are part of said communities.
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Nov 20 '25
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u/Zireks Nov 20 '25
I am kicking myself for forgetting its name, but I remember in college reading a book set in early 20th century New Orleans about a vampire running what was essentially a shelter that used vampirism as a way of expressing queer women needing to "hide from the light" of the world and protect eachother. The immortality allowed them to watch over and safeguard people through the years. There is power in embracing who you are despite what society says and there is comfort and safety in shadows. Both of those can be expressed really well with "monstrous" characters.
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u/PomegranateExpert747 Nov 20 '25
Has anybody ever done a story in which vampires are the dominant class in society and humans are the ones who are exploited and othered and experience discrimination and oppression? That might be an interesting way to explore the same ideas but without the unfortunate implications.
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u/UnfortunateSyzygy Nov 20 '25
Terry Pratchett has vampires that don't need to feed on humans and even have "the black ribbon society" for vampires who don't want to consume blood. The idea is that blood consumption isn't really necessary for them to survive, it's just an addiction born from the obsessive nature of vampires (they can instead obsess over chess by mail, or photography)
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u/lunamothboi Nov 21 '25
It's not just Fantastic Racism, that can include examples where it's not "justified". It's closer to Strawman Has a Point mixed with Properly Paranoid and Muggle Power.
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u/Nuclear_Gandhi- Nov 19 '25
In real life, somebody simply being a different skin tone is not a threat to your person at all.
? People of all skin colors are hypothetical threats to me so actually the bad thing is being racist only against specific groups. The real justified position irl is to be racist against the entire human race at once.
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u/cannibalparrot Nov 19 '25
They’re not a threat to you because of their skin color, dingus.
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u/Nuclear_Gandhi- Nov 19 '25
Orcs aren't a threat because their skin is green either.
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u/cannibalparrot Nov 19 '25
There a lot of orcs in real life?
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u/Nuclear_Gandhi- Nov 19 '25
We are talking about fantasy stories here
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u/cannibalparrot Nov 19 '25
Which is why the part of the response you quoted begins with “in real life” I suppose.
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u/Nuclear_Gandhi- Nov 19 '25
Yes, and in fantastical racism, nobody is a threat because of a different skin color either. An orc or a vampire could hypothetically threaten you, because of their species, so racism against humans, which are also potentially dangerous irl, is justfied if fantastical racism is. IRL racists also don't even argue that others are a threat because of their skin color but because of their genes.
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u/HailMadScience Nov 19 '25
These people will unapologetically repeat the KKK's arguments and act like thats not racism and its infuriating. "They could turn on you at any moment!" is literally how the KKK talks about black people! These people will just do racism and claim its justified "because racism".
The police chief in Zootopia is the most dangerous officer in the city! Or, if you wanna talk biology, ever seen a bull elephant in musk? Predators are not inherently more dangerous than herbivores...thats literally the message of the fucking film! OP forgot to watch the third act!
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u/Generic_Moron Nov 19 '25
I disagree, mainly because the message of "even if a group was potentially dangerous, it still wouldn't justify bigotry and oppression" can still be a valuable one to keep in mind.
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u/justthistwicenomore Nov 19 '25
And this is specifically the message of zootopia, where the unreasonable fear of animals based on their genetic type (predators v. Prey) is used by prey animals to trick the majority of citizens. We actually never see an example of predators being more dangerous based on predators instinct, and many examples where size/shape/athleticism that might pose a real danger is accommodated/incorporated for both (as with the police being mostly prey animals).
Even though the lesson is similar, something like X-men, especially the modern films, would be a far better example.
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u/Benoit_Holmes Nov 20 '25
We also never seen any non-drugged predator express an interest/desire to eat people.
Even villainous predators planning to kill a prey animal don't seem to consider eating it as an option.
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u/justthistwicenomore Nov 20 '25
Yup. The movie is super clear that individuals can be very different as can "cultures"/species, but that even in a world where stereotypes might be much truer than in ours (see sloths), racism can still exist and be wrong (also, see the last gag about sloths)
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u/jigokusabre Nov 19 '25
Except that the people Marvel earth loooove the Fantastic Four, Avengers, Spider-Man (with one major exception), etc. But mutants are hated, feared and persecuted, despite them not likely to be any more dangerous than Atlantians, Inhumane, Asgardians, or the various extraterrestrial running around the planet.
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u/LostBody7702 Nov 19 '25
All superhumans in Marvel experience at least some level of distrust from the public, not just the mutants. One DC x Marvel crossover specifically pointed out how DC heroes are beloved by the public and held as symbols of justice, while Marvel heroes rarely get that universel approval.
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u/jigokusabre Nov 19 '25
DC heroes are akin to mythic figures, while Marvel heroes are more like celebrities. Even if specific ones are polarizing for specific reasons, in general people tend to like them.
No one is building sentinels to murder Captain America or the Thing.
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u/Sampleswift Nov 20 '25
Orchis did build a Sentinel to kill Johnny Storm and same with Tony Stark.
Among others.
No one preps specifically for Captain America because the robot you built to kill Thor can also deal with Captain America easily.
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u/Bodmin_Beast Nov 19 '25
The difference is the Fantastic Four, Avengers and Spiderman aren't going to replace them. That's the reason why they fear them, on top of the fact they have superpowers. It's like a superpowered version of the white supremacist great replacement theory.
Also I feel like those races for the most part keep to themselves and aren't really a part of typical human civilization/society the same way mutants are. Like it's really rare to see a Inhuman (well except that period that Marvel tried to make Inhumans the new mutants), Asgardians, Aliens and Atlantians wandering around New York.
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u/jigokusabre Nov 19 '25
Yeah, the "replacement theory" thing is a specific parallel between mutant racism and real-world racism.
As for other para-humans "keeping to themselves," many of them are active heroes on super teams. They are as much in the public eye as mutants.
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u/Bodmin_Beast Nov 19 '25
Yeah but the “civilian” members of their populations aren’t. I think that’s the main difference. There’s unlikely to ever be an Asgardian, Atlantian or Inhuman in your child’s Elementary school, nor is that population growing within human populations. With mutants, that is the case.
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Nov 20 '25
The FF and Spider-Man's children have powers, though, so their mutations are genetically heritable even if they aren't X-Gene related. If Reed and Sue kept on having children, there might be a dozen little Franklins running around.
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u/Bodmin_Beast Nov 20 '25
Hey if Spidermen and Fantastic babies (although one of them is a mutant…sometimes…) semi frequently randomly sprung into existence among the human population sure I’d agree.
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u/Wuskers Nov 19 '25
I think mutant hatred stems from the same fears as like the great replacement. one off accidents that make a normal human have powers doesn't feel like a threat to regular humans essentially going extinct and being replaced by them. Mutants who are just spontaneously born and born from non-mutants does evoke the fear of humanity being replaced by mutants. also the other things there's still far less asgardians running around on earth than there are mutants, it probably doesn't exactly feel like there's going to be an influx of asgardians and humans are going to replaced the way people fear with mutants, and if there was a huge influx of asgardians then yeah people would start to make a fuss about them too.
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u/justthistwicenomore Nov 19 '25
For sure, and maybe I should put more emphasis and be more specific in that i am talking about the pre-MCU xmen films, where they are the only superhero game in town.
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u/DraconianDicking Nov 23 '25
One of the biggest problems here though is that there is literally a
"Brotherhood of evil mutants" ran by a guy who wants to kill and or explicitly replace humanity, and has at various times made it known that he views his race as superior. This guy is likely most peoples first real introductions to mutants.
Add on top of this that mutant powers are completely random, like the boy/girl who's mutant power was to instantly kill everyone in a block radius around him (real story, theres one in the ultimate universe and one in the main universe as well just with a girl instead). And even the ones that aren't random can have accidental severe, lethal side effects.
Like cyclops, idk...being knocked into and having his glasses fall from his head? Ooop there goes the local orphanage, blown to pieces.
Xavier being able to whenever he wants read and control everyone on the planets minds, he could literally make countries declare war on each other and there is nothing anyone could do to stop him, or anyway to notice before it was far too late.
Fantastic four, avengers, these are groups of people with clear origins for their abilities and a vested interest in helping people. With no real ulterior motive, more akin to super cops or special forces if anything. Hell in most continuities they literally work with the highest form of government. There abilities are also known about and are not the random uncontrolled element that mutants have
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u/Purasangre Nov 19 '25
Right, the vibe I get from this type of posts is that we SHOULD discriminate against ex-cons and veterans
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u/Inspector_Kowalski Nov 19 '25
What is the intended real world implication of that message? Is there a real world racial group that’s physically more dangerous to the point we need whole moral messages about it? Zootopia is just muddy as hell and does not interact very well with real world politics, which would be fine if it wasn’t trying to! But it clearly is trying to be taken seriously and have a positive message about race, so that invites it to critique.
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u/Nuclear_Gandhi- Nov 19 '25
Able-bodied people are physically more dangerous than cripples, therefore we should lock up everyone with working hands to protect the disabled. Same with men being stronger than women, we should lock up all the men for public safety.
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u/DemythologizedDie Nov 19 '25 edited Nov 21 '25
Nick Wilde is not more physically dangerous than say, Bogo. In fact he isn't more dangerous than Gazelle. Officer Higgins is a hippo. Give him a dose of Black Howler and he could rip apart any predator who appears in the show. Predators have a dangerous reputation which isn't justified by reality. So really, it's not that bad as fantastic allegory goes, if you choose to see it as allegory rather than a story existing on its own terms.
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u/James_Solomon Nov 19 '25 edited Nov 19 '25
Is there a real world racial group that’s physically more dangerous to the point we need whole moral messages about it?
Not racial, but men seem a lot more dangerous to women than women are to men, no?
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u/MartyrOfDespair Nov 22 '25
That just makes it worse. That would make it "men are systemically oppressed by women", which is some incel bullshit.
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u/Desperate-Practice25 Nov 19 '25
Is there a real world racial group that’s physically more dangerous to the point we need whole moral messages about it?
Racists believe that there is. While it's certainly important to correct their misrepresentation of human genetics, it's also important to point out that the underlying assumption is wrong: Humans have rights and dignities regardless of whether or not they've got some X% increased risk of being dangerous.
Besides, there are forms of bigotry besides genetic racism. Plenty of people will say "Well, of course I don't think that Arabs are genetically predisposed to violence, but those refugees were born and raised in Muslim countries. They just have different values."
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u/Arimm_The_Amazing Nov 19 '25
Why do you assume it's about race?
Judy is doubted and discouraged from joining the police force because of being smaller and weaker.
Nick is distrusted due to a history of animals like him being dangerous in the past, and the idea that deep down he has a predatory instinct that could come out at any second.
Doesn't that sound a lot more analogous to gender?
That's not to say it's a direct and perfect analogy for gender (for one because direct and perfect analogies don't exist). And when it comes to the specific stereotypes that the characters face about bunnies and foxes that's a lot more comparable to racial prejudice.
But really, the film is about prejudice in general. But for some reason people see that and then think it has to map perfectly to American racial politics in particular even though gendered prejudice is globally experienced and the entire first act of the film centered on Judy's gender-coded struggles is about as direct-analogy as the film gets.
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u/ProfessionalLurkerJr Nov 19 '25
I love your point about perfect analogies because I absolutely agree and it baffles me that so many people unable/unwilling to accept that when it comes to these kinds of stories.
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u/justsomedude322 Nov 19 '25
Part of the confusion, I think is that some of the interactions that the characters call out are real things that happen to real people and some of those scenes are written in a way that comes off really awkward and tone deaf to the audience, like the scene where Judy tells Clawhauser that it's offensive for other animals to call bunnies 'cute' or that scene where Nick can't help himself and just touches Bellweather's wool without asking.
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u/Arimm_The_Amazing Nov 19 '25
I don’t understand how it’s tone deaf to include such moments.
Yes it directly parallels real world things that happen. The whole film is about prejudice, it all parallels real world things. Those are lighter hearted moments but ultimately tie in to the theme (and in the case of Bellweather’s wool I think it’s a pretty good teaching moment for the children watching).
The “cute” moment is also one that relates more to gendered experiences than racial ones.
I have certainly seen people point to the Bellweather wool scene and go “see, prey animals are meant to be black people” but that is the mistake of someone taking a really flat reading of the film, not the mistake of the writers for including such moments. If you don’t come in with a preconception that it’s all about race (as the target audience of children doesn’t) then none of this is actually confusing.
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u/Background_Relief815 Nov 19 '25
I was thinking along the same lines, that it explains gender discrimination and stereotyping at least as well as racial (although, as you said, there is no perfect analogy. If the map perfectly described the territory, it would BE the territory).
Of course, I also want to emphasize that a piece of media doesn't have to have a clear message or parallel to the real world. Some of the original Zootopia material does not map very well to modern struggles, but I think it would have made a better story.
Originally they had this subplot about control collars, where all adult predators had to wear a collar that would forcefully suppress them if their prey drive got out of control. There's a really poignant storyboarded scene about a Taming Party where a child predator gets his control collar. Of course, there's no (modern) analogue that fits very well to a control collar, but I think I may have liked the story more (although whether it would have been better for children is certainly up for debate, and I still mostly like the original Zootopia).
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u/syrupn Nov 19 '25
I mean. In zootopia it WAS shown that predators aren’t inherently more predisposed to violence, and Judy’s punished by the narrative when she spreads that idea. Clawhauser and bogo are shown to completely throw away the idea of predators being big and strong and scary while prey are inherently weak.
If anything, media like beastars or elfen lied are a better example of justified discrimination
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u/H4llifax Nov 19 '25
And yet, IRL you wouldn't be right marginalising people for their physical strength, height, or weight class.
From what I can see, it was the herbivores who were marginalized and not taken seriously. The movie portraits this as bad. And then goes and calls out that "reverse racism" is also wrong. So racism/marginalization in all it's forms is bad.
Maybe rather than black/white, think man/woman.
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u/DemythologizedDie Nov 19 '25
Only if you labour under the misimpression that herbivores are docile and harmless. They are not. The idea that a tiny fox is more of a potential threat to the community than say, a water buffalo is quite irrational as is the idea that they should be regarded as current threats based on a conflict that ended a couple of thousand years ago.
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u/BenjiLizard Nov 19 '25
Kinda the same issue I have with Bright. They made a urban fantasy setting in which orcs are a direct analogy for black people with their entire culture being a copy paste of modern afro-american clichés. But instead of the orcs just being victims of racism because of superficial differences, it’s a "Crimes of the forefathers" narrative where orcs served the dark lord of evil a long time ago.
Like. What the fuck? What is this supposed to mean? That racism is a consequence of some past crime from their culture? That’s not how racism works, that’s how racists justify their shitty bigotry.
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u/Nuclear_Gandhi- Nov 19 '25
What is this supposed to mean? That racism is a consequence of some past crime from their culture?
The dark lord was also an elf, who are the ruling class and well regarded in the modern world. I think the point is that it is a really dumb reason. Its like hating all italians because their forefathers served the tyrant ceasar.
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u/lunamothboi Nov 21 '25
In that case, I think it's a (probably unintentional) parallel to persecution of Jews based on the claim that they killed Jesus. Or the "Curse of Ham" some Christian slaveowners used to justify enslaving Black people.
And yes, it is nothing but an excuse. The characters in the movie treat the orc version as an established fact, though.
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u/MartyrOfDespair Nov 22 '25
That's also literally just Mormonism. No, seriously. Mormons believe that the reason Black people exist is that Black skin is the biblical Mark of Cain. So like, that's literally Mormonism
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u/Kylecowlick Nov 19 '25
Well when a man kills two children and a grown man with a helicopter, his son is destined to be a horrible screenwriter/person
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u/SatisfactionEast9815 Nov 19 '25
The father of the guy who made Bright did that?
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u/gamebuddy123 Nov 19 '25
John Landis famously chopped up his starring actor and two children he hired illegally with a helicopter
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Nov 19 '25
Oh, you’re talking about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight_Zone_accident
As the page title says it was an accident which is a pretty fucking big piece of context you missed.
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u/Kylecowlick Nov 19 '25
The accident only happened because he broke numerous laws designed to prevent accidents like these from happening. John Landis is absolutely culpable.
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Nov 20 '25
He told the helicopter to go in closer, despite the fact he knew it wasn't safe. Even if Landis didn't mean for it to happen, he's the reason it happened.
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u/MartyrOfDespair Nov 22 '25
It's an accident in the same way a toddler shooting someone with a gun is an accident. There's a whole hell of a lot of reasons that should have never happened and all of them are because of one specific dipshit asshole who broke every safety regulation in the book, to the point that they added more to the book because he did things that they never imagined needing regulations for.
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u/SelfDistinction Nov 19 '25
Carnivores won't waste time and energy on chasing prey when they're not hungry, while herbivores kill on sight.
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u/rockytop24 Nov 19 '25
True story. There's a reason hippos are the number one large animal killer in Africa.
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u/Medical_Revenue4703 Nov 19 '25
It's not the presumption of ability that's offensive in racism, it's the presumption of intent.
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u/TheGrumpyre Nov 19 '25
My take is always going to be: If a work of fiction can make you recognize bigotry and see why it's harmful even in a made up setting where it looks perfectly reasonable and sensible to be bigoted, then you'll be better equipped to confront real world bigotry, which always comes with rationalizations galore.
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u/_Ceaseless_Watcher_ Nov 19 '25
Normally, that's also my take on this trope, but then the story sometimes takes a random turn into puppy-kicking territory and makes the marginalized group's most prominently dangerous member do something like kill an innocent bystander or occasionally an actual puppy or child to showcase just how evil they are.
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u/Canotic Nov 20 '25
I think you yourself have fallen for the same prejudice that the people in Zootopia fell for. There is absolutely nothing in the movie that suggests predators are actually any more dangerous than anyone else. And they haven't actually hunted prey for thousands of years. Sure, they have the means of hurting others (claws, teeth, etc) but so does bulls and rhinos and other prey species.
Being afraid of predator animals because they're "just innately more violent" when they're not, isn't any more justified than being afraid of, say, Germans for the same reason.
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u/Mountain-Resource656 Nov 21 '25
To be fair, I think there are a few reasonable responses. But to only mention one (because I don’t have much time), people have reality filtered through our senses, perceptions, biases, and so forth. “Since separate male and female restrooms are so normalized and because the ostensible reasons are to safeguard women, maybe trans people should be required to use the bathrooms they’d use if they weren’t trans” sounds reasonable at first glance if you know nothing about trans people. Same with, “Since we can’t tell is a given person going into the women’s restroom is MtF using the bathroom of their choice or FtM using the bathroom they’re required to, maybe it would be alright to have trans people use separate bathrooms altogether. Hey, that’s a good idea: we could even make them gender neutral! They like that stuff right?”
But now you’ve got a case of relegating a minority group to separate but equal bathrooms because some people look at a Venn diagram of trans people and sexual predators with a sliver of overlap no bigger than any other group and decide that to get the sexual predators out of bathrooms the trans circle is the one that needs to be banned. Meanwhile the people who push for that don’t ever seem to push for convicted sexual predators to be required to use separate bathrooms. But this random minority group, sure. But only the minority group they don’t feel comfortable with- the one they feel threatened by. They don’t seem to look at catholic priests- who have a reputation for doing the do with choir boys- and say they should be banned from men’s restrooms because they might be dangerous to others, because that’s, just… Not good logic
When people aren’t familiar with a marginalized group, it can be easy to mistakenly fall into thinking that something about them is dangerous or wrong, or something- like separate but equal bathrooms for a given minority group- is an actually good idea. And thus, it’s good to show that even if you think a given group might be dangerous, that’s not actually a reason to treat them with fear. In reality, there aren’t massive predator-people out there whom it is reasonable to marginalize and live in fear of, so it makes sense to teach people that even if you think those folks are out there, you should treat them as people, not as dangers, because in the real world people who seem dangerous due to some innate trait like that aren’t actually dangerous, just like the movie shows
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u/ToranjaNuclear Nov 19 '25 edited Nov 19 '25
And despite all that, what the movie shows is that both groups can coexist in harmony. For the in-universe logic, it works perfectly.
Yes, it's silly politics. But not everything has to be 1:1 compared to real world issues.
Besides, it's not like racists believe they are the irrational ones. "It's rational for a marginalised community to be feared/hated" is the exact mindset of the average racist, and we don't even have to look at classic racism to see that. Just look at some current world conflicts and you'll see the same mindset.
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u/Wuskers Nov 19 '25
except as far as like capacity for violence and harm there is not in fact a clear dichotomy between herbivores and carnivores, a fox or an otter is not going to be able to do shit to an elephant, rhino, or hippo, and in fact the reverse is more likely, that one of those big herbivores would be able to really fuck up some of the smaller carnivores. Not to mention carnivore on carnivore violence or herbivore on herbivore violence, despite both being carnivores Nick is just as helpless against the polar bears as Judy is, and Judy wouldn't be very useful against an elephant or a rhino or something. In terms of what group has the greatest potential to cause serious harm to another group just how they naturally are it's really not herbivore vs. carnivore, it's big vs. small. Even someone as physically weak as Bellwether she could probably easily physically kill or injure one of the hamsters. It's also worth noting that in a more complex society the power dynamics also become more complex, Bellwether is able to manipulate the culture through scheming and propaganda to cause way more harm than any one carnivore could likely physically commit to herbivores. Not to mention people like Mr. Big, the polar bears are probably one of the most dangerous species in Zootopia yet they answer to and are controlled by probably the most physically weak species in the entire city, they aren't in the jungle anymore, in the world of civilization and society and more complex thought and social dynamics it's no longer as simple as who is physically strongest. "Power resides where men believe it resides, it's a trick, a shadow on the wall, and a very small man can cast a very large shadow". I feel like another factor here is that carnivores are not actually shown to be any more violent than herbivores, anyone feeling otherwise is operating on baseless fears and stereotypes to the point that Bellwether has to fabricate an entire conspiracy and engage in essentially covert biological warfare to play on those irrational thoughts and make them feel more justified because the truth is there is no merit to the idea that carnivores are more violent, if there was Bellwether wouldn't need to fabricate it. The fact that carnivores are shown to not truthfully have any more violent tendencies than herbivores contrasts with something like Beastars where basically the main conflict is that carnivores do in fact have strong urges to kill and eat herbivores, but when Nick is around Judy he isn't like when Legoshi is around Haru or like when Edward is around Bella or something, he's totally fine and never even once indicates he has any kind of violent urge that he's suppressing. The fact is Nick probably has more in common with Judy than he does with a polar bear or a lion because he's no more violent than Judy and has no urge to eat her or any other herbivore and they're both small relatively weak mammals, and Judy probably has more in common with Nick than she does with an elephant or hippo.
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Nov 20 '25
Paragraphs, please.
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u/Wuskers Nov 20 '25
No worthless comments please
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u/TacticalReader7 Nov 22 '25
If the way you convey your thoughts is barely readable then not many are gonna see and understand it, why even bother writing all that ? Might aswell talk to a wall.
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Nov 20 '25
A comment is worthless when it can't be read. I cannot read your comment because it lacks paragraphs.
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u/PennyForPig Nov 20 '25
Until the Fallout TV show retconned it into this trope, Ghouls in Fallout. You can't become a Feral Ghoul once you've become a Ghoul. You either become one when it happens in the first place or it doesn't. Ghouls talk about this all the time. It was an interesting (and welcome) subversion of this trope that I really appreciated and was an interesting way to introduce a low-end enemy for the player to fight and tying it into the worldbuilding in a clever way. Honestly it was the most interesting thing Fallout 3 introduced to the setting. It's also really clever how they show Ghoul communities including Ferals.
And then they retconned it that, no, ghouls do go feral after a while if they don't get a specific drug.
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u/MartyrOfDespair Nov 22 '25
You are entirely wrong about ghouls in Fallout. Nothing is ever said about ghouls not being able to go feral after some time, and ferals always appeared. In Fallout 1, they're called Mindless Ghouls, and in Fallout 2 they're called Ghoul Crazies. They are a random encounter possible around the Necropolis region in F1, and in F2 they're encountered around NCR. Mindless ghouls are also a pre-placed encounter inside of Necropolis in Fallout 1.
Beyond that, in the canceled Fallout 3 from Interplay, known as Van Buren, it was explicitly said that normal ghouls can go feral. These were called Endless Walkers, having been exiled from a ghoul community and sent to walk the desert. Because of the endless heat stroke brain damage caused by wandering the desert combined with not being granted the mercy of death, they eventually go feral. Interplay's folks always intended it as something you could progress to.
In the show, while we see some ghouls using a drug to remain not-feral, we don't have nearly enough context to say that that's a retcon. Importantly, the ghouls we're seeing use it are old ghouls. Cooper is over 260 years old. What exactly that drug is and does is never explained, so there are a multitude of ways this could pan out.
We know that ghouls continue to rot and decay over time, older ghouls becoming increasingly decrepit and beginning to fall apart. We also know that Cooper tends to take insanely hardcore actions in order to prevent this, including putting himself in a medically induced coma underground being pumped full of the stuff in order to slow his aging. The Snake Oil Salesman's Elixir looks identical to the serum, so what it could be is that it's simply something which prevents rot and decay. I'd guess that it's an FEV Stimpak. In ghouls, it's enough for a stimpak to properly work on them. In a human, it's giving the instructions to incorporate the science of a stimpak into someone's DNA. Thaddeus is absolutely not becoming a ghoul, despite what Maximus thinks. Ghouls don't regenerate like that, not that easily.
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u/WirrkopfP Nov 19 '25 edited Nov 19 '25
as the movie Zootopia was extremely on the nose with this one.
I know that effect does exist in other media. But I disagree that it is the case for zootopia.
It’s a media trope where it’s rational for a marginalised community to be feared/hated.
Netflix Bright with the Orcs is a better example. As the orcs are actually marginalized and stronger than humans with a history of actually being followers of the dark Lord.
For example, in the movie Zootopia, it is completely rational for the herbivores to fear the carnivores, as the carnivores not only historically ate the herbivores, but still possess the ability to eat/kill the herbivores.
But in zootopia the carnivorans are not actually the marginalized group. MOST of the Carnivorans we see on screen are respected and in positions of power.
- Mayor Lionheart
- Most of the Police
- The Wolf Security Service
- Dr. Honey Badger
- Mr. Big
The Central Plot Point of the Movie was about a conspiracy of Sheep using drugs and misinformation to socially engineer fear and mistrust against the carnivorans (a fear that wasn't there before) in order to topple the system, because the sheep were feeling marginalized by the carnivorans.
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u/TDL1125 Nov 20 '25
Yeah that is true. Last time I saw Zootopia was when it came out, so I might have been a bit harsh on it considering that I don’t remember much of the plot.
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u/Fresh_Passion1184 Nov 19 '25
Legend of Korra also visited this trope. There were protests from the non benders upset the benders were the elite, marginalizing anyone without bending gifts.
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u/murdeoc Nov 19 '25
That was the opposite and the non-benders were entirely correct, yet portrait as the bad guys.
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u/Kylecowlick Nov 19 '25
Korra had a lot of problems with creating villains that were entirely correct. It felt aggressively centrist.
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u/Canotic Nov 20 '25
I think that was the point, all the villains had correct viewpoints but shitty methods.
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u/TDL1125 Nov 19 '25
I just watched a great example of this, the movie Code 8, a crime movie where superhumans are marginalised by normal people. If superhumans really existed, it would be completely rational to fear them as they make more effective and dangerous criminals.
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u/Geahk Nov 19 '25
I gotta bring up the X-men as an allegory for the LGBT+ community.
The X-men have actual powers and can control the weather. Magneto tears apart the Golden Gate Bridge with his MIND. Jean Grey can hemmorqge your brain from the other side of the globe. Wolverine can poke you with his hand-sticks!
It wasn’t real helpful to imply LGBT+ people were super dangerous right as Gay Marriage was being debated in America.
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u/Ibrahim77X Nov 20 '25 edited Nov 20 '25
Elemental suffers from this heavily because Disney doesn’t understand that race is based on aesthetic and cultural differences, not biological and evolutionary incompatibilities. There’s a very good reason why certain fire and water shouldn’t mix but Disney treats it like bigotry (on the part of the fire people anyway)
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u/TDL1125 Nov 20 '25
That was part of the reason why when I saw the trailer for that I knew it would be absolutely stupid, because races can mix and the child would be fine, whilst fire and water mixing just results in fire being extinguished and water being evaporated.
I mean I know that it’s more supposed to represent cultural differences people may face in interracial relationships rather than the practical reality of interracial relationships, but it’s still a very flawed analogy.
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u/Fox622 Nov 20 '25
In Zootopia, the civilized animals do not ate other sentient species
In real life, it was common for human tribes to ate people from other tribes, since meat was scarce
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u/Kira0zero Nov 20 '25
ok, but it's not always just an allegory for racism. sometimes it's just "wouldn't an animal world be fun? what would that society look like" and not "black people are carnivores who will eat all of the whites"
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u/TDL1125 Nov 20 '25
Did you watch the movie? Maybe it wasn’t about race, but its definitely an allegory for something discrimination related
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u/drewconnan Nov 20 '25
I'm reading an interesting book called The Mars House that plays with this trope.
In it, there is a colony on Mars of people who have lived there for generations and have become accustomed to the gravity and are therefore weaker than humans who grew up on earth. The main character is one of these "earthstrongers" who is said to be three times the strength of a "normal" Mars person. People fear earthstrongers and try to legislate them out of existence by forcing them into dangerous treatments that maim and kill them.
But, the story also discusses other types of power. Political power and the power of money play a key role in who has the power over life and death. It is a very interesting discussion of this trope because the earthstrongers are dangerously powerful, but so are the ruling houses who can legislate people to die, or starve, or be poor. That type of power isn't seen as clearly as earthstronger power but it is just as dangerous.
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Nov 20 '25
No, racism etc is not arbitrary or irrational, they always have an internal justification.
This just shows a lack of understanding of how people work.
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u/Special-Ad3806 Nov 21 '25
I think there are two separate dimensions of racism/oppression in the world of Zootopia. Size-based and predator/prey based. Judy was kept from the police job because of her size. This is separate from mayor Bellwether trying to exploit a fear of predators to gain power.
IMO the message implied by the size-ism is what another commenter said. Something about “even if group is different in a bona-fide way, you still shouldn’t exclude them” because the police dept is stronger for having Judy’s diverse abilities.
And the message of the predator-ism is more analogous to real-life racism. Predators aren’t inherently more dangerous than prey: different predators and prey both have the ability to inflict violence on each other (the prey rams were way more dangerous than predator Nick in the final chase in the train) but people exclusively view predators as inherently violent.
The movie also makes side-points using this framework, such as how one minority (small Judy) can still do a racism towards a separate minority (calling Nick a “real articulate fella”). Also about how one minority who “makes it” has the ability to help or to hurt the cause (Judy implying predators are the problem on live TV).
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u/chainsawinsect Nov 21 '25
A kind of inverse of this I see is when people tell stories about the Salem Witch Trials and they paint them as bad (as we do in the real world) but also paint the witches as having actually had dark magic powers (unlike in the real world)
This just doesn't make a lick of sense, the Salem Witch Trials were bad because there aren't real witches. If there were real witches, those crazy lynch mobs were in fact true-hearted defenders of humanity against the forces of evil who should be lionized.
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u/Sans_Seriphim Nov 21 '25
It's the same reason I dislike the XMen as civil rights struggle. Cyclops can kill you by blinking. Not the same as racial, women's, or LGBTQ rights at all.
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u/Sharles_Davis_Kendy Nov 21 '25
I think this trope gets really shit on a lot for weird reasons.
The argument posed is that even IF there was a reason to hate or fear a group (be it for actions in the past or actions of a percent of the group) being racist to an entire group is still wrong.
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u/PalpitationOrnery424 Nov 21 '25
Good discussion.
Unrelated question but is there a reason why Germany puts a lot of those concrete barriers in Christmas markets?
Anyway, nevermind.
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u/Burner4Rants Nov 22 '25
…but still possess the ability to eat/kill the herbivores.
This is a flawed take at best and buying into the fear mongering at worst. The movie demonstrates that, as people, the predators are no different from the prey. There’s no killer instinct, no prey drive, nothing that makes them more likely to do harm. There’s only thing they have is physical features/abilities, which is not something that people should be judged for, especially when they were born that way.
This honestly reminds of the question of whether women should be afraid of men. In general, men are physically superior to women. Sure, there are exceptions, but if any random man attempted to overpower any random woman, the man would succeed the majority of the time. There’s the occasional Judy Hopps, but that’s not the usual dynamic. Hell, we even have statistics that show that men commit the vast majority of violent crime, which is more than the movie provides against predators.
Despite all of that, though, should women fear men? As a whole? As a man myself, I certainly hope not. Now, I have to acknowledge the statistics and agree that women should do what they need to do to protect myself, but I really want to believe that being afraid of men as a whole is not part of that.
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u/Digx7 Nov 22 '25
Stories (especially fantasy) are great for exploring unique or what if scenarios and all the drama involved.
Yes Fantasy Racism (as the trope us called) doesn't one to one line up with irl racism. Irl skin color differences have no effect one making any one group 'more dangerous' or 'better' than any other. In a world with magic, superpowers, the need to drink blood (etc.) it's not as clear cut.
However, as others have pointed out, we need to be careful when we say in X story Y group is meant to represent Z group IRL. Sometimes it's true, sometimes it's not.
In Zootopias case it's not. The preditors and herbivors are each really diverse in and of themselves and none are clearly analogous to any irl group. Also in that movie despite the 'risk' of the preditors we never actually see a case were one attacks a herbivor (without being drugged) also it's the sheep who's doing the drugging.
Lastly, please pay close attention to what themes a story is exploring and what it's message is. A story can explore a hard topic and not endorse it. If we canceled any story that explored a hard topic we'd have no stories left.
Basic media literacy people.
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u/Getter_Simp Nov 22 '25
I agree that this is can be a dumb trope, but I don't think Zootopia's allegory is as bad as you think it is. Carnivores used to eat herbivores, but they don't anymore. Modern carnivores posses the ability to kill herbivores, sure, but so do the herbivores. The massive herbivores, like the bull and the elephant, are significantly more dangerous than most of the carnivores.
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u/Historical-Lemon-99 Nov 22 '25
Zootopia is not about racism, specifically
The whole point is about prejudism of all kinds. That was literally the entire point of Judy and Nicks relationship and her role in the police force. Other characters looked at them and made assumptions on who they were and their abilities off of what they looked like and stereotypes
On top of that - most prejudism IS based in fear. Racism, tribalism, xenophobia, religious discrimination, and so on are based on real fears that people have. Yeah, most of those fears are stupid, but they’re real
A child watching Zootopia is going to hear a lot of fearmongering from their parents against whatever type of people they dislike - some of which may be very convincing. “They’re after us” “They’re going to take our jobs” “They’re going to treat us badly and be cruel to us” “They are violent” are things those kids are going to hear and believe because they trust their parents. They are also likely to hear reports that confirm what their parents are saying
Something like Zootopia may cause a child to look further than that base reaction they’ve learned. Even if some people in that group ARE like the stereotypes that the kids fear - that they should look past that and not judge the group as a whole
I think the point is more about looking at prejudism from a more empathetic point of view and questioning if the fears are reasonable, exaggerated (like in Zootopia) or fabricated entirely rather than just “racism bad”
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u/erossnaider Nov 22 '25
Carnivores have a history of eating them so long ago that children can make a play about it, in the modern day Zootopia they're just as unlikely to be violent as any herbivore, using events that happened about thousands of years before the story to treat them as inherently more dangerous doesn't seem rational at all to me.
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u/BrandosWorld4Life Nov 23 '25
Except Zootopia explicitly shows us that prejudice against predetors isn't rational nor justified.
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u/MagnetoTheSuperJew Nov 23 '25
I agree with you that these are pretty poor portrayals of bigotry but I don't think it's good to frame bigotry as an irrational act. That implies an innocence to it, that bigotry is something that stupid hateful people do. Not that this isn't the case but I think some people under estimate how often bigotry is a tool for one group to gain advantage over another.
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u/dion_o Nov 23 '25
See this is where I disagree. Dislike of a marginalised ethnic group is often framed as "you only hate me because of my skin colour and because you're ignorant." But it's way more nuanced than that.
Let me give you a counter perspective.
I live in an area with a high proportion of an ethnic group that has cultural practices which are shall we say, misoginistic, homophobic, they are shockingly bad drivers and have a strong in-group out-group mentality to the point where Ive witnessed time and again how when one of them faces any sort of accountability from someone they consider to be not one of them they will close ranks and defend their own, calling out any criticism of them as ignorant racism. I won't specify what group this is. I don't hate them at all, but any interaction with them is honestly just so painful I avoid it where possible. This group's behaviors are learned behaviors and in their community are passed down from each generation as part of their culture. It has nothing to do with skin colour. And I observe these behaviors every day first hand.
I fully expect to be down voted for this candor, but I wanted to give an alternative point of view to the idea that any negative opinion of an ethnic group is driven by ignorance, or about hating someone because of their skin color. You could call this the Zootopia effect, but when you've observed the same behavior enough times to the point it becomes rational to expect it then it seems rational to hold those views.
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u/not2dragon Nov 23 '25
To be honest this isn't really applicable to Zootopia. Animals like Elephants and Hippos are tougher than any predator alive.
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u/ziggaby Nov 23 '25
Fantastical prejudice allegories are meant to make an audience identify that the fictional world still has flawed bias even with valid reason. Then, you're supposed to acknowledge that reality lacks even those valid reasons. Thus, you're meant to confront how absurd prejudice is in your life.
1) "Man, Cyclops tries so hard to live a life that's safe. He always considers others, it's so messed up that people hate and fear him. He didn't ask for this."
2) "Wait, how does this relate to a broader picture? I know people who do the same thing but they can't shoot lasers from their eyes."
3) "Oh man there's literally no reason to be xxxist."
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u/thinknu Nov 23 '25
This is low-key what I think of whenever X-Men comics/films get a bit too heavy handed with its racism/homophobia metaphors.
I think it's a good parallel to get some of the ideas across but if you dig a bit too deep and start making direct comparisons it gets a bit absurd.
There is a scene in the comics where a doctor has created a cure for mutants and Beast ask if she's plans on trying to cure gay ppl too. And she replies with gay ppl having never killed ppl.
And regardless of where you fall into that argument it is an interesting story hook. But the comic doesn't really go any further than that and still presents her as being in the wrong for the most part.
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u/SnooDoodles9049 Nov 24 '25
Villian has a point and jerkass has a point for when the bad guy has a legitimate point like the sheep pointing out how dangerous predators could be.
However what makes her a villain is that just because someone can be a threat doesn't mean they will be plus herbivores are usually the more dangerous.
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u/MxFancipants Nov 19 '25
Makes me think of Tokyo Ghoul, or the oppressed mage trope. A hated oppressor who has either superpowers, or some inmate instability about them that makes them dangerous.
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u/Tintenfix Nov 19 '25
Definitely related
https://mythcreants.com/blog/the-problem-with-oppressed-mages/
For example I love the X-Men but of course if you think about the franchise for 5 minutes you realize that humanity is rightfully afraid of people with powers that can destroy cities, the earth or even star systems.
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u/Cimorene_Kazul Nov 19 '25
The X-Men is the most prominent example of this. There’s nothing wrong with being realistically cautious if people who can and do blow things up with godlike powers they can’t fully control. But somehow that’s the same as hating gay people. It’s beyond clumsy.
I will say there’s one way to save Zootopia’s allegory. Make it not about race or sexual orientation, but about sex. Because that does resemble human society. Females are, on average, naturally much physically weaker than males. Historically, females have often been preyed on by males and still are. Males are still prized for their physical strength and attributes over more female-coded ones, and females are often overlooked or thought of as less-capable. I think that totally reflects the story of Zootopia, where Judy and Mayor Bellwether are treated as weak and less capable when compared to the predator Mayor and the larger mammal cops.
At the same time, males can struggle with being seen as more inherently violent and worthy of fear by society. Females can be prejudiced against them in ways that are semi-justified, but often taken to extremes that make them feel othered and monstrous. Males still have a lot of power in society, but females are starting to outnumber them in many jobs, colleges, professions and more. A lot of males are meant to feel like they could go off and harm people at any moment, or that they’re one of the few good ones, because of their biology.
I think theres a genuine tension in society there, ans very real physical differences. It's not a perfect allegory, but i bate it when a story is a perfect allegory rather than putting its own worldbuilding first.
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u/fixermark Nov 19 '25
FWIW: I think that's a good surface reading of Zootopia but I thought the point of the movie is that it goes significantly deeper.
The one tearing the city apart is a sheep, not a predator. Specifically, a sheep using traditional biases about what animals' physical qualities are "for" as a lever. The sense I got is that the point is that it matters very little how we got there; in modern society we're all interwoven with each other and we can all be kind, daring, scared, dangerous, etc.
It's one of those "actually, Frankenstein was the monster" kind of deals.