# The parallels to the civil rights era within Zootopia



## Drexel97 (Mar 10, 2016)

OK so there may or may not be spoilers in this post, I really like getting in depth with it so I like discussing things that may spoil it for someone that hasn't seen the movie so, just fair warning. 

So obviously the theme of Zootopia is to avoid stereotyping or oppressing another species because of what is "expected" of that species to do. Or if you want to compare to people, its racism.

One of my favorite scenes is the one where Nick is trying to buy a jumbo pop from an Elephant ice cream store. 

Before watching the movie, I had visited the civil rights museum here in Memphis, my home town, and there is one part of the museum where there is a diner, and TVs showing how unfortunately African Americans were beaten, had cigarettes put out on them, were just generally disrespected because the diner had a sign they "reserve the right to refuse service to anyone" just like in this scene.

The elephant refuses to serve nick his jumbo pop because he is a fox and isn't an elephant. Something I noticed is how the writers or animators or whoever made this decision for this scene, decided to make everything seem old fashioned, as if it was from the fiftys when the civil rights movement had occurred. The lady elephant behind him in line was dressed in fifty's attire, the entire shop was 50s themed. I just thought it was a nice touch of accuracy on the part of the creators of Zootopia.

Now could this be a coincidence? yeah, it could. But I don't think it is because of how high tech every other part of Zootopia is. It seems like there is some animal in the background on his or her cellphone in almost every scene in the movie, why not this one? I think they were just really trying to touch on how racism is wrong with that scene by putting it in a environment where it would have been historicaly accurate.

I also think that the elephant fennec was a hint at animals in the Zootopia being "trans species" similar to being transgender, but if that was the case it was way more subtle and up to interpretation, just figured I'd throw that in since its part of the same scene.

What are your thoughts on that scene or really any others where you noticed small details like that? I'd love to hear them. I really loved Zootopia, I've seen it four times and it hasn't even been out a week Haha. It has some flaws that I would love to discuss in another thread but over all I think it was well written, and holy crap the animation is stunning!


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