Last week Tuesday, one of my best friends and I finally made time to go watch it. We went in warning each other that we were both criers when it came to animated movies.

Not going to lie, we both cried during the film. It's really, really, good.

The movie combines concepts of meritocracy and diversity to actually talk about important social issues - which, for Disney and for many animated films, is fairly new. 

Disney's older films have been coming of age stories; films that talk about dreams and achieving those dreams, films that talk about family, films that talk about romance, films that are about exploration. These are all very common storybook, fairytale themes - while they're important to talk about, especially with children, I think that adults have a tendency to underestimate what children can handle. Trust me, as a sister to a 7 year old, my sister is one of the most perceptive and honest people I know. Children are naturally curious and I don't find it necessary to "dumb down" issues in order to talk to them. 

I think Disney has started to grasp that. The last three releases before Zootopia were Big Hero 6, Inside Out, and Frozen - and all three tackled the fairly heavy topic of mental health and depression. I imagine that Frozen's immense success prompted Disney to realize that they could make movies about real world issues and that they would still be successful and loved.

This fact is so ridiculously exciting to me - while Disney will always produce feel-good films, I am so excited that they have begun to talk about important real-world issues in an easily digestible way. Depression and mental health is a heavy topic but, as we now know, it's not as hard to talk about when there's also a comedic little red emotion that has fire for hair presented to us on screen.

Zootopia, at it's core, was a film about diversity - and prejudice. The film explores the differences between "prey" and "predator" and uses that relationship as a way to talk about prejudices - and frankly, racism. 

The main character, Judy Hopps, is a bunny that wants to be a real police officer, and while you find her optimism and character completely lovable, you also find her problematic later on. The other main character, Nick Wilde, is a fox who once had dreams but eventually gave into society's toxic labels because he couldn't find a way out.

The juxtaposition is so frighteningly clear. 

As a person of color, both of their stories were somewhat familiar. Judy overcame immense biases and prejudices in order to become a "real cop" because of her size and her species; Nick was bullied as a child for his species before giving into toxic labeling. Judy eventually showed her instinctual fear of predators - something that was unfortunately taught to her throughout her life, alienating Nick from her; Nick overcame his own personal issues and society's prejudices to achieve his dreams.

I will say, however, that there is one flaw in Zootopia's portrayal of racism: it's seemingly very individualistic, suggesting that racism can be cured by, well, just not being racist anymore, instead of focusing on systemic racism. There are hints of systemic racism scattered throughout the movie - questions that are left unanswered in which systemic racism would be the answer. For example, Judy's father continuously warns her against foxes, even providing her with fox pepper spray - but what causes him to be so prejudiced against foxes, if not systemic racism? What causes Chief Bogo, as well as the rest of Zootopia, to look down on Judy and her dreams, if not systemic racism? What causes the other children to bully Nick Wilde, if not systemic racism?

While it's never stated specifically, I think that as adults, we can fill in those blanks. And I think that if we go see this with children and they ask questions about it - which I have no doubt there will be children who at least question why Nick Wilde was bullied, if only because baby Nick Wilde is ridiculously adorable - it is our responsibility, as adults, to explain bullying, to explain prejudices, and to explain systemic racism.

It's a great movie. If you haven't seen it yet, go see it.

Also, appreciate the fact that the writers took every possible opportunity to make bad animal puns.

Have you seen Zootopia yet? What did you think?