4 ms·

Some critics brought this up, but the more overt message of Elemental actually makes things worse. Think about it. In real life, skin color doesn’t do… anythin

Some critics brought this up, but the more overt message of Elemental actually makes things worse. Think about it. In real life, skin color doesn’t do… anything. It’s just a stupid way humans distinguish between each other. Elemental - the two “races” can literally annihilate each other on contact. It would be like if we had humans made from matter and antimatter. “Racism” in such a world is completely justified and a matter of survival - what message does that send if you are meant to read it as a racial allegory? It makes no sense.

yowzadave 3y ago
Zootopia had this same problem. I believe we were supposed to see the “predators” and “prey” as allegories to racial groups and the tensions between them. But predators were literally killing and eating the prey! The prey were right to be afraid! If you were a rabbit I would not counsel you to become best friends with a fox, regardless of the assurances he provides you.
- c_crank 3y ago
  An observation that will make Zootopia much more enjoyable is realizing that the predators and prey don't map onto racial groups and aren't intended to be seen that way.
  - gjsman-1000 3y ago
    I don’t know, plenty of film critics as well as political review sites interpreted it that way; and no creative member behind the movie ever said that it was not meant to be somewhat correlated. Which as Vox pointed, is fairly problematic because the lack of an official statement means that not viewing it as a racial allegory is simply a matter of an opinionated interpretation that a true racist could disagree with, without any contradiction.
    - c_crank 3y ago
      Without bringing highly opinionated interpretations into it, Nick Wild is voiced by a white man doing a white southern accent. The number of characters voiced by black men is not very high.
  - mcphage 3y ago
    That was my frustration with the discourse around Zootopia when it released—people complained that the predator / prey distinction mapped badly onto US racial issues. But that was just people wanting the movie to be a thing which it wasn't, and then complaining that it didn't work.

yowzadave 3y ago

Zootopia had this same problem. I believe we were supposed to see the “predators” and “prey” as allegories to racial groups and the tensions between them. But predators were literally killing and eating the prey! The prey were right to be afraid! If you were a rabbit I would not counsel you to become best friends with a fox, regardless of the assurances he provides you.

c_crank 3y ago
An observation that will make Zootopia much more enjoyable is realizing that the predators and prey don't map onto racial groups and aren't intended to be seen that way.
- gjsman-1000 3y ago
  I don’t know, plenty of film critics as well as political review sites interpreted it that way; and no creative member behind the movie ever said that it was not meant to be somewhat correlated. Which as Vox pointed, is fairly problematic because the lack of an official statement means that not viewing it as a racial allegory is simply a matter of an opinionated interpretation that a true racist could disagree with, without any contradiction.
  - c_crank 3y ago
    Without bringing highly opinionated interpretations into it, Nick Wild is voiced by a white man doing a white southern accent. The number of characters voiced by black men is not very high.
- mcphage 3y ago
  That was my frustration with the discourse around Zootopia when it released—people complained that the predator / prey distinction mapped badly onto US racial issues. But that was just people wanting the movie to be a thing which it wasn't, and then complaining that it didn't work.