Abstract
Nilsen’s chapter explores the ways in which the Walt Disney Animation Studios’ filmmakers created in Zootopia a colorblind narrative that utilizes nonhuman animated characters to promote the neoliberal myth of meritocracy. While the film has been explicitly marketed and roundly praised for its celebration of tolerance and its anti-bias messaging, Nilsen argues that the filmmakers anthropomorphized their animal characters to create a colorblind utopia where prey and predator live in harmony, while employing dehumanization to resurrect the racist stereotype of the violent, savage (super)predator. Nilsen argues that Zootopia illustrates the ways in which colorblind beliefs help justify the maintenance of systemic racism in our criminal justice system.
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Nilsen, S. (2019). Living in Zootopia: Tracking the Neoliberal Subject in a Colorblind World. In: Turner, S., Nilsen, S. (eds) The Myth of Colorblindness. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17447-7_4
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