Whiteness and the Postracial Imaginary in Disney’s Zootopia

Abstract

Drawing from strategic whiteness and postracism as critical frames, and utilizing critical rhetorical analysis, this manuscript argues that the 2016 Disney animated hit film Zootopia is a postracial narrative developed by the White imagination to embody an ideal diversity that sustains whiteness. This project seeks to expose how, within the film Zootopia, whiteness toils as a strategic rhetoric to maintain its dominance, benefiting logics of postracism that hinder White liability and any possibilities for White ally-ship. This project offers two identified primary themes. First, the metropolis, Zootopia, is strategically constructed a postracial space of the White imaginary. Second, the film reinscribes racial “Otherness” on Black masculine bodies while centralizing whiteness and romanticizing racism through the common anti-racist White hero trope.

Keywords:

• critical rhetoric
• Disney
• postracial
• postracism
• whiteness
• Zootopia

Acknowledgments

The author would like to extend a thank you to anonymous reviewers as well as Drs. Alberto González and Andrew Donofrio for their insightful feedback that enhanced this research.

Notes

1 Like Cramer (2019), I identify people who contribute to and/or benefit from the cultural space of whiteness by referring to individuals as those who “occupy White positionality” and “occupy whiteness” or a variation of these terms rather than as “White” (Nakayama & Krizek, 1995). Consistent with American Psychological Association formatting, I capitalize “White” but not “whiteness” to identify “White” as a racial identification and cultural location and to call attention to its significance.

2 Zootopia is referred to as Zootropolis in the United Kingdom.

3 The film is referencing then-Senator Joe Biden’s comments about then-Senator Barack Obama during the 2007 presidential campaign in which he stated, “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man.” Biden’s remarks were widely understood as racist, so he administered a public and personal apology to Obama (Thai & Barrett, 2007).