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Geo 1
Member since Apr 4, 2016
Recent Comments
Re: “Beasts of One Notion”
The guy gave Zootopia a less than stellar review because it didn't have the coherent message he wanted. He's one of two reviewers whose review was assigned a "Rotten" rating by Rotten Tomatoes. Relax. It's still an amazing film if you like it, and most people do.
Let's be fair, he DIDN'T fall into the trap of "Zootopia's racism is unclear because the metaphor breaks down when predators=(insert minority here)" that most negative reviews of this film do. That's a very America-centric interpretation of the film that speaks more to the narrow mindedness of the reviewer than the message of the film. I give Scott credit for looking at the film's consistency with itself instead of with his own notions of how the world works.
That being said, I disagree with him because the film explicitly states that you can't fit the world into neat little categorical boxes; a complex social problem can't be solved by a simple solution, but can begin with basic principles of how we treat one another. This is a fairly realistic take on how things actually work, and I like that the film mirrors that complexity by having no simple way to approach its message. If any of us looked back on a day in our lives and see it for what it really was, there would be mixed messages and muddied meanings. Some people fit the molds we imagine them to, others only partly so, and others break them entirely. Guess what? That's life, and as long as we continue to be humans, we'll always have this nasty little problem. It's our own effort that keeps us from devolving back into the reactionary, categorizing people our DNA tells us to be.
It ultimately comes down to our differences in what we like in our films. Scott wants a neat, tidy package that wraps itself up nicely. I don't mind the messy, newspapery collage around this one, and from the looks of it, so do most of you. If you dislike Scott's review, don't read him anymore. Or do, because it's sometimes good to hear things we disagree with.
There's no simple answer.