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Fun fact: you're entirely correct when you say that it wouldn't be difficult to transplant the Ringing Bell's story unto one about people. Because that has been done. It's called the Vinland Saga. The story synopsis is almost word for word what happens in the Ringing Bell, except the Vinland Saga is a story about Vikings.
P R O B L E M A T I C! God I've grown to hate that word, implies and carries more weight than it really deserves. My critique of this video, not all metaphor is airtight, and sure perhaps these do have metaphor but you also must account for in-universe mechanics and logic, nor is society changed or "damaged" wooo cause stories like these are told, they aren't really problematic because most people get the baseline core massage, and the metaphor only falls apart under scrutiny these movies weren't really made to receive. also, stories aren't always their moral themes or propaganda, if we judged them purely on how airtight their themes were betrayed barely any move would be 100 percent consistent because humans aren't 100% with consistent, the parts important and good you'll walk away with because you are a human being, not a fucking drone programmed by media. EDIT also, a great many stories centered around animals and supposed racism metaphor can also be easily transcribed to the "nature vs nurture" metaphor easier which isn't inherently tied to themes of racism but is as easily applicable to these stories, also not every metaphor and meaning has to be tied to modern political things, kinda getting old. EDIT 2: Also another thing, by the innate nature of human beings, race or not, there are certain groups that don't nor will ever get along, either politically, religiously, or even yes ethnically, the Hindu's and Jews don't like the Muslims, a good percent of the native American Tribes had bitter rivalries, Catholics vs protestants, bad blood, bad history and to come into the middle and say both sides are wrong or right is a blunder on your part, humans by nature of having free will, will never get fully along, to force or make a moral judgment is folly because you deny a very part of your own nature, which is why the nature vs nurture metaphor is infinitely then muh racism....
The thing that always bugged me about Zootopia (and now Beastars) is ignoring the existence of omnivores and carnivores that only eat certain types of meat (like insects or fish) and would never be a threat to most other animals.
Indeed. To me, it felt weird in Beastars especially (although most works like that suffer from it) how omnivores are lumped in with either carnivores or herbivores (a single unit where often one has more in common with some carnivores than their "fellow" herbivores) based on their appearance. The arbitrary divide between human-animals and the rest of the animal kingdom (bugs, fish and so on); the many different lifestyles and diets being divided into 2 groups (and the need to uphold that binary system) is just nonsensical, if you think about it more deeply, especially when diet is 90% a social phenomena and animals are categorised by a system of derogatory visual values unique to humans. I think it ties into the general ignorance on animal diet and ecological relationships: Unless it's a hawk many people think all birds live on seeds and sunshine while singing kumbayah together. Nevermind scavengers smaller than pigeons hunting birds that you feed in winter, and some of the biggest being less vicious than sparrows. In the end it really is just an extension of valuing animals based on how their looks make humans feel rather than anything objective within nature itself. So even though the social moral within these shows' worlds is "murder is bad because all lives are (supposedly) equal", when only a handful of carnivores are seen as murderers and only some lives are seen as human the illusion crumbles. I guess the reason for my rant is that all these stories about animals are usually just about people dressed as animal, using a binary caricature of the natural world to portray what is often is a less nuanced human experience (than if we were to anthromorphise animals without a human lense), while not being aware of it. If anyone is reading this hope it makes a lick of sense!
There’s a soviet cartoon called « blue puppy » that i really liked as a kid. blue in russian is a synonym for gay and the story is about a blue puppy who is bullied by regular puppies because his fur is blue. eventually he finds a friend who loves and accepts him for who he is.
Tara Lang i don’t actually watch tv so idk if they still show it although it’s not really lgbt propaganda as it was originally about racism and well it has a nice message of accepting those who are different
@Tara Lang it's Soviet cartoon and the Soviet Union was was the first nation on earth to explicitly decriminalise homosexuality. However, at the time it was made 'blue' had not yet become popular slang for gay, so the moral of the cartoon was more likely to do with general 'different-ness'.
“Oh there’s a *them* now?” Is the only line in zootopia that always hits me though. It’s an obvious correlation to how people try to say “I’m not racist cause you’re not like them and you’re my friend aha” motif. And sadly there are still people like that. Zootopia in theory would’ve been great if they just erased all the “for kids” mindset.
Psst hey. You might like beastars. Might. It's the closest thing you'll get to zootopia but not for kids. Or maybe you'll hate it. I dunno. I dont know you you arent my friend. Whose to say I can guess what you would like.
*oH ThErEs A ThEm NoW* Yes, you dipshit, and you were part of them all because "Muh sad backstory" somehow justifies you living outside the law. This movie is so contrived, bipolar and downright mean-spirited, I seriously struggle to understand what in the fuck people see in it besides furries in cheap goofy gags and hamfisted morals. This moral relativism nonsense is pitiful because it's self-defeating. In the words of Joker, "Everyone is awful". Judy is awful because she's conceived and a hypocrite, Nick is awful because he's a con artist who deals with the mafia just because of ONE bullying accident in his childhood, so spare me the *tHeReS a ThEm NoW* bs, the police is awful because they're incompetent chauvinists, thrown there to make Judy look relatable. And this movie can't seem to pick whether it wants to be taken seriously or not. Seriously, fuck Zootopia.
@@CutiePieKindom someone made a comic where Nick and Judy were having a kid. She didnt want it because it'll affect her career or some stupid bullshit. They fight and Nick leaves. A really dumb and horrible comic.
The bee movies plot was quite literally "people(bees) being opressed stand up against their opression and then realize "no we liked being oppressed :)" and go back to it" i dont think theres much to say other than "what the fuck were you thinking seinfeld."
Bee movie is pro capitalist propaganda. A rich man showing that if the workers were given the fruits of their labor the whole system would collapse and lead to ruin for everyone. Bee a good worker. Work to earn the right to work. The fact that Seinfeld chose bees, natures communists, is to show that even the most communal animal would benefit more from capitalism. Thee Bee Movie is propaganda! Reject the bourgeoisie!
Putting the racial implications aside and looking at it more literally, it seems a strange idea to go so far as to villainise/reform carnivores while herbivores are seen as naturally kind and benevolent beings. It makes sense when you humanise animals to some extent, but in a world where we as humans generally eat our share of meats, it's an odd thing to suddenly treat meat-eating as this awful thing.
I'm a zoologist, we do not use predator or prey to define animals for our research, we use carnivore, herbivore or omnivore, it is more accurate to classify an animal on what it eats. Yes, carnivores are hunters, but herbivores can either run away successfully, or fight back, a cape buffalo can cause serious harm to an African lion, or an American bison can kill a grey wolf. In the wild, carnivores eat mostly carrion, it's a effective strategy that gives carnivores easy food, hunting can be risky, and the reward is not guaranteed. There is something else left out of the thesis, a herbivore can be a destructive animal too, deer for example can deplete vegetation, they can keep on eating before the plants have time to grow back, the goat is the most destructive, they pull the roots out of the earth, they can turn a meadow into a desolate, moonscape. People assign predator and prey to humans as well, this is the problem with metaphors, they take abstract thoughts, and apply it to something that has no use for human symbolism, carnivores and herbivores do coexist together, better than most human civilizations in fact, so Zootopia does have some scientific fact.
Yeah, I feel that specially about that last film. Wild sheep can be pretty tough. Having a big, male sheep fight off a predator is not that unrealistic (fighting the whole pack is, but I assume that is the storytelling choices). Like, the reason domesticated sheep are not like that is because we MADE them to be like that through domestication (just as we did to canines. A pug is not nearly as agressive as a wild wolf). I think the lesson of the last movie, at least in my view, is that one does not have to inflict suffering on others to be "tough", or brave, or any of those qualities.
I've seen deer gang up on and try to kill a chained up dog for no good reason. Moose are easily as threatening as bears, if not moreso, if you run into one in the wild. Herbivores scare me much more than carnivores, at least carnivores operate on a basic ruleset that makes sense most of the time. Herbivores are nuts. Would like to see that portrayed in media sometime instead of herbivores being delicate prey all the time
@@Romanticoutlaw Generally speaking, herbivores will try to kill what they see as a threat to themselves, out of a deep fear. The deer probably equate (not without cause) the dog to a predator, and try to overpower him. It's like how buffalo will attack nursing lionesses in order to kill the baby lions.
Romantic Outlaw Yeah it annoys me when hippos are used for comedy sometimes when they are actually terrifying, and they hunt sharks or kill other herbivores for no reason, and are extremely dangerous to humans. They don't give a crap.
Another thing about Ringing Bell is the way Chirin's horns start growing out as he becomes more and more monster-like seems like an oni metaphor. Onis are basically monsters born of the most wicked aspects of human nature, many oni of legend being originally human who became those mystical monsters by the extremes of their human nature. Chirin may have had his revenge but by that time he became demonic in looks and nature which makes him unable to connect with his kin anymore. Given the oni metaphor it is indeed a story about people, but rather about racism, it is about the self destructive and overall altering nature of someone dedicating their entire existence to vengeance. Putting into a human situation it would be like a bandit from the mountains coming down and murdering Chirin's mother, who swears vengeance, and without any alternatives asks the killer to train him so he can have his revenge one day, then when eventually the day of vengeance comes he is too malformed from his original self that after succeeding with the deed he realizes he has nothing left, because he have sacrificed all possessions, human bonds and his very self to gain his chance of revenge. Basically it's a cautionary tale about the price of being consumed by revenge which makes sense given how prevalent was the concept of dedicating one's life to vengeance for a long period of time, which means their history and mythology too is filled with such stories.
I just realized that Ringing Bell and Vinland Saga have an extremely similar beginning (somebody shows up, kills protagonist's parent, protagonist follows and gets trained with the plan of getting revenge)
I remember being frustrated by these allegories from a young age. My racist aunt would tell me as a young girl that I should never date someone who wasn't white because "you'd never see a cat marry a dog." I eventually told her, "But you'd see an orange cat with a gray cat or a dalmatian with a German Shepherd." We are humans. Different humans, sure, with different experiences and cultures but we aren't separate species.
@@durratulaishah3703 You need to use a different genome map to sequence European, African, and Asian Lineages. And heterosis in humans is an anti-hypothesis.
@@durratulaishah3703 "In addition to endogeny [incest] being bad and easily apparent and solved (3rd cousin limit); xenogeny is profoundly bad, poorly studied, and impossible to cure". Humanity seems to be some strange converging set of races that can hybridise. Heterosis is the notion that xenogeny can have benefits like in the case of wolf-coyote hybrids. Those two species are effectively as related like Europeans are. There's no real problem. Most cases are like ring species or ligers that are either incompatible, weaker, or completely sterile. With humans "weaker", being more self-alienating, and more cancer prone is what happens. My thoughts is that the human genome is very synergistic or combo-oriented. Those combo "bonuses" fall apart like sand castles, and take many generation to rebuild. What are the chances of mutually exclusive genomes forming a "combo"?
Ringing Bell is much more transparently an allegory about Asia and Japan's experience of modernity. The wolves are the imperialist west, and the "becoming wolf" is the attempt to become modern by becoming an imperial power. Japan's leadership argued that its expansionism was in defense of Asia against Western predation, but the consequence was its ongoing alienation from its East Asian neighbors. The allegory is pretty straightforward.
Because he doesn't come from the culture the work was made in, he can't see that allagory. Some people impose an allagory of their own onto the work because they don't know what it's about.
@@WorthlessWinner I mean, the allegory that people become who they are by their choices rather than how they were born works just as well, if not even better than the one about Japanese modernity. In fact, the Japanese modernity story actually *FITS INTO* the allegory about how people are forged by their own choices: Just like Chirin grew into a monstrous beast because of his choices rather than how he was born, Japan was alienated from its East Asian neighbors because of deliberate choices to become modern via imperialism with the Western nations. Jack Saint's allegory, even if it wasn't the originally intended one, fits both Ringing Bell AND its actually intended metaphor.
Although it’s interesting to hear how people from other cultures may interpret a specific stories Allegory. You’re context makes perfect sense and honestly now that you’ve brought it up I find it hard to look at it any other way.
"A carnivore is not going to decide to take a prey animal under its wing because it reminds them of their own childhood experiences." Well, the last part is correct, in that animals can't conceptualize that sort of long-term self-concept thinking. But there's plenty of examples of carnivores taking prey animals under their wings: Cats who adopt ducks, for instance (even to the point of nursing them!), or that one big cat mum who kept adopting and attempting to protect baby gazelles (IIRC). It's interesting when you see these kinds of mixed instincts.
A rare occurance not enough to warrant any significant change. Unless you're talking about hermaphrodite frogs due to human made chemicals. 😂 Fuck the NWO.
There’s a Disney channel movie literally called “Z-O-M-B-I-E-S” and it tries and fails to be a race allegory The stand-in for the minorities are zombies, mindless monsters that eat human brains, _that can’t have horrible subtext and implications to it at all_ Let’s get the obvious stuff out of the way: the humans _built a wall_ to segregate themselves from the zombies (production began in 2017 just a reminder) and make them wear these bands so they can suppress their _zombie urges_ The movie tries to justify its race allegory by shoehorning a Romeo and Juliet love story between the zombie and human protagonists, and they try to that thing with where the human love interest has a birth defect everyone hates _but it’s actually beautiful and it’s what makes her special_ And the lesson they give is pretty awful too. When one of the side zombie characters gets pissed off at the discrimination, she’s put in the wrong and is told that if she fights back against the humans, _she’ll be just as bad as they are_ This is especially bad because what motivated the side zombie to fight back was when the human antagonist turned off their trigger bands, which basically reverted the zombies to their brain-eating instincts and put everyone in danger NO SHIT SHE WOULD WANT TO FIGHT BACK THE DISCRIMINATION And it’s even worse because we never learn what her plan was, so no one knew if it was going to cause harm like the human antagonist did (who BTW gets redeemed despite being a bigot who caused the conflict in the movie) On one hand, this is a Disney channel movie, so why should I expect nuance and substance? On the other hand... _BIG OOF_ Edit: there’s gonna a be a sequel now, but instead of making zombies the minorities, this time it’ll be _werewolves_ (can’t wait for Disney to milk the message with every single monster species out there)
The original concept was making an aliens vs. humans allegory, with the aliens designed as walking, talking anal probes, but Disney decided to put that on Hulu. It's called A-S-S-H-O-L-E-S.
@@jasper2739 So tod kills chief (the old dog), the hunter goes crazy trying to kill tod in revenge so he teaches the hound to ignore all other foxes but tod. Tod gets a family and has babies. Hunter gasses out the sen and kills babies. Hunter traps Todd's wife and kills her. Then all the foxes around get rabies and the hunter tries to poison them and kills a human child. Then the hound chases tod and tod dies from exhaustion. Then the hunter shoots the hound and goes and lives in a rest home
When a psychic cat less than a year old is more intelligent than a big part of the planet's dominant species. Sadly, it's as much true as it is a joke.
@@mrreyes5004 Bring yourself back down to earth for a couple seconds. Now repeat after me: The cat was fictional and its lines written by a team of actual people just like you.
He says as he became the most powerful pokemon in the world because circumstances of his birth. Strange how genetics is important till it becomes about people, then it is treated like poverty as just a temporary state that can be overcome.
@@SSJKenpachiZaraki I wrote that BECAUSE I was grounded in reality. You're the one mucking around in space, buddy. Not to mention it doesn't change the fact I'm still right about it, so... Deal with it.
I’m surprised that with all these animal race allegories there isn’t often much to do with dog breeds. There’s a lot of potential for stories that are completely solid race metaphors. The concept of purebreds and how it’s lead to a ton of genetic problems, the social devaluation of cross breeds, pit bull racism, all metaphors that line up pretty perfectly.
@@josephc.3192 kinda proving his point - most of the "dangerous dog" breeds aren't any more dangerous than any other, it's just they've been chosen by a certain group of people to be used for intimidation and violence. If you look in to dog fighting, the 'training' for them is essentially just abuse, and rewarding them with food if they win a fight with any other animal. Many rescued fight dogs, of all breeds and mongrels, can get rehabilitated and be wonderful pets. It's not the dogs that are dangerous, it's the owners. The genes/breed aren't the contributing factor, yet many countries still have these laws that will punish dogs for what people did to them, rather than targeting the criminals and societal issues responsible
Everyone says pitbulls because they're associated with poor black folks. But Bulldogs and Rottweilers are largely ignored because they're cute or "belong" to a special breed class. End rant haha
Now that I know the backstory of the creator of ringing Bell it makes more tragic... Creator of the story Takashi Yanase got put into the army as a young kid and changed forever. (Edits) When Takashi came back home he most likely had PTSD, and was a much colder person from all killing he did in the war. So he felt alienated from family and friends in his home town. Like alot of soldiers, they feel like they cannot return back to normal civilian life. It's VERY similar to how Tolkien felt after fighting in the war. So Ringing Bell is not about (Race) but more of story about losing innocence to average you're family (going to war) but having that change (War) turn you into a monster that cannot live with the people you fought to protect. It's truly sad!
It's a really interesting analogy if you think of the sheep as being japan itself,they were weak and being stepped on by the European powers so they sought to become like them,and as they did,they became something reprehensible
This could just be a rumor rather than fact, but I heard Takashi had to contend with literal child soldiers in mainland China, especially around poorer villages that couldn't offer up anything more than attempted militias. Being ordered to fight and kill literal children probably scarred him pretty badly, assuming any of this is true.
I'd add that it was about racism to a point, in that Japan being the perfect analogy to sheep, and "the west" that of the wolves. The Japanese were isolated and weak in comparison to the West until very recently historically, making the sheep vs wolves apt in the author's lifetime, as Japan raced to become "modern", but in doing so lost some of what it meant to be Japanese, especially so after WW2. So the story had dual layers, one of a soldier and another of change not always being desirable even if it means that they are equal to what scares them as a society.
Lily something clever I think the countries of East Asia that endured horrific war crimes in the hands of the Japanese would make the opposite argument.
He's totally right about the Fox and the Hound's original story. It is one of the saddest, most depressing things I've ever read. I kept hoping for some kind of moral by the end, but no, it's literally just a depressing story about a constantly depressing series of events, every nice thing that happens being immediately dashed across the rocks, until the end of the story, where the dog chases the fox till it dies of exhaustion, and the dog's owner puts him down afterwards. You can make sad, depressing things happen in your story, and it gives weight to the good things that happen in equal measure, but when the depressing shit is the WHOLE story?... It's the kindof book that, by the end, leaves you unsatisfied, sad, and wondering what the point even was.
Cardinal West has a great video on the original novel where he argues its deeper point is one of environmentalism, and how urbanization alienates humanity from nature. I would highly recommend you go watch it. For the record, I absolutely love the original novel, its my personal #1 favorite. Is it depressing, brutal, realistic? Yes, but I see that as a strength, it confronts some uncomfortable facts for some: nature isn't all cutesy, and environmental destruction affects more than just those wild animals-it affects humans negatively too.
@@wyattsteel411 Damn. I couldn't imagine considering that novel my favorite anything without a serious personal connection to it, because holy cow, most of it is brutally unnecessary, like the author was using the book as a vehicle to vent their negative thoughts about how unpleasant the world can be. Far be it from me to tell anyone what they can/can't like, but jfc life can be depressing enough without reading fiction that's deliberately depressing on top of it.
@@TATERplaysGAMES That's fair enough, depressing shit isn't for everybody. I personally find it useful as a mechanism for catharsis-it's often hard for me to cry, so dark media lets me release my sadness without letting it bottle up too much. If I don't know what I'm getting into or it comes out of the blue, that's just the worst though. Seen that way, I can get why many people don't like the book: they're looking at it through the lens of the film, and not its historical or meta context as a work of xenofiction and social commentary.
Humans ARE animals, we're a single species of animals. If you're going to use animals to talk about racism, use a SINGLE SPECIES. do it about blue rabbits and green rabbits
I think the reason we usually don't see it so straightforward is because it's just that, straightforward or too on the nose. At least i think that's what the creators think. So they get too creative and unfortunately a lot of the time the conceits aren't sustainable.
@@princejellyfish3945 I think that it is because there’s amlot of folklore association of certain animals with certain traits and such, and creators wanna lean into that.
@@naikigutierrez4279 Yea, like foxes being tricksters, rabbits being weak but quick, buffalo being plant-eaters but aggressively dangerous, etc. Unfortunately, it didn't really work well when the creators leaned into it.
This is why it makes me uncomfortable whenever fiction equates vampires or werewolves with minorities. Werewolves are creatures that turn into unrepentant killing machines when they get too angry and vampires need to literally suck the life out of other people to survive, if we were to coexist with them there are some legitimate concerns we would need to address and that’s just not a thing with actual minorities. Same thing with robots. If you wanna tell a story about how authentic we can make an AI before there’s no difference between them and us that’s fine. But please don’t frame their discrimination as real world racism, because “how human are they?” Is a question we really shouldn’t be asking about actual minorities.
an angle I'd like to see in modern fantasy is "werewolves are people too"--because they literally are, they just have a condition. And that condition doesn't mean they literally have to maul and ravage and destroy; we should end the "mindless killing machine" werewolf trope, as long as werewolves are meant to be an analogy. Perhaps liken it to something not *super* hot button, like mental health, as people tend to see people with, say, bpd as either dangerous monsters or the butt of a joke. Maybe bring in the terrible experiments and treatments done to people with mental disorders that have been attempts to "cure" them. There's plenty of territory to chart there that could be worked with. but as an analogy for race it's definitely a very thin line to walk for sure
Artemis Wolf There’s a feedback loop there, and not really a negative one. Queer people were (and are) often represented and treated as monsters, marginalised, and forced to live in the shadows. This makes creatures of the night both a natural allegory for us and often produces a certain attachment to those types of monsters in queer audiences. Same goes for antagonists in fiction - lots of queer coding going on there, traditionally. Writing werewolves/vampires/what-have-you as queer, or seeing those elements in monstrous characters, isn’t usually problematic so much as it can be liberating. Yes, werewolves are obligately violent once a month and vampires (originally an allegory for the upper class living in castles preying on peasants, which makes it fun to write them as marginalised) suck blood to survive, but as a queer person and a fan of horror I for one find much more to enjoy reading those types of stories than the idea that “queer people are monsters” simply because the monsters are often allegories for us. That’s not to say it can’t be problematic to allegorise people who’ve been called freaks and monsters their whole lives as such. But it isn’t cut and dried, and there’s a whole tradition of queer horror - of owning that perceived monstrousness - you miss out on if you dismiss monster allegories out of hand as harmful.
Not to mention vampires are also often used as alligory for the rich who suck the life from the common man. Vampires work best when you sorta like get rid of or ignore the whole "needing to literally suck someone's blood and kill someone" aspect like how some kids shows go out of their way to do but even then.
Romantic Outlaw My problem with that would be that werewolves are inherently more dangerous than an average human, in a way most people with mental illnesses just aren’t. So even if you write them to not be more aggressive in their wolf form they still have a Wolf form they can use to kill and that’s something you have to acknowledge.
Um... There ARE actually recorded cases of predators deciding to adopt young from other species, the one I remember, I think, was a stray cat and a young ferret? It is generally more intelligent and social ones but it does happen.
There was also a video of a cat adopting hatching ducklings on a farm. The cat had given birth just a few hours earlier, so the farmers assumed the nursing instincts did override the hunting instincts in that moment. The ducklings were even nursing on the cat. Pretty weird but adorable!
There a lioness that adopted a young gazelle, but the gazelle soon died as the lioness couldn't give it look and wouldn't allow it grass, instead hunting for it, and treating it like a cub (which did not help the case considering the difference in treatment a cub and foal can handle)
Was gonna mention this. It’s an interesting phenomenon to be sure. While I would be hesitant to ascribe any specific emotions to these behaviors it’s fascinating because there seems to be no evolutionary advantage to raising another species offspring. Even though it doesn’t happen super often it happens often enough in certain animals that it really makes me wonder how their minds and perspective as animals must be for them to be compelled to do this.
@@scarymonsterzz well we sometimes do this There's one comedian who made fun of how, in general, we'll think baby animals are cuter than actual human babies And this might be one way wolves and cats have affected us, we like the more social ones of them and they like the humans that adopted them as kittens or puppies
You're definitely underselling sheep if you think one couldn't fight toe to toe with a wolf. They're big and tough animals more than capable of being violent.
I don't know about that. I've seen sheep get slaughtered by coyotes, bobcats, even parrots! Yes, parrots. They eat the sheep alive and the stupid animal doesn't even fight back. Sheep are useless most of the time.
@@KFrost-fx7dt Then you have never seen a heard of sheep trample wolves to death. This is the key thing, sheep are heard animals. They work best as a group, while a single sheep can be put down by a group of predators.
@@Guciom No, I've never seen or heard of that. I have heard of sheep getting massacred by wolves and coyotes because they're so helpless, the predators go into a killing frenzy. It's why sheep ranchers keep big guardian dogs with their herds where I live.
Oh man, I remember the original premise of Zootopia (before it's script was reworked) was more morbid. The movie was going to be about a city where Predators and Prey live together, but Predators are forced to wear these collars that shock the shit out of them whenever they get too emotional (such as when they hunt) and Prey animals sit at the top like a Monarchy. The main Fox character was going to be the main protagonist in trying solve a mystery that framed him as a killer, while also trying to deconstruct the proverbial aristocracy and prove that his natural "urges" as a Predator don't define him. The bunny was just a sidekick in that version.
They decided against it because they realized they realized the audience would prefer the society they created burned to the ground rather than saved. It's in the extras on the DVD. A few scenes from this version as well.
> like a Matriarchy Hoo boy, thats a bad take if I've ever seen it. From you, I mean, for referring to it in that way. Women are not prey and men are not predators.
@@moredetonation3755 part of me's thinking they got their words mixed up and meant to say "monarchy" rather than "matriarchy", I could be wrong though that just seems logical given the context
Fun fact: you're entirely correct when you say that it wouldn't be difficult to transplant the Ringing Bell's story unto one about people. Because that has been done. It's called the Vinland Saga. The story synopsis is almost word for word what happens in the Ringing Bell, except the Vinland Saga is a story about Vikings.
Well, *SPOILERS FOR VINLAND SAGA* Thorfinn doesn’t get his revenge on Askeladd. Askeladd dies with a sense that it seems like the 2 actually cared about one another.
@@jonahj9519 MORE SPOILERS FOR VINLAND SAGA Askeladd did the exact same thing as Chirin and Thorfinn - he learned violence from people he absolutely hated (the Vikings) to the ultimate goal of protecting his own people (the Welsh) from harm.
Jack Saint : Please don't read "The fox and the hound" book summary Me: *immediately searches up "the fox and the hound" book summary* oh boy, is it dark
This is not for the faint of heart but it's definitely a fascinating read when comparing source material to Film Adaptation : "Copper, a bloodhound crossbred, was once the favorite among his Master's pack of hunting dogs in a rural country area. However, he now feels threatened by Chief, a younger, faster Black and Tan Coonhound. Copper hates Chief, who is taking Copper's place as pack leader. During a bear hunt, Chief protects the Master when the bear turns on him, while Copper is too afraid of the bear to confront him. The Master ignores Copper to heap praise on Chief and Copper's hatred and jealousy grow. Tod is a red fox kit, raised as a pet by one of the human hunters who killed his mother and litter mates. Tod initially enjoys his life, but when he reaches sexual maturity he returns to the wild. During his first year, he begins establishing his territory, and learns evasion techniques from being hunted by local farm dogs. One day, he comes across the Master's house and discovers that his presence sends the chained pack of dogs into a frustrated frenzy. He begins to delight in taunting them, until one day when Chief breaks his chain and chases him. The Master sees the dog escape and follows with Copper. As Chief skillfully trails the fox, Tod flees along a railroad track while a train is approaching, waiting to jump to safety until the last minute. Chief is killed by the train. With Chief buried and Master crying over a dead dog he trains Copper to ignore all foxes except for Tod. Over the span of the two animals' lives, man and dog hunt the fox, the Master using over a dozen hunting techniques in his quest for revenge. With each hunt, both dog and fox learn new tricks and methods to outsmart each other, Tod always escaping in the end. Tod mates with an older, experienced vixen who gives birth to a litter of kits. Before they are grown, the Master finds the den and gasses the kits to death. That winter, the Master sets out leg hold traps, which Tod carefully learns how to spring, but the vixen is caught and killed. In January, Tod takes a new mate, with whom he has another litter of kits. The Master uses a "still hunting" technique, in which he sits very quietly in the wood while playing a rabbit call to draw out the foxes. With this method, he kills the kits; then by using the sound of a wounded fox kit, he is also able to draw out and kill Tod's mate. As the years pass, the rural area gives way to a more urbanized setting. New buildings and highways spring up, more housing developments are built, and the farmers are pushed out. Though much of the wildlife has left and hunting grows increasingly difficult, Tod stays because it is his home range. The other foxes that remain become unhealthy scavengers, and their natures change-life-bonds with their mates are replaced by promiscuity, couples going their separate ways once the mating act is over. The Master has lost most of his own land, and the only dog he owns now is Copper. Each winter they still hunt Tod, and in an odd way he looks forward to it as the only aspect of his old life that remains. The Master spends most of his time drinking alcohol, and people begin trying to convince him to move into a nursing home, where no dogs are allowed. One summer, an outbreak of rabies spreads through the fox population. After one infected fox attacks a group of human children, the same people approach the Master and ask his help in killing the foxes. He uses traps and poison to try to kill as many foxes as possible; however, the poison also kills domestic animals. After a human child dies from eating it, the humans remove all of the poison, then the Master organizes a hunt in which large numbers of people line up and walk straight into the woods, flushing out foxes to be shot. The aging Tod escapes all three events, as well as an attempt at coursing him with greyhounds. One morning, after Tod's escape from the greyhounds, the Master sends Copper on the hunt. After he picks up the fox's trail, Copper relentlessly pursues him throughout the day and into the next morning. Tod finally drops dead of exhaustion, and Copper collapses on top of him, close to death himself. The Master nurses Copper back to health, and both enjoy their new popularity, but after a few months the excitement over Copper's accomplishment dies down. The Master is left alone again, and returns to drinking. He is once again asked to consider living in a nursing home, and this time he agrees. Crying, he takes his shotgun from the wall, leads Copper outside, and pets him gently before ordering him to lie down. He covers the dog's eyes as Copper licks his hand trustingly." Press F To Pay respects if stories are meant to make you feel emotions.......this succeeded
Zootopia seemed to lack a consensus among the creators on whether the story and setting were more allegorical or more literal. The problems fade when viewed more literally but many parts of the film want to be an allegory
Maybe it's best to take ZOOTOPIA literally, since it goes to such great pains to be nuanced that it's open to multiple interpretations. For example, I don't interpret Bellwether as a prey supremacist, but as the victim of a deranged inferiority complex. She was so low on self-confidence and so full of self-loathing that she thought of herself as an underdog even after acquiring great power. And she viewed predators not as innately inferior, but as MORALLY inferior. She stereotyped them all as bullies because of how Mayor Lionheart had treated her, and this simplistic reasoning on her part drove her to want to see all of them punished. I'd compare her to Malcolm X (prior to his religious conversion) rather than Adolf Hitler. She's evil, yes, but also understandable. At least she isn't "punching down."
Repeating some of the Beastars comments. Beastars succeeds most of the time due to the fact that it doesn't have the carnivores/herbivores as stand-ins for anything, but builds the world around them and targets the systems that would exist in such a state of evolved animals and what the types of prejudice that exist would become. It's not shouting out "See?! It's like black people in Americaaaaaaaaa" while having monsters as the stand in for black people or something. It's moreso about touchstones that we recognize in our world giving us a starting point to seeing how the world works in Beastars and the similarities that exist in the creation and maintaining of prejudice and bigotry. But also it's really good. So watch it. Don't listen to people who say the CG is terrible, it's Studio Orange, it's amazing. Or conversely just read the manga with it's fantastic art
beastars sucks ass. The main guy attacks another student and the entire show is about how this can be used as a romantic plot device, even though he is literal trash. If anything the animal factor is used as a gender more than a race simulation: I attack a rabbit because I am a wolf, I attack a girl because it is my nature, but it is not my fault at all. (but this fails too because when he is back to normal he doesnt apologyse to her or takes the blame)
@@PalitoSelvatico Are you fucking serious? The gender allegories you imply there to be are non-existant. That allegory doesn't even fit the story. At no point, do hebrivores or carnivores feel like they represent masculinity/toxic masculinity or femininity, or gender conflict. And the wolf not being apologetic? I repeat, ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS? Not only did he apologize NUMEROUSLY, but Legosi's (the wolf) guilt over his attack on Haru (the rabbit), and fear of what he could do to her, which leads him to trying to keep safe distance from her for some time, is LITERALLY a center point of his story in the early arcs. The show is about identity issues, and Legosi very much blames himself, and is afraid of his animal instincts, contrast to characters like Bill and later on Riz, who embrace their predatory nature and make up excuses why it is OK. When he goes to a illegal black market, where hebrivore meat (that is stolen from various sources, like hospitals, without hurtinghebrivores mind you) is being sold, he lost his shit and had a mental breadown over it's existence, where as other predators treated it as a fantastic thing. Just because you watch the series with forwarding button in one hand, does not mean that rest of us too.
To sort of add to what other people are saying about it, Beastars is very interesting because while it does involve racial tension, it's racial tension that is built out of a fictional hypothetical rather than trying to be metaphorical for IRL racial tension. The other thing about it that interests me is that its central metaphorical theme has to do with sexual pathology, as well as the death drive + reproductive drive, which I think the animal metaphor works best with.
I like the sheep anime mentioned here, because it's less about bio-essentialism, and more focused on how socialization shapes you and what you're capable of. Thanks for the good video, Jack
When I was growing up, my carnivore dinosaur toys were boys and the herbivores were girls. I also grew up in a severely abusive household, so I think there was a correlation there.
lol originally the script said "against the behest" and I thought that sounded awkward so I changed it to "much to the chagrin", and then for some reason my brain fried when I recorded it and I just didn't catch it. the dangers of video production!
That's why it necessary and proper for people to rise up and send the hammer of the people will crashing through the window of the bourgeoisie. This will be costly but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
At least The Fox and the Hound sheds light upon the horrors of people slave to systems they can't escape from, taking your comment into account! Zootropolis, on the other hand... is so tone-deaf. Visually beautiful, amazing character designs... but its flaws prevent me from enjoying the movie anymore (Spoiler: Nick joining the cops instead of Judy becoming a fellow hustler with a good alignment like 1973's Robin Hood, for example..... I can't trust these Disney bitches)
In Zootopia, though, they said those flowers used in that drug that made the predators go on a rampage can also make herbivores go on a rampage if they come in contact with it, so, in the end, it's not anything distinctly biological, just prejudice creating more prejudice
The fact that eating meat is a natural, biological distinction between the two "races" kind of undermines that. Like this societal problem existed regardless of the flowers.
No. That movie is my childhood. It seems very hopeless to me to find another person who watch You Are Umasou as a kid. (If you want to watch it,you can find on RUclips) It came out before Dinosaur Train, I believe.
One of my favorite movies that follows similar messages is "One Stormy Night." It is also a story about a Sheep and a Wolf, and how they become friends despite the anger of the Sheep and Wolf community. I really recommend it, its a cute movie.
Bethesda super into their "Both Sides" horse shit. Way worse than trying to do animals as allegory, and then getting caught up in aspects of animals that are inherit to being animal.
@@TheAntiSanta I literally wrote a free novel on why Bethesda does that and how it relates to their game design if you or anyone else are interested: thedonlasagna.wordpress.com/2019/09/20/348/amp/#click=t.co/lFdGQW0LOz
@@joeschmoe9863 Yeah, that quest was pretty fucked up. As soon as you let the ghouls use the same water fountain they murder and replace the humans. Certainly, there's no way to misinterpret that in the context of race relations.
@@thegod-pharaoh6148 It's quite long, so you may as well go to the Wikipedia link for the original story, but it is... pretty wild: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fox_and_the_Hound_(novel)
The God-Pharaoh well, in the background of the video you can see a bit of it when Jack brings it up, and I’ll just say that there is “kits” and “gassed to death” in there, so that might give you an idea for what you’re in for. It’s quite sad and horrifying.
@@thegod-pharaoh6148 A dog belonging to some farmer attacks Tod (the fox). Dog is killed by train. Farmer blames Tod and goes Moby Dick on him with Copper (the Hound). Tod Keeps escaping the farmer and Copper. Tod starts several families but the Farmer kills them all (the author goes out of the way to detail his methods as well :( ). The farms in the area are replaced by a city (in one foxe's lifespan somehow). Author rants about the foxes becoming culturally degenerate. Ex-farmer becomes an alcoholic. City foxes get rabies. Ex-farmer asked to kills the foxes and accidentally kills a human child. Ex-farmer and Copper chase Tod again and Tod dies of exhaustion. Ex-farmer takes Copper round back with a shotgun.
@@GermanKinsmen It's not being taken literally, it's being taken as allegory. It's not an unfair assumption that anything significant in the story should mean... something in terms of the real life thing it's alluding to. Animal farm as an allegory to the USSR doesn't mean to literally say that the Soviets spent years building a single windmill, but it's not meaningless either.
You are correct that when Zootopia is viewed as a direct racial allegory, it becomes problematic. There are parts of the story that fit, others that fit awkwardly, and others were it doesn't work at all. The reason for this is that both the directors and writers have said that the film isn't intended as a racial allegory but was an examination of bias (both personal and societal) and how it leads to stereotyping, prejudice and profiling. The creative team worked extensively with Shakti Butler, PhD, Founder and Creative Director of World Trust, who is an educator in the field of racial equity to make sure they were presenting bias correctly especially when it touched on racial themes. So rather than being one consistent racial allegory throughout the story, it's a series of different views of bias at work in different situations. So while your commentary has merits, its fundamental assumption is flawed. You are analyzing the movie through the wrong set of lenses.
Thank you! The film (and Judy, who is a cop) was making me physically sick due to its misuse of racial allegories and that becomes even shadier when you remember it's made by Disney, who are the Ten-headed beast with crowns in the world of capitalism... So I think I'll use your comment as a solace. The "thanks" are heartfelt ones, not sarcasm. Also I'm dumb at sarcasm
I mean, intent doesn’t always matter if the product is telling people something different. When the film calls attention to the direct, real world parallels of racism, it’s difficult not the read the entire thing as an allegory for race, and if everyone that sees it thinks that, it doesn’t really matter what they wanted to show, because they showed something different. Both lenses for analysis are valid. You can see the film as a general or specific metaphor, and neither perception is less true because of what the writer or director may have said. A movie is what people get from it. If you can read it as a race allegory, then it has the potential to be that, and it’s valid to discuss it.
@@fruitcake6372 I agree that any time one goes to analyze a story, one has to decide to what degree one is going to honor "authorial intent" over personal interpretation. You are correct that "broad examination of bias" and "specific racial allegory" are both valid lenses with which to analyze this movie. However, the authors of the story were aware that it could be interpreted as a racial allegory and they didn't want the viewers to fixate on a specific racial allegory (such as predators are metaphors for black people) and interpret every scene where bias is on display through that lone allegory so they went out of their way to work with Dr. Butler to navigate that slippery slope. As such, I feel that the author's intent should carry some weight and not be overlooked in the analysis. Especially when the "examination of bias" approach allows the story pieces to fit into place while interpreting it as a "racial allegory" causes some pieces to fit well while others fit awkwardly or not at all. Jack Saint, in his analysis, doesn't acknowledge any other interpretation than racial allegory and found that there was awkwardness in the narrative when analyzed with that lens. He deemed that a failure in the story-telling as result. Ultimately, do you look at it as a failure in story-telling or do you consider that the lens you are using for analysis may be incomplete? I feel it's the latter but I do admit that I am strongly honoring authorial intent in doing so.
@@robertadams5126 I think the point of this analysis is to look at what the audience may be interpreting from the movie. In that light, it doesn't matter how much focus testing or expert advice a movie gets if in the end the message received by many is a racial allegory (predator = racial or oppressed minority) throughout the movie. Then again, limiting your movie based on what the audiences reaction is, isn't really ideal or conducive to creating a good movie (at least in terms of risk-taking ideas). I'm sure they did their best given the constraints.
I don't think the case with Umasou is strictly tied to human races, but rather about acceptance of one-self. Sure, the movie makes the distinction quite clearly with dinosaur races, but the theme itself sounded more like "You don't have to sacrifice who you are to be accepted" as in "This character is a carnivore, but he didn't have to sacrifice that aspect of himself in order to be in good terms with his foster family nor did he have to imitate other carnivore traits in order to feel better about accepting himself." I feel like the message was that you don't have to become something or someone you are not in order to fit in with a certain group; that you are who you are and that that's okay. That's why in the end you can see him make peace with the way he was raised along with his meat eating nature, because he no longer cares to stay tied to a general perspective of what he's supposed to be or what he's expected to be. He's just free to be himself. I could very much be wrong about all this, but yeah, that's how I saw things: not related to races per se, contrary to Zootopia which was much more clear about that subject in particular.
With Zootopia when I watched it I didn't feel as though it was 1:1 allegory. It was obviously about prejudice but I took it more literally, like "IF this anthropomorphic world existed, THIS is how their racism might be" (rather than "the predators are 1:1 for real world minorities")
That would be a fine and interesting story to tell, except that they filled it with references to real life human conflicts over racism. The "Go back to the forest" "I'm from the Savannah" exchange, for instance, is clearly meant to parallel people of color getting told to "go back to" whatever country a racist asshole decides they must be from. Also the fact that it came out in 2016 and was in early pre-production in 2013, aka when the Black Lives Matter movement started, cannot be ignored. It was almost certainly meant to be topical. It won an Oscar for it.
Watching this again because apparently Pixar's new Fireboy and Watergirl ripoff is also trying to be a race allegory even though elements harm each other when they touch.
For Umasou, it also helps to remember that Japanese culture is still intensely racist and socially-stratified; and the "keep to your own kind" lesson is considered a valid and positive one in Japanese society to a very great degree.
i remember when i was visiting my japanese friend and met her husband and started talking to him. hes a huge literature/media studies nerd so we talk about all sorts of interesting stuff. he brought up exactly this trope, although he used one of the pokemon movies as an example (apparently one about tauros?) saying how its a really terrible racist trope that is very prevalent in japanese kid's media. that was when i first became aware of it.
Most people of color report japan not being racist. In America we think of it as racist because white people are American and every single other race are that plus soemthing and it goes back to Greek philosophy and blah blah. But in japan if you are black and Japanese, then you are Japanese. They don’t care that you black. They are culturally xenophobic and still homophobic cuz it goes against the culture or whatever. It’s not a one for one metaphor.
@Conrad Korbol where'd you learn this? I've watched a lot of interviews on youtube with mixed japanese people who are very much treated as outsiders. I don't know if their experiences are representative.
Tango Blast this is from RUclips videos and Japanese you tubers who are form the west and moved there. Lots of black people feel less discriminated against. For example the ones who have said they experienced bullying was mostly as a small child, and some say they get treated as an outsider until they speak Japanese. The Japanese seen more xenophobic than racist. Not to say there is no racism and it probably depends on region. It’s not like they get killed by the polic for not being japenese or experience the systemic racism in the same way. America and South Africa cannot be compared to the rest of the world. These two counties are the most racist. I mean like truly horribly racist. Most other counties experience a sort of nationalism which can be turned into racism, but it’s generally not race based. It’s the perceived culture. Maybe Australia is also really bad, but you hear less about Australia and Canada. So I assume it’s not as bad. Tho all my opinions are not based on living there. It’s just based on what I have seen and heard.
Oh man... That gives me some bad memories. Not because of the film itself, I love it in fact, but I just can't without thinking about someone I am no longer friends with. Nevertheless, I highly recommend One Stormy Night. It always made me cry.
@@krsynx that sucks. for me, it was a movie only I ever saw and watched at least once a year. so I would tell each partner I had that it was a favorite of mine but no one was into it :P
I mean, You Are Oumasou is a movie literally made in an ethno-state, so "every kind to its own" might very well be intentional there. Bear in mind this is not an American movie and is thus not likely to talk about issues from the perspective or the context of American thinking.
Isn't Japan really Xenophobic though, so the lesson of stayin' with one's own kind kinda fits. I mean a lot of countries are Xenophobic and if left homogeneous share a lot of eugenic views. Like out of all the Russians I have met like 90% of them are hardcore "race realist" and even admit that this is how there countrymen think. Like a very popular belief is that "mixed breeds" like me are crazy or "retarded." Shits wild, so what I am gettin' at is maybe the message in the anime is more tellin' about the creators cultural biases or beliefs.
Japan's xenophobia is weird, because it fetishes and worships foreigners and mixed race people (their top model some time ago was half black), while at the same time prejudices against them. As for other nations, it's about traditionalism (that is directly linked to nationalism) not homogenity. Scottland and Sweden is pretty homogenous, way more than Russia or other Eastern European countries, but they are a lot more progressive and their nationalism is not based on imperialism, so they are less racist. Furthermore on Russia, it is not homogenous at all (certainly mot after USSR) and some groups of people are less prejudiced then others (Caucasians and Central Asians are generally accepted).
Out of the five Russians you've met four and a half were race realists? Come now friend, I'm willing to accept it might be a more commonly held position than in most western countries, but throwing around silly numbers like 90% just reinforces rampant western Russophobia.
I guess when they are referring to mixed people being crazy is either due to basic ignorance and/or bigotry or experiences with mixed individuals and/or they've read statistics supporting their claims. Here are a few sources so I can forego the demand for citations. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29855805 yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/Mixed-And-Mental-Are-People-From-Mixed-Raced-Backgrounds-More-Likely-To-Suffer-From-Mental-Illness www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13557858.2017.1315374 ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/pdfplus/10.2105/AJPH.93.11.1865 Observing how nature produces homogeneous groupings all over, I guess going against this inclination is a futile attempt to stop what develops naturally and therefore betrays the naivety of the person going against this silent force.
This video made me go watch You Are Umasou, and I personally really enjoyed it. While I agree that the allegory gets a bit mixed sometimes, I always saw it as more of a result of Heart's internal struggle between feeling like an immoral monster for eating others and his need to do so. That's why he decides to leave the herd at the end: not because he's too different from them to fit in, but because when he was with them, they tried to make him something that he wasn't, and he knows they wouldn't accept him for who he is. Umasou, on the other hand, absolutely does, as seen in the final confrontation with Gonzu, where Gonzu tells him Heart isn't really his dad, and Umasou's response is "I know, I'm not a kid anymore, but a dad is a dad". I don't know, I think it's possible to get a lot of different metaphors out of the movie (heavily influenced by your own background), but that's what I saw it as- more akin to moving out to a college away from a family that was somewhat toxic, even unintentionally. Great video, thanks for introducing me to this amazing piece of media!
Umasou isn't actually a race allegory, the people who are claiming that are making quite big leaps. I'm not sure where that perspective has started, but it's very strange to see applied to a movie that has the same dinosaur relationships as the land before time- just darker.
I wonder how the predator/prey dynamic as a representation for race relations would work if we reversed who was portraying what race. Like both Zootopia and Beastars allude to a past where the divide was more clear cut, and predators definitely hunted prey and remained on top of the food chain. And now the society is reformed to treat predator and prey more equally. I think that would be an interesting metaphor for the impact of colonialism. Since these stories try and show that the predators never really lose their instinct to eat meat, it might not be too bad of a metaphor to show that the effects of colonialism are still felt today by marginalised people. Idk if such a project would get off the ground, and it would need a lot more care and nuance to tackle these issues directly (unlike Zootopia which only seemed to do so as an after-effect.)
I like this take; it seems weird to me that Zootopia posits the predator as once being on top... and then the prey animals are the ones discriminating against them. It's not exactly how power dynamics work.
Its a big spoiler, so... big spoilers, but- -the carnivores are later shown to have been known as "life animals" in the past and, initially, had a strong desire to protect the herbivores ("nature animals") when they first met, and they lived in peace before the major war. Its got its own problems not unlike this video, but even with the urge to eat meat Carnivores in Beastars are shown as sympathetic prior to the war and resulting discrimination
@@LexyconDevil I get the feeling most analogies go this route for impact. If you want the audience to have their expectations subverted, you need to let them think they're the innocent victims (the prey) first. Though, I could definitely see a narrative convincing the audience they're the better ones as predators by using fascist and nationalistic rhetoric (with the ultimate goal of deconstructing that), if it wants to be an analogy for humans that one would also need to lead back into explaining why the predator/prey dynamic isn't inherent and can be changed.
@@LexyconDevil Well, there are precedences of a similar thing happening. Ever heard of the Rwandan genocide? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_genocide And it is not unusual for an oppressive group who lost their status through violent means to be treated less than kindly. (Think of the French and Soviet revolutions.) But yeah, if we are talking about colonialism and racial relations in most countries in America, depicting the dominant group as the biggest victim of prejudice is not a very accurate portrayal. ^^;
Yeah I really struggled with watching Beastars cause I can never decide if I should view it as a commentary on real world social issues, or if it is just supposed to be speculative fiction on the question "what would life really be like in a world populated by talking animals?" There are moments in the show where the lives of the carnivores seem to be a very insightful look at the experience of minorities who are treated as threatening by society. But then you get to parts where it is established that carnivores really ARE prone to lose control and become violent, and its like oh god that's an extremely troubling way to portray racial minorities.
I can't really ever treat these shows as commentaries on animals because they always spectacularly fail to make a lick of sense with how they categorise things within their own world. It's only sensical from a human lense (bc it's based on it), even if it's super derogatory and reinforces biases that affect the natural world negatively, so to me it's always just human fanfiction of animal societies (where the general ignorance on animals and how they actually live is present).
In Beastars, through the predator/prey dynamic (and the other social dynamics that are explored), the world/characters are being used allegorically to reflect different aspects of society (such as a deep societal strife, multi-faceted discrimination, etc.) and ideas/themes (such as self worth, internal conflict, nature vs. nurture, id vs ego and superego, etc.) BUT it's done in a more open ended way that doesn't confine it to a one-to-one relationship with any particular aspect/idea/theme in real life. By not restricting it to being a specific analogy for one thing IRL, it allows the story to be more true to itself. Many shows/films end up having to force a direct one-to-one comparison with something IRL (at the exclusion of other possible avenues of comparison IRL and at the expense of being entirely realistic to its own world/motives and feeling of the characters). To me, doing that hurts the integrity of the story (since you're confining it based off of aspects of the real world, not its own world). That's sometimes done to ground a narrative so it makes better sense to the viewer (but using animal characters does that on its own, their familiarity is part of the reason they've been used in allegorical stories for thousands of years). While we see aspects of our own society and the human experience reflected in the world of Beastars, at the end of the day it is a different world with very different inhabitants. There is no direct analogue to the predator/prey relationship in IRL. We can draw comparisons to different things IRL but none will match up 100%. To me, that's great. Reflecting the same things back at us doesn't give us much of a new perspective on a matter. If Beastars was just about, for instance, racism and perfectly replicated the racism seen in the world IRL (but with animals instead of people), it might raise awareness but how much does it make people really view or think differently about it? Beastars explores many more broad things (idea of vulnerability, consent, innate power imbalances between individual, themes of societal conflict, discrimination, self worth, internal conflict, nature vs. nurture, id vs ego and superego, and many more) and is able to do so effectively by remaining true to the happenings and structure of its own world and the thoughs feelings, and motives of its characters.
Ok, humanizing animals and creating interspecies conflict inspired to natural equilibria always bothered me. How this tyrannosaur was able to survive on berries?
Which to me kinda makes it weird that he not only becomes a meat-eater, but then parts ways with his original family at the end of the film. His existence is proof that tyrannosaurs don't need to kill other dinosaurs to survive, but it gets treated as an immutable part of their being. The writers didn't want their main character to die of starvation but their solution conflicted with the animal part of the animal metaphor.
@@GamerBurgerz He was able to survive on berries when small, but when he got older it simply wouldn't have been enough food for him. Even when he was young he was near-starved from how few of them he could find. The movie makes this pretty clear, I thought.
@@GamerBurgerz exactly, that makes them a totally fictional race that cannot advocate the equilibria of the real natural world to justify their conflict.
@@Clawdragoons That's fair. I haven't actually seen the film so I did a quick Wikipedia search of the plot synopsis to see if that came up. What confuses me then is the mention of an older t-rex who also lives on berries because he's too old for meat.
@@GamerBurgerz He's too old to hunt, and can't chew hard food well, as far as I recall, but he survives off a mix of berries, and also others bringing him meat. I could be wrong about this since I haven't watched for a while, but that's what I remember, at least.
This reminds me of how the X-Men is supposed to be a allegory for LGBT people but kinda ends up falling flat because it shows that people are justified for being scared of mutants.
what? X-men was an allegory for the civil rights movement of the 60's, and although it certainly does show how people could be justified in their fear it shows on numerous occasions how this fear and hatred turns mutants into monsters. That's the whole Professor X/MLK, nonviolent, show them we are brothers and sisters and can be part of civilized society while doing good unto humanity vs. Magento/Malcolm X, we need to take the power for ourselves and unite against the masters approach.
@@halfeatenburrito6195 It was both. Also I just want to clarify that MLK and M. X aren't as black and white like pop culture wants us to believe. MLK also believed in direct action, and that the only way to really eliminate inequality was to move past the neoliberal model of capitalism. Specifically he was a social-democrat.
I am so unbelievably happy You Are Umasou is being noticed. It's probably one of my favorite movies of all time. Though it suffers from the flaws you pointed out here, I think it's also really great, heartwarming story about family, growing up, and responsibility as well. A little ashamed to admit it did make me a little teary-eyed too haha
Don't know if this is trivia or waht to call it but: "Umasou" actually means delicious in japanese, so his little herbivore kid is named delicious ebcause, well he probably would be. oh and you say "sou" not like "zoo" but like the "au" in "sauce"
@@kaisuuni depends on accent, i picked sauce because his accent sounded like he might say sauce the same way gordon ramsay does loll but ye both work in diffrent circumstances
@Jordan Rodrigues I don't get it, what are you trying to say about Atataka Nakatta? I can easily pronounce that in any bastardized English way I can think of, ignoring or following the correctish way, and as well in proper Japanese pronouncistion.
I thought so too, I also think the underlying message of Zootopia was to enforce stereotypes and make people feel more justified and at peace with their ignorance rather than listening and understanding to those actually experiencing them. If that white production staff really wanted the message to be done well shouldn't have been made the movie while omitting the black voice.
Yeah It kinda could be read by some people to be a whole it's wrong to discriminate against Chinese and Koreans but also that they should all live in their countries and not Japan kind of thing.
SOMEGUY7893 well that’s how “smart” nationalists phrase it “It’s not about deporting brown people, it’s about the European race having its on homeland, like Israel! :~D”
@@dead_yami yeah, but also they are having no choice but to give in (to having to accept immigrants). Because of the the age population. And from what I can sense there is a two tiers of immigrant workers, the well educated rich professionals coming to teach english and fill english needed positions in big companies and then the southeast asian workers who get the shit jobs with shit pay. It's really unfair.
One thing I noticed about zootopia is that it showed that prey are systematically oppressed in the past, but the predators are the ones seen as oppressed nowadays. It reminds me way too much of the argument made by Anti SJWs that "women/POC used to be oppressed in the past, but now, white people/men are oppressed!" I feel the problem with zootopia is that its message is so vauge that anyone can agree. A white nationalist and an intersectional feminist can both nod their heads in agreement, imaging two different things zootopia is saying
You should check out Beastars The story takes place in a world of modern, civilized, anthropomorphic animals with a cultural divide between the carnivores and herbivores. The series takes its name from the in-universe rank of Beastar, an individual of great talent, service, and notoriety. Legoshi, a large gray wolf, is a timid and quiet student of Cherryton Academy where he lives in a dorm with several other carnivorous students including his outgoing Labrador friend, Jack. As a member of the school's drama club, Legoshi works as a stagehand and supports the actors of the club headed by the star pupil Louis, a red deer. Out of nowhere, Tem the alpaca is brutally murdered and devoured in the night, setting a wave of unease and distrust between the herbivore and carnivore students. At the same time, Legoshi has a fateful encounter with Haru, a small dwarf rabbit, and begins developing complex feelings for her. (just copied and pasted from the wiki) Eating meat is frowned upon(I think) and people usually get it from the Dark/Black Market. You can read the manga or watch the anime, but the anime is only out in Japan. So you can either use a VPN, pirate, or wait until it comes out in the US. I heard it will come out sometime around March. Its like Zootopia but with a darker turn.
@@redpanda6497 There is an actual argument that its Legosi. Its just a localisation decision to settle on the one that also matches Hepburn romaji closer. Personally I find the way its pronounced in the show is closer to the Nihon-Shiki romaji, where it would be Regosi. It's irrelevant aside. His name is レゴシ, the English spelling wasn't decided by the creator anyway.
@Lúzia A Morta some people believe that the human brain is immune to the forces of evolution and/or selectively turn off their ability to recognize patterns
Maybe because writers tend to forget that one specie can have many cultures inside it, and that cultures have many individuals that can accept, interpret differently or reject them. Is crazy how a whole planet and its population, separated by all the natural barriers that you can imagine, have the same religion,language, and customs.
I'm pretty sure that the different animals in "Zootopia" weren't meant to specifically correlate to any real life groups. It's a tale about prejudice in general, not anything about race.
Ya, i agree. Who you could consider "predator" or "prey" in a real human society is in flux constantly and is very situational. Alot of the slurs that are used in that movie are stripped of their real life meanings and could be applied to any ethnicity.
But how can there be prejudice when there's fundamental, genetic and behavioral differences between two species. If one anthromophised animal people are predators and another is prey then these two groups can never coexist as equals because no amount of affirmative action is going to get rid of their genetics, it's in their nature and they have predetermined biological needs they must fulfill in order to survive. It is not evil for a predator to eat prey because the carnivorous predator has a to eat the prey in order to live just as the heirbravor, the prey must eat other living things a.k.a. plants in order to live. No morality can be prescribed in these cases because it's a biological problem not a moral one.
Exactly. The movie is about prejudice and how it can slice both ways. The villains who played the victim allowed the prejudice of fear about predators to play into their hands in order to gain power. If you think of the animals as racial groups you'll miss the point of the film entirely.
@@navilluscire2567 You're missing the point. If we roll with the premise of Zootopia, all mammals have achieved sentience and a high technological level. In behind the scenes, it has been established that predators eat bugs, fish, or meat substitutes. It's implied that these groups have not achieved sentience. So no, at this point in Zootopian society, they don't have to eat each other to survive. And at any rate, the main prejudice wasn't saying that a tiger is more likely to each you than a bunny, it was saying that a tiger is more likely to revert back to it's primal instincts than a bunny. Considering the fact that all mammals in Zootopia have the same level of intelligence, this becomes an issue. The prejudice is saying "you're less intelligent than me just because you're different". Or you're more likely to cheat, steal, or be violent just because of a stereotype. When in reality, all the mammals in Zootopia just want the same things. They all want to just live their lives. That's the message of the film. Even with biological differences, you can still get along.
@@wolftamer5463 Late reply my apologies but... While *different sentient species* can theoretically coexist that doesn't get rid of the problem of HOW do they coexist, what is the nature of these relationships or dynamics? If say you're a sentient species that came from pure carnivores whos past members have been documented to have eaten members of my herbivorous species as food on many occasions eaten their victims while they're still living but have since then seen most members of current times adapted to eating meat substitutes then I wouldn't have much problem being polite with you as a pure carnivore sentient despite the gruesome history. *The big question for me is how strong and unpredictable are your species killer instincts? Does seeing or sensing a weaker, more vulnerable but sentient being that is of a species your species once preyed upon have you experience strong urges or instincts to attack or kill them?* Basically despite the meat substitutes and dying off the older generations of past meat eaters from your species of my species if you answered truthfully that you DO feel urges to attack and eat another sentient being then I don't think it's unreasonable to be more than a little uncomfortable being around you if you honestly had compulsions to eat me or harm me based on an instinctual drive or stimulus. Would you be comfortable around a being that eats people like you because of instincts? Maybe so but I wouldn't be surprised if a majority of people did not feel safe or practice more than a bit of caution around such carnivores beings. But in conclusion I think it's indeed possible for different species or "races" (in this case think fantasy rpgs not the real world) can coexist but that doesn't mean it's going to produce societies that are 1 to 1 perfect replicas of our own, they'd face there own problems and challenges depending on the biological and psychological differences between fantasy races or species. Imagine a society in fantasy world where each of the fantasy "races" coexist in a society but that society is a caste system that puts preference for some races for some roles. ex. Say elves are all naturally gifted at (generic) nature magic but wait a plucky young orc wants to learn nature magic because they love nature and think being a guardian of nature as awsome but sadly because all orcs have zero affinity for it there's no point in attempting to try and even if you achieve some results your would be elf witch teacher thinks it's a waste of time as time spent training you to attempt even a most basic of spells and rituals would be time much better spent teaching several more gifted elf students in a fraction of the possible time. This is a example of how natural ability and or biological traits determining place in a society and said ability's nature determined by birth or what race a person is.
Technically you could reinterpret Ringing Bell as about incompatible cultures and assimilation, but hey, anything with a certain level of metaphor can't sanitize all possible negative ramifications... Just try not to be "Bright"...
I think there's a huge plot point that you missed in Zootopia-- the "predator instinct" that carnivores are said to have by prey is something that isn't true. The movie goes out of its way to proves that predators aren't like that, so they're being unfairly discriminated against because there really is no reason to fear them more than you would any other person. The predator instinct argument was literally a fabricated cover-up to justify jailing preds for no reason. That was, like, a huge major twist?
But they are still predators, even if they have no drive to kill the "prey" the fact is that they are animals born to kill. Just admit that the movie is shit and sucks at everything it trying to do.
Predators weren't a stand in for black people. For example, Nick playing with the hair of Bellweather? That's because of a long running critique of white people touching black women's hair. Or how about when Bellweather says; "He just did it to get the sheep vote..."? More over Judy saying; "A bunny can call another bunny 'cute', but when other animals do it ...." After all, the predators literally dominate politics. Mayor Lionheart, for instance? Mayor Lionheart is codedly bourgeoisie and white. Last I checked, lions were predators. Mayor Lionheart represents how white people will tout a 'Mammal inclusion program' ... all while doing *very little* about the *actual racism* that happens behind closed doors. To Mayor Lionheart, 'inclusion' is about appearance only. Not actually dealing with problems... Need more convincing? ... Shakira is a gazelle in the movie. Both Nick and Judy were voiced by white people.... Idris Elba portraying a water buffalo. The predator/prey dynamic isn't meant to 100% mirror the racism on Earth. It's meant to be a stand in for xenophobia and intolerance *in general.* It's not meant to represent specific ethnocentric groups, rather represent how our ideals keep us from succumbing to vague factionalism and tribalism. Like Islamophobia, transphobia, homophobia, immigrants, and more. The predator/prey dynamic could be a stand in for any *majority* empowered group in the face of any *minority* group that faces deep polarizing conditions. Bourgeoisie and labourer, cis and trans, white and black, Christian and 'other' ... it can be read in so many different ways. Saying prey are white people, and predators are black people, is woefully inaccurate. They weren't meant to represent specific 'in' groups and 'out' groups ... they were meant to represent in groups and out groups irrespective of specificity. How did you fail to grasp that?
@@adelahogarth2761 The reason (according to this commenter(not saying I disagree with the commenter, just saying that that's the base concept)) white people stand-ins in this movie are being portrayed as the oppressed minority is the same reason Barack Obama didn't magically cure racism in America?
I don't want to talk about Umasou ;; And more recently Beastars does an amazing job to present that conflict in a more nuanced and gray way, and separating pretty clearly what's allegory and what's not. Most of the scenarios are pretty much impossible to interpret outside their own world.
@@iwiffitthitotonacc4673 i would also at least try an episode? As the cgi actually has a lot of work involved in it, but i get if it's blend of 3d and 2d ends up not working for you. In that case yeah just try the manga then.
I love beastars, I feel like it works better because it's a more mature story. it feels less "what if people were furries" like zootopia does and more "what if animals were forced to live in a society"
@@Jovian12 both zootopia and beastars run on fantastical racism, zootopia just has much less of it. Fantastical racism is generally used as a stand in for classical racism, but both have different axioms and (as a result) ask different things of the audience.
Beastar has a similar setting to Zootopia but instead of putting racial allegories into the story it just explores how a world shared between predator animals and herbivore animals would actually work. And it is a greater story for that reason.
@@nullavitasinemusica1 It really doesn't. Zootopia draws deliberate parallels between our world and their world, like in the "cute" scene were Hopps is called cute by a tiger, and she explains how its only okay for other bunnies to call each other cute, drawing a parallel to the n-word. Beastars does the opposite, even the problems that Beastar world and our world both have aren't presented in the same way. Louis hatred of towards predators is based on experiences that could only happen in their world not our, his desire for strength is linked exclusively to his species there's no real world parallel to that. Legoshi's struggles are linked entirely to his animal instincts. Beastar explores how the world like that would really look like and function, and how characters in that setting would be effected by such a world. It doesn't try to be metaphor, it will go in the direction that is realistic for their world, sometimes it might have small similarities to our world but more often its completely different from our world since their world is fundamentally different from our world since the characters aren't really human.
@@gracjanlekston134 Legoshis mom committed suicide cause she was a mix of two predator species and didn't consider herself pretty But yeah Beastars social commentary is AMAZING LMAO Read some good books Jesus
Sadly I missed the premiere. But hey, this video came together great! Quite a treat to see you tackle roughly the same topic and see where perspectives differ. Thank you a lot for the shout-out!
Granted it’s been a while since I last saw Cats Don’t Dance, but I remember it being a good movie in terms of handling racism. The animals are only cast in very minimal ways in movies, often only given one line to say, and if I remember correctly, every human is white, which emphasizes how disadvantaged the animals were. The animals end up showing audience members just how “racist” Darla Dimple was against animals, which turns them against her and ultimately shows a montage of future movies prominently starring animals. The movie is a bit yikes, like depicting racial minorities as animals next to white people as humans is a questionable concept, but I think the movie handled it fairly well.
The animals in Cats Don't Dance are what you would call "Funny Animals" (from TV Tropes): "They're animals who think, talk and act mostly like human beings. The Funny Animal has almost all the mannerisms of a human being. Sometimes, only their appearance distinguishes them from the hairless primates who draw them. " That helps with the discrimination allegory. If the 'animalness' is only limited to their appearance, but behaviour wise, they're pretty much human, it makes the whole thing less problematic. Things get sticky when writers try to get creative with biological realities.
I was also thinking about Cats Don't Dance during this and I do think it works better as a racial allegory than Zootopia. I think the ending of Cats Don't Dance is a bit simplistic (racism is OVER because non-whites were given a platform to prove they're more than just a stereotype!), but a lot less messy than the predator/prey comparison. I think it's a better representation of how racism functions, from individual to structural barriers. It was always a story about people, who despite good work ethic and talent, are held back by a system that has already decided they aren't good enough. There isn't a white savior stand in, they fight for the recognition they're due because no one was going to give them the opportunity otherwise. Also... the music is better.
Cats Don't Dance, imho, does something VERY wrong besides making talking animals representative of minorities: it frames systematic racism in showbusiness as being gatekept by one shitty child whose removal gets rid of all bias and inequality, rather than a huge system the child just happens to be a part of. It also implies some pretty uncomfortable assumptions being made about the real-life Shirley Temple though Darla being a blatant expy of her, given that Shirley Temple's movies, through no decision of her own as she was a literal child and did not write or direct the movies she starred in, often involved Bill "Bojangles" Robinson playing an uncle tom stereotype next to her. I doubt the creative team for Cats Don't Dance considered that implication and were more concerned with "haha how funny to have the cute little hollywood darling be a villainous brat", but the implication is still there, and in some ways gets a lot worse when you look at Max, Darla's gorilla-like assistant, and how she uses him to enforce that inequality.
While I agree for the most part, the movie also goes out of it's way to show how others are treated by the business, and without Darla's hand. Sawyer and Woolie in particular. It is clear - at least to me - that it is the people running the business themselves who are responsible for keeping the divide in place, assuming it is what the audience wants. The very second it was made clear that the audience does, indeed, want the talents of animals to be of primary focus in productions, all the animals who starred on the performance are instantly welcomed and placed in movies that became hits. Before that last performance, nobody gave them the time of day, and it wasn't all Darla's doing. She just wanted to maintain the status quo that had been built long before she became a star, assuming she is actually a child, of course. She saw them as threats, rivals and she comes across as the type of person who'd do the exact same thing to her white pretty little human girl rivals (just not as easily) On Darla, I've heard that there was a rumour about how Temple was given drugs to stump her growth or something or another. This is referenced in the film, particularly the part where she claims she loves "children and animals" as if she's not a child herself (so this actually makes her real age very vague). Her inclusion was probably just a joke based off that alongside the whole Hollywood Darling thing. (also correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't young Temple "lightly" prayed upon during her work? I'm unsure if it was just -of the time- that's considered inappropriate today, or if she was actually sexually exploited and nobody wanted to say anything. This makes the demonetisation of the girl uncomfortable for me, but they [the creators of CDD] may have not been aware of this) I'm not saying that Cats Don't Dance did it all perfect or that there's nothing wrong with any of it, I just disagree that the business was gatekept by Darla alone, as if nobody else had anything to do with it. (and decided otherwise the moment they saw money) Thought the Uncle Tom stereotype is not something I ever considered, but you are right.
This is something I haven’t thought about at great lengths, so feel free to rebutt it or poke holes in it. But to me, the specific dynamics of the metaphor in Zootopia are quite different from what you present here. To me, the race metaphor is more about the cyclical nature of oppressor/oppressed social dynamics. The predators seemed far more “white”/“male” coded, as they were previously the “oppressor” class now living in a world that is trying to break down those divides. This can be seen by the very way that the history of the world is presented at the beginning, but also in the fact that they are the dominant social class in terms of occupying positions of authority. Even though it’s seemingly a world of equality, they still make up almost the entire police force and most (if not all) of the political offices we see. Because of this, I see the movie more as a cautionary tale about perpetuating oppressive systems from a perspective similar to that posed by Paulo Freire in “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.” He argues that oppression stems from social systems that create divides in society, and then encourage one group to oppress the other. Almost universally, attempts to end oppression are not truly that. They are instead attempts to turn the tables, so that the previously oppressed group become the oppressors, and the previous oppressors become the new oppressed class. He argues that the only way to end oppression is to deconstruct the systems that encourage it, not just to turn the tables. This seems much closer to what Zootopia is getting at. The prey were previously the oppressed class, and arguably still are, but Bellwether wasn’t attempting to put an end to the oppression. She was trying to maintain the dynamic, only flipping the tables so that the prey were the new oppressors. I think there are definitely still messy parts of the metaphor, and this view still doesn’t line up perfectly, but I feel like it’s a closer fit. I also don’t know if this makes the movie any worse or better, that’s up to individual philosophy.
Except that all falls flat when again the *PREDATORS* are animals that are *literally* built to be killing machines and *the other group* is referred to as *literal PREY.* There's no beating around the bush with this one, when you have a species no matter how sentient they are have predatory instincts like the anthromorphic lions, tigers and wolves of Zootopia's setting it is ever bit justified for the afford mentioned anthromophised prey animals to be fearful and it only becomes perfectly rational to treat their predatory neighbors fundamentally differently because both groups ARE fundamentally different from each other. Real world discrimination is built on the idea of irrational behavior and one or more groups making baseless claims about the capability and how credible an actual threat another group or groups are, which they are not because it's the minorities or the powerless of a society that are the targets of hate, not by fundamental differences such as their physiology or mental capacity i.e. the baseless claims of real, historical rascism. That's why racial allegories often fail in many fantasy settings, they try to tackle intangible problems with stock fantasy 'races' like elves, drawves and orcs by having each of these groups have fundamental, psychological and physiological differences from each other thus missing the point of why racism is so awful. If for example all orcs are blood thirsty because of *their inborn nature* then any attempt to portray them as not that feels like an exercise in futility, *no amount of affirmative action is going to change instincts, biology and alien psychology.*
@@navilluscire2567I've never been impressed with this argument. It requires a very subjective interpretation dependent upon assumptions on how predators/prey evolved as species and a society. No one in the film ever describes racist fears and assumptions as natural or rational in the film before the "Savage" panic. Hell, I don't recall anyone stating that females couldn't be good cops. In fact as I recall there were a few female cops in the bullpen, and let's not forget Judy's drill instructor. In fact I'm for more used to racist trolls trying to bust this one out to discredit a movie that portrays discrimination as not just personal but systemic. The fact that Jack Saint seems to have bought into it is kinda disappointing.
Another funny thing to think about with the predator/prey dynamic is that "prey" animals can actually be WAY more dangerous to others than their "predator" counterpart; good examples include Moose, Hippo, Wild Pig, Buffalo, Cattle, and Elephants. In short, predators may see you as competition for a resource, but a prey animal will see you as a threat that needs to be eliminated.
So I’m making this point around the 18 minute mark. I believe that in Zootopia they’re showing that these animals have evolved past their primal nature and are able to live in complex societies. Just as we humans have evolved and left the wilderness and build our own complex societies. We now have the ability and choice to introspect and decide where we get our nutrients from and how we choose to live and not just struggle to live. What they’re showing here is if these animals who you see every single day live as wild animals somehow were able to grow a society and have a fair code of ethics in coexistence, the evolved and ethical audience must be either capable of the same or must not be so civilized after all. So honestly I don’t think you should worry where the audience should separate them self from these animal analogies. You shouldn’t draw parallels to genetic superiority because that’s never implied in the movie. the movies is trying to get the audience to reflect and think ‘wow the animals in the movie really acted a lot more human than people that I know in my real life’ and compel them to think rationally.
There's an anime called Beastars that I really like ( the manga is very good too) and it also gets pretty messy when it comes to being a allegory to racism. For me it seems like it started as an allegory, but now the autor decided to just give up on being an allegory and just explore the world it's set in and how racial dynamics would work on it, which I think can be more interesting for the racial issues conversation then making allegories, since comparing animals to humans will always get messy (at least when comparing carnivores to herbivores). But yeah, Beastars is pretty great and I recommend it a lot.
Unicorn Tsuki NC I don’t think it was ever an allegory? To me it didn’t seem like they were trying to connect anything to our real world and carnivores and herbivores weren’t stands ins for anything. It’s really just a “what if animals had to live in a society together” story.
@@mouseonthestreets8675 yeah! I like it specifically because it leans waaaaay in to exploring stories within a world not really like our own. From its inception you'd have to accept that a large portion of people eat what would (allegorically) be other people, were it analogous
I feel like it v a g u e l y explores some themes of discrimination and prejudice, but doesn't attempt to assign any animals to any one race of people, which I think is a good move. Anyone who has been discriminated against might relate to what happens in Beastars, rather than pointing to any specific cases of human prejudice which can get problematic real fast.
It explores the "what-if" social interactions of carnivores (predatory or otherwise) and herbivores (meek or violent) in a society of humanized animals. It's not meant to be any sort of commentary on human society at large, though many of the smaller-scale interactions definitely mirror things you could see on a daily basis. As the series is from Japan, expecting it to be a parody of something more centralized in America is a bit egotistical.
Can I just say how much I love the tone of these videos, always? Even in making jokes, it's never... cynical. It takes authorial intent into account without letting it be an excuse to overlook what meaning the work might carry on it's own. It doesn't treat the examples as fuel for the fires of the internet anger engine, just a case study. It's great, thank you :)
This entire video falls apart because Zootopia didn't use predators and prey to directly represent black and white. In the movie, Lionheart's position as mayor is attributed to the fact that he's a strong and confident predator. The drug dealers are sheep. Bellweather's actions are wrong, but her perceived oppression is legitimized throughout the entire first act. Beyond all that, each species is discriminated based on their individual species, like how Judy is constantly told she can't do stuff (by other prey animals, like the chief of police) because she's a bunny. That's actually the great part about this movie, is that it doesn't work as a direct allegory for real world issues, but is still able to talk about it.
Very good video as always. However, one qualm: are you sure Ringing Bell is a commentary on intolerance towards marginalised social groups? To me, it sounds like it might simply be a straightforward story about the difficulties of resisting evil, especially when one is motivated by revenge. Its message seems to be something to the effect of: people who are evil aren't born evil (not necessarily, at least, is what we can gather from the plot), as even a docile sheep can turn into a destructive wolf-creature. Hence it is necessary to work to be good, including in resisting pointless desires for vengeance and retribution. Revenge seems to be the main theme in the ending, rather than anything to do with discrimination: the sheep shun Cherim because of the evil person he's chosen to become, and the message seems to be that revenge doesn't pay and will simply bring you more suffering. The only way an animal-charactered movie could be about discrimination is if it did what Zootopia et al try to do: create a story where there are tensions between animal species due to differences between them that any animal inherits by birth, but then have an ending where the characters learn that those differences are trivial and don't warrant discriminatory treatment. Ringing Bell doesn't seem to want to do anything like that: the closest thing it does is show that being born evil isn't necessary to being evil in general (as with Cherim's transformation). But, in order to be in any way anti-racist, the movie would need to make the stronger claim that choosing to be evil is necessary to being evil (i.e. that it is impossible to be evil simply in being born that way). In that case, Cherim and the wolves would all be the evil people they are simply due to their choices. Yet, instead, Ringing Bell simply leaves this matter an open question, as Cherim shows only that choosing to be evil is sufficient to being evil. His transformation is logically consistent with the wolves being born evil, since the claims that being born evil is sufficient to being evil and that choosing to be evil is sufficient to being evil can both be true simultaneously. The likelihood of course is that the wolves are meant to be born the carnivorous, dangerous creatures they're presented as in the film. But, as I say, I don't think this is a sign of Ringing Bell failing as a work of anti-racist cinema so much as it is a sign that it isn't intended to be any such thing.
it's not so much that the film is an allegory for the intolerance of marginalized groups, but rather that its narrative presupposes a different answer to the nature vs nurture question than many of the other films jack cites, at least it does to an extent cherim isn't who he is because of some biological predestination, though you could argue the wolf king is. regardless, the former is emphasized, and the notion that people are the products of their environments first and foremost is a political one that entails perspectives on racial issues we're not saying the creators intended to convey this message, but a piece of media can communicate more than its author intends
I think beastars is an interesting case of this, i'm only a couple of eps in but if feels a lot more like a "what if animals were people" story than and "animals as people" story
Um... you realize that in Zootopia, if it was about races, then why would the predators be apparently in charge at first, as the movie clearly shows? Zootopia was about ANY kind of prejudice. In fact, I was making jokes about all those Toxic masculinity claims when the whole "Predators going savage was in their DNA" was being mentioned. I'm just tossing that out there, cause I also think part of the lesson of Zootopia was that judging ANYONE was wrong. The predators actually start off looking like they have more control then the prey- we have the lion mayor constantly overshadowing and raging at Bellweather. who is very meek and quiet but turns out is exploiting things to get what she wants. It's not about just racism or sexism: a bunny can go savage, a sheep can be manipulative, a fox can be just a jerk, and then grow up regretting it. Personally what I got out of it was that the problem isn't solved by moving it on to someone else.
@@mrrselfdestruction1077 So then, if prey is "white" then how is it that Nick and Judy make the "you can't just touch a sheeps wool" joke? That's usually a 'black' deal. Or the "Bunnies can call eachother cute, but when other animals do it it's offensive"? Partly why I thought the whole fact that it was about profiling anyone PERIOD. If being a minority was what made the predators "black" then why did the prey have all the things usually associated with being offended by others? Why was Judy part of a "Mammal diversity" thing, which allowed her to get to be a cop after working her bunny butt off? There were female cops: the elephant in the room who was having a birthday was named "Francine", and the polar bear drill sergeant was most DEFINATELY female, even on the off chance that it was only set up that way so that she could share a bathroom with Judy and do that "FILTHY TOILET- YOURE DEAD, FARM GIRL!" joke, that polar bear was female and NOT pulling punches. (in fact, for such a short amount of screen time, that polar bear was one of the best characters) It's funny that you can divide everyone into only two groups (with separate stereotypes about ALL of the different subcategories of those groups... Like the talk about weasels being untrustworthy) yet it's not as straightforward as people are willing to lable it, and results in people increasingly missing the point by trying to attach their pre-conceived notions on whats discrimination...
The manga (and anime) Beastars also tackles a society of prey and predetors interestingly. It's simmular to Zootopia, but in Beastars predetors still have the desire to eat prey and there is a blackmarket where prey sells their bodyparts to be eaten. The main character, a wolf, lives his life, always obscuring his true strenght, never showing his teeth, but not all predetors think that way. As far as I can tell neither of the group represents a group of humans at all times. What is an definetly an allegory for humans is how "mixed" animals are treated. Not only is it reconmended that you pick a partner of your own species, but animals that are the result of one parent beeing prey and the other predetor, are shunned and so are their parents. Marrige between the two groups is impossible and even animals that are kids of two different types of preditors hide the fact they are hybrids in fear of beeing not acepted.
The way I see it, part of thinking about these movies is separating what's meant to be an allegory to real life and what's not actually a metaphor, but instead simply a truth of the world they've created. While the stories do teach us life lessons that we can apply, the idea of taking them so literally that we apply every ramification as a moral lesson is pretty hyperbolic to me. Predators have a certain nature, and some species have certain weaknesses inherent to their biology. That's not an allegory for race - it's taking the differences we have and turning them up to 11 by looking at a SIMILAR situation that's still grounded in a realistic world. It's like a picture of a cat and a mouse cuddled up and sleeping together - the lesson is that, if these two creatures who are lacking intelligence and speech and are driven much more by base instincts can learn to live together and appreciate each other despite near-insurmountable differences, why are we fighting over nonsense like skin color and what type of clothes we wear? But, anyway, I don't think this makes these 'bad' allegory bits not flawed in nature. Having uncomfortable implications in a story that's clearly meant to be a metaphoric one is not a strength, but it's not exactly a killer, either. At least, I don't personally think it hurts the message all that much unless what comes across most strongly is something misleading and terrible. I don't think that's the case for these.
Damn, never knew about Ringing Bell but it's just gone right to the top of my must-watch list. Looks like it can also be read as a pretty damn strong metaphor for the repeating cycle of domestic violence via modelling of observed behaviour.
The point about the characterisation of Zootopia’s history is that predatory behaviour /isn’t innate/. It’s allegorising the “innate” differences based on its own diegetic pseudoscience, which it goes out of its way to demonstrate is harmful and untrue. It’s a way of addressing those same bullshit arguments in real life. Zootopia literally has Judy repeating the prejudices she learned in school at the press conference - which is not only shown to be the thing that almost destroys the city, but also isn’t accurate diegetically either, as the predators aren’t “going savage” but being poisoned. They specifically aren’t a threat because of their background, and the prejudices Judy repeats to the media are the unthinking, unconscious, baseline assumptions she was taught by society being used by Bellweather to subjugate predators. It’s the movie’s way of dealing with unconscious prejudices, not a failure of its messaging. Surprised you missed that.
But the problem is that predatory behaviour IS innate in predatory animals. If the film wanted to completely do away with the whole concept of predators then this metaphor might have worked in-universe, but this awkward half-half thing, where sometimes the animals are fundamentally biologically different for the sake of a joke, but at other times pointing out the biological differences is presented as bigoted and wrong, really doesn’t work.
Alex Bennet We can absolutely talk about the potential pitfalls of allegorising an oppressed minority in society, who are often cast by that society as predatory or violent, as predators! It can be dicey, sure. I think Zootopia directly deals with that assumption in the story it tells and the way it presents the world and characters. And while the movie absolutely does use species stereotypes and biological differences (based around environmental preferences, or size, or lemming bankers all following each other, etc.) for comedic effect; it goes out of its way to subvert expectations when it would be funnier to do so, too - e.g. an elephant with a terrible memory, or a sloth called Flash being ticketed for speeding in a ridiculous sports car. But the specific line of argument Jack uses to make his case is that it’s actively confirming the prejudices Judy spouts to the press, when the entire point of that plot thread from the opening scene through to the climax of the movie is that the pseudocientific racism they were all taught is /exactly what Bellweather is using to persecute predators/. The assumption Judy makes (reinforced by a scientist she overhears saying it “might be something to do with their biology”) is shown to be based on stories everyone in their society is told as a kid, which she then unthinkingly propagates via the media. It’s not presented as the reason for their “going savage”. They were poisoned in order to play on public prejudice and irrational fears, so Bellweather could seize power. The press conference and its aftermath are the lowest point of the movie for a reason. No film is perfect, and Zootopia’s by no means that either. But the whole “aeons ago, predators ate prey” thing absolutely is its take on scientific racism, and the entire subsequent plot thread connected to it concerns unconscious prejudice. It does not come to the conclusion Jack has read it as coming to regarding biology, and in fact subverts and contradicts its initial presentation throughout. You can argue that it undermines itself a little with the stereotyping around species, and I’d probably agree? But a few jokes about crafty foxes or beavers being good with lumber don’t invert a central theme and main plot thread of the movie.
The movie is VERY clear that it isn't, at least not in this world. It is called "suspension of disbelief". The text says "predators aren't inherently dangerous, and the drug which cases them to go crazy would work just as well on prey animals". Jack basically does the same thing Jodie does in the movie, he reflects the stories he knows on the reality represented there, which creates a distorted view on the society presented in the movie. Kind of ironic.
Alex Bennet Yeah I agree the whole metaphor just sounds stupid and full of cringe the more you think about it. It’s one reason why I don’t l really like the movie anymore along with other reasons like being for racism and it being overrated
One of my favourite comic book panels ever is the one in Maus where Art's father talks about having to eat mice to survive, and he suddenly reflects on how confusing this becomes as a metaphor when the characters are anthropomorphic mice.
I've always kind of felt similarly about the X-Men. It feels like the civil rights metaphor gets a little muddled when the oppressed minority can shoot laser beams out of their eyes, control the weather, modify peoples memories etc.
It turns out, the dinosaurs actually went extinct... when the carnivores and herbivores discovered that both of their mothers were named “Martha”. It was all happily ever after until the carnivores starved and the herbivores deforested the earth. anyway, goodbye. oh, I mean, save Martha! 👋
Happy 2020, Jack. This really spoke to me as a Zootopian metaphorical predator. These kind of stories always piss me off more than I’d like to admit. You hit upon why and now I want to watch Ringing Bell.
Oh fucking thank you! i remember watching zootopia in 2016 with my two white friends from college and when i tried to articulate why it made me, a black woman, uncomfortable, i was shut down and told i was thinking too much about it. i didn’t have the vocabulary to articulate what it was that bothered me about the story, but you nailed it. The implication that predators are dangerous, but in order to become “civilized” they just had to repress that - i liked this movie but the allegory was weak!
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What do you think about Beastars?
Curious. Do you think Zootopia would have worked a bit better if the Predator and Prey roles were switched?
Keeping the Allegories of races.
Fun fact: you're entirely correct when you say that it wouldn't be difficult to transplant the Ringing Bell's story unto one about people. Because that has been done. It's called the Vinland Saga. The story synopsis is almost word for word what happens in the Ringing Bell, except the Vinland Saga is a story about Vikings.
Bro' why are you trying so hard? Where's your 3 hour video about how much you hate The Rise of Skywalker?
/s
P R O B L E M A T I C! God I've grown to hate that word, implies and carries more weight than it really deserves.
My critique of this video, not all metaphor is airtight, and sure perhaps these do have metaphor but you also must account for in-universe mechanics and logic, nor is society changed or "damaged" wooo cause stories like these are told, they aren't really problematic because most people get the baseline core massage, and the metaphor only falls apart under scrutiny these movies weren't really made to receive.
also, stories aren't always their moral themes or propaganda, if we judged them purely on how airtight their themes were betrayed barely any move would be 100 percent consistent because humans aren't 100% with consistent, the parts important and good you'll walk away with because you are a human being, not a fucking drone programmed by media.
EDIT also, a great many stories centered around animals and supposed racism metaphor can also be easily transcribed to the "nature vs nurture" metaphor easier which isn't inherently tied to themes of racism but is as easily applicable to these stories, also not every metaphor and meaning has to be tied to modern political things, kinda getting old.
EDIT 2: Also another thing, by the innate nature of human beings, race or not, there are certain groups that don't nor will ever get along, either politically, religiously, or even yes ethnically, the Hindu's and Jews don't like the Muslims, a good percent of the native American Tribes had bitter rivalries, Catholics vs protestants, bad blood, bad history and to come into the middle and say both sides are wrong or right is a blunder on your part, humans by nature of having free will, will never get fully along, to force or make a moral judgment is folly because you deny a very part of your own nature, which is why the nature vs nurture metaphor is infinitely then muh racism....
The thing that always bugged me about Zootopia (and now Beastars) is ignoring the existence of omnivores and carnivores that only eat certain types of meat (like insects or fish) and would never be a threat to most other animals.
I'm pretty sure that would lead into *even messier* territoy about different sexual orientations; pansexuals, transexuals and whatnot.
Indeed.
To me, it felt weird in Beastars especially (although most works like that suffer from it) how omnivores are lumped in with either carnivores or herbivores (a single unit where often one has more in common with some carnivores than their "fellow" herbivores) based on their appearance.
The arbitrary divide between human-animals and the rest of the animal kingdom (bugs, fish and so on); the many different lifestyles and diets being divided into 2 groups (and the need to uphold that binary system) is just nonsensical, if you think about it more deeply, especially when diet is 90% a social phenomena and animals are categorised by a system of derogatory visual values unique to humans.
I think it ties into the general ignorance on animal diet and ecological relationships: Unless it's a hawk many people think all birds live on seeds and sunshine while singing kumbayah together.
Nevermind scavengers smaller than pigeons hunting birds that you feed in winter, and some of the biggest being less vicious than sparrows.
In the end it really is just an extension of valuing animals based on how their looks make humans feel rather than anything objective within nature itself.
So even though the social moral within these shows' worlds is "murder is bad because all lives are (supposedly) equal", when only a handful of carnivores are seen as murderers and only some lives are seen as human the illusion crumbles.
I guess the reason for my rant is that all these stories about animals are usually just about people dressed as animal, using a binary caricature of the natural world to portray what is often is a less nuanced human experience (than if we were to anthromorphise animals without a human lense), while not being aware of it.
If anyone is reading this hope it makes a lick of sense!
Isnt there a plot point about that in season 2 of beastars?
@@mrreyes5004 transsexual is not a sexuality lmao
Beastars the anime also doesn't go into the depth the mangas do and the mangas at one point DO confront sexuality and it's nuance
There’s a soviet cartoon called « blue puppy » that i really liked as a kid.
blue in russian is a synonym for gay and the story is about a blue puppy who is bullied by regular puppies because his fur is blue. eventually he finds a friend who loves and accepts him for who he is.
Tara Lang i don’t actually watch tv so idk if they still show it
although it’s not really lgbt propaganda as it was originally about racism and well it has a nice message of accepting those who are different
in my country (Czech republic) we have the same story but it's a kitten instead of a puppy
@@andrewnovak1390 I'm Czech too, but I don't know that one. Would you remind me what it's called?
@@Thane3999 I'm pretty sure he's talking about 'Modrý Kocourek'? I've seen it a really long time ago but it fits the describtion
@Tara Lang it's Soviet cartoon and the Soviet Union was was the first nation on earth to explicitly decriminalise homosexuality. However, at the time it was made 'blue' had not yet become popular slang for gay, so the moral of the cartoon was more likely to do with general 'different-ness'.
“Oh there’s a *them* now?” Is the only line in zootopia that always hits me though.
It’s an obvious correlation to how people try to say “I’m not racist cause you’re not like them and you’re my friend aha” motif. And sadly there are still people like that. Zootopia in theory would’ve been great if they just erased all the “for kids” mindset.
Psst hey. You might like beastars. Might. It's the closest thing you'll get to zootopia but not for kids. Or maybe you'll hate it. I dunno. I dont know you you arent my friend. Whose to say I can guess what you would like.
*oH ThErEs A ThEm NoW*
Yes, you dipshit, and you were part of them all because "Muh sad backstory" somehow justifies you living outside the law.
This movie is so contrived, bipolar and downright mean-spirited, I seriously struggle to understand what in the fuck people see in it besides furries in cheap goofy gags and hamfisted morals. This moral relativism nonsense is pitiful because it's self-defeating. In the words of Joker, "Everyone is awful". Judy is awful because she's conceived and a hypocrite, Nick is awful because he's a con artist who deals with the mafia just because of ONE bullying accident in his childhood, so spare me the *tHeReS a ThEm NoW* bs, the police is awful because they're incompetent chauvinists, thrown there to make Judy look relatable. And this movie can't seem to pick whether it wants to be taken seriously or not.
Seriously, fuck Zootopia.
@@DanieleMulas-up7np How'd you feel about _Song of the South?_ /runs
@@commandercaptain4664 How can I feel about something that has been censored to no end, to the point of leaving no one the chance to see it lol
Thank god we have beastars now
you did NOT just use the zootopia abortion comic for the thumbnail
bon bon chocolats kinda the only reason I clicked on the video
Knew I recognized that from somewhere... damnit.
Of course he did. It's a solid meme, my dude.
bon bon chocolats the WHAT
@@CutiePieKindom someone made a comic where Nick and Judy were having a kid. She didnt want it because it'll affect her career or some stupid bullshit. They fight and Nick leaves.
A really dumb and horrible comic.
Yo you’re mentioning kids movies that use animals to represent civil rights struggles but you don’t start off with bee movie?
The bee movies plot was quite literally "people(bees) being opressed stand up against their opression and then realize "no we liked being oppressed :)" and go back to it" i dont think theres much to say other than "what the fuck were you thinking seinfeld."
Bee movie is pro capitalist propaganda. A rich man showing that if the workers were given the fruits of their labor the whole system would collapse and lead to ruin for everyone.
Bee a good worker. Work to earn the right to work.
The fact that Seinfeld chose bees, natures communists, is to show that even the most communal animal would benefit more from capitalism. Thee Bee Movie is propaganda! Reject the bourgeoisie!
@@GoblinModeKnives beegeoisie? Bourgeoibee?
@@GoblinModeKnives eat the rich, and if you cant do that, sting them
@@jakes1566 Buzzgeoisie
Putting the racial implications aside and looking at it more literally, it seems a strange idea to go so far as to villainise/reform carnivores while herbivores are seen as naturally kind and benevolent beings. It makes sense when you humanise animals to some extent, but in a world where we as humans generally eat our share of meats, it's an odd thing to suddenly treat meat-eating as this awful thing.
And to add that herbivores are almost as violent (they need to be for survival) as carnivores themselves
This has got to be the weirdest post I've seen in a minute.
Very good point!
@@0iqgremlin414 still, some more than others (hippos are an example). And some are more territorial than others, so the fights happen.
@@0iqgremlin414 So you have seen Watership Down? With all that bunny violence?
I'm a zoologist, we do not use predator or prey to define animals for our research, we use carnivore, herbivore or omnivore, it is more accurate to classify an animal on what it eats. Yes, carnivores are hunters, but herbivores can either run away successfully, or fight back, a cape buffalo can cause serious harm to an African lion, or an American bison can kill a grey wolf. In the wild, carnivores eat mostly carrion, it's a effective strategy that gives carnivores easy food, hunting can be risky, and the reward is not guaranteed. There is something else left out of the thesis, a herbivore can be a destructive animal too, deer for example can deplete vegetation, they can keep on eating before the plants have time to grow back, the goat is the most destructive, they pull the roots out of the earth, they can turn a meadow into a desolate, moonscape. People assign predator and prey to humans as well, this is the problem with metaphors, they take abstract thoughts, and apply it to something that has no use for human symbolism, carnivores and herbivores do coexist together, better than most human civilizations in fact, so Zootopia does have some scientific fact.
Yeah, I feel that specially about that last film. Wild sheep can be pretty tough. Having a big, male sheep fight off a predator is not that unrealistic (fighting the whole pack is, but I assume that is the storytelling choices). Like, the reason domesticated sheep are not like that is because we MADE them to be like that through domestication (just as we did to canines. A pug is not nearly as agressive as a wild wolf).
I think the lesson of the last movie, at least in my view, is that one does not have to inflict suffering on others to be "tough", or brave, or any of those qualities.
I've seen deer gang up on and try to kill a chained up dog for no good reason. Moose are easily as threatening as bears, if not moreso, if you run into one in the wild. Herbivores scare me much more than carnivores, at least carnivores operate on a basic ruleset that makes sense most of the time. Herbivores are nuts. Would like to see that portrayed in media sometime instead of herbivores being delicate prey all the time
@@Romanticoutlaw Generally speaking, herbivores will try to kill what they see as a threat to themselves, out of a deep fear.
The deer probably equate (not without cause) the dog to a predator, and try to overpower him.
It's like how buffalo will attack nursing lionesses in order to kill the baby lions.
Anteaters are carnivores lol (insectivores I know!)
Romantic Outlaw Yeah it annoys me when hippos are used for comedy sometimes when they are actually terrifying, and they hunt sharks or kill other herbivores for no reason, and are extremely dangerous to humans. They don't give a crap.
"I've never met a Tyranosaurus Rex, and I'm sure we'd get along fine..."
-Jack Saint
And then he went off to prove his hypothesis and was never heard from again...
Another thing about Ringing Bell is the way Chirin's horns start growing out as he becomes more and more monster-like seems like an oni metaphor. Onis are basically monsters born of the most wicked aspects of human nature, many oni of legend being originally human who became those mystical monsters by the extremes of their human nature.
Chirin may have had his revenge but by that time he became demonic in looks and nature which makes him unable to connect with his kin anymore.
Given the oni metaphor it is indeed a story about people, but rather about racism, it is about the self destructive and overall altering nature of someone dedicating their entire existence to vengeance.
Putting into a human situation it would be like a bandit from the mountains coming down and murdering Chirin's mother, who swears vengeance, and without any alternatives asks the killer to train him so he can have his revenge one day, then when eventually the day of vengeance comes he is too malformed from his original self that after succeeding with the deed he realizes he has nothing left, because he have sacrificed all possessions, human bonds and his very self to gain his chance of revenge.
Basically it's a cautionary tale about the price of being consumed by revenge which makes sense given how prevalent was the concept of dedicating one's life to vengeance for a long period of time, which means their history and mythology too is filled with such stories.
Underrrated comment.
Cringe weeb
@@ChangedMyNameFinally69 😐
I just realized that Ringing Bell and Vinland Saga have an extremely similar beginning (somebody shows up, kills protagonist's parent, protagonist follows and gets trained with the plan of getting revenge)
@@FatherNagic this is a cautionary tale against that mindset. Japan had a LOT of massive cultural shifts in the span of a few centuries.
I remember being frustrated by these allegories from a young age. My racist aunt would tell me as a young girl that I should never date someone who wasn't white because "you'd never see a cat marry a dog."
I eventually told her, "But you'd see an orange cat with a gray cat or a dalmatian with a German Shepherd."
We are humans. Different humans, sure, with different experiences and cultures but we aren't separate species.
@@TheAngelOfTheBottomlessPit yeah
@@TheAngelOfTheBottomlessPit
I don't think you know how species work.
@@durratulaishah3703 You need to use a different genome map to sequence European, African, and Asian Lineages. And heterosis in humans is an anti-hypothesis.
@@Dan-gs3kg
So,you're saying....?
@@durratulaishah3703 "In addition to endogeny [incest] being bad and easily apparent and solved (3rd cousin limit); xenogeny is profoundly bad, poorly studied, and impossible to cure".
Humanity seems to be some strange converging set of races that can hybridise.
Heterosis is the notion that xenogeny can have benefits like in the case of wolf-coyote hybrids. Those two species are effectively as related like Europeans are. There's no real problem.
Most cases are like ring species or ligers that are either incompatible, weaker, or completely sterile. With humans "weaker", being more self-alienating, and more cancer prone is what happens.
My thoughts is that the human genome is very synergistic or combo-oriented. Those combo "bonuses" fall apart like sand castles, and take many generation to rebuild.
What are the chances of mutually exclusive genomes forming a "combo"?
Ringing Bell is much more transparently an allegory about Asia and Japan's experience of modernity. The wolves are the imperialist west, and the "becoming wolf" is the attempt to become modern by becoming an imperial power.
Japan's leadership argued that its expansionism was in defense of Asia against Western predation, but the consequence was its ongoing alienation from its East Asian neighbors. The allegory is pretty straightforward.
Because he doesn't come from the culture the work was made in, he can't see that allagory. Some people impose an allagory of their own onto the work because they don't know what it's about.
AKA, to quote the classic Japanese go fuck yourself line "He just doesn't understand Japanese culture"
@@WorthlessWinner I mean, the allegory that people become who they are by their choices rather than how they were born works just as well, if not even better than the one about Japanese modernity. In fact, the Japanese modernity story actually *FITS INTO* the allegory about how people are forged by their own choices: Just like Chirin grew into a monstrous beast because of his choices rather than how he was born, Japan was alienated from its East Asian neighbors because of deliberate choices to become modern via imperialism with the Western nations.
Jack Saint's allegory, even if it wasn't the originally intended one, fits both Ringing Bell AND its actually intended metaphor.
Ketone-Kun yeah I saw it completely differently but that’s likely because I’m American
Although it’s interesting to hear how people from other cultures may interpret a specific stories Allegory. You’re context makes perfect sense and honestly now that you’ve brought it up I find it hard to look at it any other way.
"A carnivore is not going to decide to take a prey animal under its wing because it reminds them of their own childhood experiences."
Well, the last part is correct, in that animals can't conceptualize that sort of long-term self-concept thinking. But there's plenty of examples of carnivores taking prey animals under their wings: Cats who adopt ducks, for instance (even to the point of nursing them!), or that one big cat mum who kept adopting and attempting to protect baby gazelles (IIRC). It's interesting when you see these kinds of mixed instincts.
A rare occurance not enough to warrant any significant change. Unless you're talking about hermaphrodite frogs due to human made chemicals. 😂 Fuck the NWO.
@@fatcat5817 ¿que?
@@fkjetfox mande?
i found it weird to make assumptions like that about creatures who we cant talk with and are forced to act that way
My favorite was the snake that befriended the hamster and brough it under its wing!
There’s a Disney channel movie literally called “Z-O-M-B-I-E-S” and it tries and fails to be a race allegory
The stand-in for the minorities are zombies, mindless monsters that eat human brains, _that can’t have horrible subtext and implications to it at all_
Let’s get the obvious stuff out of the way: the humans _built a wall_ to segregate themselves from the zombies (production began in 2017 just a reminder) and make them wear these bands so they can suppress their _zombie urges_
The movie tries to justify its race allegory by shoehorning a Romeo and Juliet love story between the zombie and human protagonists, and they try to that thing with where the human love interest has a birth defect everyone hates _but it’s actually beautiful and it’s what makes her special_
And the lesson they give is pretty awful too. When one of the side zombie characters gets pissed off at the discrimination, she’s put in the wrong and is told that if she fights back against the humans, _she’ll be just as bad as they are_
This is especially bad because what motivated the side zombie to fight back was when the human antagonist turned off their trigger bands, which basically reverted the zombies to their brain-eating instincts and put everyone in danger
NO SHIT SHE WOULD WANT TO FIGHT BACK THE DISCRIMINATION
And it’s even worse because we never learn what her plan was, so no one knew if it was going to cause harm like the human antagonist did (who BTW gets redeemed despite being a bigot who caused the conflict in the movie)
On one hand, this is a Disney channel movie, so why should I expect nuance and substance?
On the other hand... _BIG OOF_
Edit: there’s gonna a be a sequel now, but instead of making zombies the minorities, this time it’ll be _werewolves_ (can’t wait for Disney to milk the message with every single monster species out there)
People try to make stories like that a lot and it's always fucked up.
wait, hadn't they made that already with uh, Fido or something? that movie that use zombies using collars as pets?
It's funny how the one who's persecuted and is deciding to strike back is always painted as in the wrong.
The original concept was making an aliens vs. humans allegory, with the aliens designed as walking, talking anal probes, but Disney decided to put that on Hulu. It's called A-S-S-H-O-L-E-S.
My brother won’t stop watching it. The horrifically bad metaphor is almost causing physical pain at this point
I ignored your warning and read the summary of The Fox and the Hound. Regret.
Just finished reading it and looking for a comment about it... I need to listen more often
@@damgedroses Wha-what....what happens...?.....gimme a summary of the summary
@@jasper2739 So tod kills chief (the old dog), the hunter goes crazy trying to kill tod in revenge so he teaches the hound to ignore all other foxes but tod. Tod gets a family and has babies. Hunter gasses out the sen and kills babies. Hunter traps Todd's wife and kills her. Then all the foxes around get rabies and the hunter tries to poison them and kills a human child. Then the hound chases tod and tod dies from exhaustion. Then the hunter shoots the hound and goes and lives in a rest home
@@holliebrokaw3716 holy shit
WHY DIDNT I LISTEN
"The circumstances of one's birth are irrelevant. It is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are." =Mewtwo=
When a psychic cat less than a year old is more intelligent than a big part of the planet's dominant species.
Sadly, it's as much true as it is a joke.
@@mrreyes5004 Bring yourself back down to earth for a couple seconds. Now repeat after me: The cat was fictional and its lines written by a team of actual people just like you.
He says as he became the most powerful pokemon in the world because circumstances of his birth. Strange how genetics is important till it becomes about people, then it is treated like poverty as just a temporary state that can be overcome.
@@SSJKenpachiZaraki hmm maybe you should look at iq differences of nonfictional things? Like say between the races.
@@SSJKenpachiZaraki I wrote that BECAUSE I was grounded in reality. You're the one mucking around in space, buddy. Not to mention it doesn't change the fact I'm still right about it, so... Deal with it.
I’m surprised that with all these animal race allegories there isn’t often much to do with dog breeds. There’s a lot of potential for stories that are completely solid race metaphors. The concept of purebreds and how it’s lead to a ton of genetic problems, the social devaluation of cross breeds, pit bull racism, all metaphors that line up pretty perfectly.
"Pit bull racism"
Sorry it's dog racism if I prefer my family members to remain unmauled.
@@josephc.3192 kinda proving his point - most of the "dangerous dog" breeds aren't any more dangerous than any other, it's just they've been chosen by a certain group of people to be used for intimidation and violence.
If you look in to dog fighting, the 'training' for them is essentially just abuse, and rewarding them with food if they win a fight with any other animal. Many rescued fight dogs, of all breeds and mongrels, can get rehabilitated and be wonderful pets.
It's not the dogs that are dangerous, it's the owners. The genes/breed aren't the contributing factor, yet many countries still have these laws that will punish dogs for what people did to them, rather than targeting the criminals and societal issues responsible
Everyone says pitbulls because they're associated with poor black folks. But Bulldogs and Rottweilers are largely ignored because they're cute or "belong" to a special breed class. End rant haha
Gulf Giggle Animations Do it
@@josephc.3192 sorry its people racism if I dont want my daughter getting her cervix obliterated by tyrone and his homies
Now that I know the backstory of the creator of ringing Bell it makes more tragic... Creator of the story Takashi Yanase got put into the army as a young kid and changed forever.
(Edits) When Takashi came back home he most likely had PTSD, and was a much colder person from all killing he did in the war. So he felt alienated from family and friends in his home town. Like alot of soldiers, they feel like they cannot return back to normal civilian life. It's VERY similar to how Tolkien felt after fighting in the war. So Ringing Bell is not about (Race) but more of story about losing innocence to average you're family (going to war) but having that change (War) turn you into a monster that cannot live with the people you fought to protect. It's truly sad!
GalaxyEspeon So maybe instead of being a race thing the movie is a militarism versus non-militarism thing
It's a really interesting analogy if you think of the sheep as being japan itself,they were weak and being stepped on by the European powers so they sought to become like them,and as they did,they became something reprehensible
This could just be a rumor rather than fact, but I heard Takashi had to contend with literal child soldiers in mainland China, especially around poorer villages that couldn't offer up anything more than attempted militias. Being ordered to fight and kill literal children probably scarred him pretty badly, assuming any of this is true.
I'd add that it was about racism to a point, in that Japan being the perfect analogy to sheep, and "the west" that of the wolves. The Japanese were isolated and weak in comparison to the West until very recently historically, making the sheep vs wolves apt in the author's lifetime, as Japan raced to become "modern", but in doing so lost some of what it meant to be Japanese, especially so after WW2. So the story had dual layers, one of a soldier and another of change not always being desirable even if it means that they are equal to what scares them as a society.
Lily something clever I think the countries of East Asia that endured horrific war crimes in the hands of the Japanese would make the opposite argument.
He's totally right about the Fox and the Hound's original story. It is one of the saddest, most depressing things I've ever read. I kept hoping for some kind of moral by the end, but no, it's literally just a depressing story about a constantly depressing series of events, every nice thing that happens being immediately dashed across the rocks, until the end of the story, where the dog chases the fox till it dies of exhaustion, and the dog's owner puts him down afterwards.
You can make sad, depressing things happen in your story, and it gives weight to the good things that happen in equal measure, but when the depressing shit is the WHOLE story?... It's the kindof book that, by the end, leaves you unsatisfied, sad, and wondering what the point even was.
Cardinal West has a great video on the original novel where he argues its deeper point is one of environmentalism, and how urbanization alienates humanity from nature. I would highly recommend you go watch it.
For the record, I absolutely love the original novel, its my personal #1 favorite. Is it depressing, brutal, realistic? Yes, but I see that as a strength, it confronts some uncomfortable facts for some: nature isn't all cutesy, and environmental destruction affects more than just those wild animals-it affects humans negatively too.
@@wyattsteel411 Damn. I couldn't imagine considering that novel my favorite anything without a serious personal connection to it, because holy cow, most of it is brutally unnecessary, like the author was using the book as a vehicle to vent their negative thoughts about how unpleasant the world can be.
Far be it from me to tell anyone what they can/can't like, but jfc life can be depressing enough without reading fiction that's deliberately depressing on top of it.
@@TATERplaysGAMES That's fair enough, depressing shit isn't for everybody. I personally find it useful as a mechanism for catharsis-it's often hard for me to cry, so dark media lets me release my sadness without letting it bottle up too much. If I don't know what I'm getting into or it comes out of the blue, that's just the worst though. Seen that way, I can get why many people don't like the book: they're looking at it through the lens of the film, and not its historical or meta context as a work of xenofiction and social commentary.
Humans ARE animals, we're a single species of animals. If you're going to use animals to talk about racism, use a SINGLE SPECIES. do it about blue rabbits and green rabbits
Exactly. And make sure to show it's systemic but not actually logical.
I think the reason we usually don't see it so straightforward is because it's just that, straightforward or too on the nose. At least i think that's what the creators think. So they get too creative and unfortunately a lot of the time the conceits aren't sustainable.
@@princejellyfish3945 I think that it is because there’s amlot of folklore association of certain animals with certain traits and such, and creators wanna lean into that.
The pink rabbit race will rise.
@@naikigutierrez4279 Yea, like foxes being tricksters, rabbits being weak but quick, buffalo being plant-eaters but aggressively dangerous, etc. Unfortunately, it didn't really work well when the creators leaned into it.
This is why it makes me uncomfortable whenever fiction equates vampires or werewolves with minorities.
Werewolves are creatures that turn into unrepentant killing machines when they get too angry and vampires need to literally suck the life out of other people to survive, if we were to coexist with them there are some legitimate concerns we would need to address and that’s just not a thing with actual minorities.
Same thing with robots. If you wanna tell a story about how authentic we can make an AI before there’s no difference between them and us that’s fine.
But please don’t frame their discrimination as real world racism, because “how human are they?” Is a question we really shouldn’t be asking about actual minorities.
an angle I'd like to see in modern fantasy is "werewolves are people too"--because they literally are, they just have a condition. And that condition doesn't mean they literally have to maul and ravage and destroy; we should end the "mindless killing machine" werewolf trope, as long as werewolves are meant to be an analogy. Perhaps liken it to something not *super* hot button, like mental health, as people tend to see people with, say, bpd as either dangerous monsters or the butt of a joke. Maybe bring in the terrible experiments and treatments done to people with mental disorders that have been attempts to "cure" them. There's plenty of territory to chart there that could be worked with.
but as an analogy for race it's definitely a very thin line to walk for sure
Artemis Wolf There’s a feedback loop there, and not really a negative one. Queer people were (and are) often represented and treated as monsters, marginalised, and forced to live in the shadows. This makes creatures of the night both a natural allegory for us and often produces a certain attachment to those types of monsters in queer audiences. Same goes for antagonists in fiction - lots of queer coding going on there, traditionally. Writing werewolves/vampires/what-have-you as queer, or seeing those elements in monstrous characters, isn’t usually problematic so much as it can be liberating.
Yes, werewolves are obligately violent once a month and vampires (originally an allegory for the upper class living in castles preying on peasants, which makes it fun to write them as marginalised) suck blood to survive, but as a queer person and a fan of horror I for one find much more to enjoy reading those types of stories than the idea that “queer people are monsters” simply because the monsters are often allegories for us. That’s not to say it can’t be problematic to allegorise people who’ve been called freaks and monsters their whole lives as such. But it isn’t cut and dried, and there’s a whole tradition of queer horror - of owning that perceived monstrousness - you miss out on if you dismiss monster allegories out of hand as harmful.
Not to mention vampires are also often used as alligory for the rich who suck the life from the common man. Vampires work best when you sorta like get rid of or ignore the whole "needing to literally suck someone's blood and kill someone" aspect like how some kids shows go out of their way to do but even then.
Romantic Outlaw My problem with that would be that werewolves are inherently more dangerous than an average human, in a way most people with mental illnesses just aren’t.
So even if you write them to not be more aggressive in their wolf form they still have a Wolf form they can use to kill and that’s something you have to acknowledge.
The only minority vampires form is the ruling class
the original book for fox and the hound is essentially "hound dies, hound's owner goes on a genocide against foxes and gets the entire town in on it"
Um... There ARE actually recorded cases of predators deciding to adopt young from other species, the one I remember, I think, was a stray cat and a young ferret?
It is generally more intelligent and social ones but it does happen.
There was also a video of a cat adopting hatching ducklings on a farm. The cat had given birth just a few hours earlier, so the farmers assumed the nursing instincts did override the hunting instincts in that moment. The ducklings were even nursing on the cat. Pretty weird but adorable!
There a lioness that adopted a young gazelle, but the gazelle soon died as the lioness couldn't give it look and wouldn't allow it grass, instead hunting for it, and treating it like a cub (which did not help the case considering the difference in treatment a cub and foal can handle)
Was gonna mention this. It’s an interesting phenomenon to be sure. While I would be hesitant to ascribe any specific emotions to these behaviors it’s fascinating because there seems to be no evolutionary advantage to raising another species offspring. Even though it doesn’t happen super often it happens often enough in certain animals that it really makes me wonder how their minds and perspective as animals must be for them to be compelled to do this.
@@snowblood74 yeah cats have a really strong mother instinct
@@scarymonsterzz well we sometimes do this
There's one comedian who made fun of how, in general, we'll think baby animals are cuter than actual human babies
And this might be one way wolves and cats have affected us, we like the more social ones of them and they like the humans that adopted them as kittens or puppies
You're definitely underselling sheep if you think one couldn't fight toe to toe with a wolf. They're big and tough animals more than capable of being violent.
Truth.
Those horns are no fucking joke
I don't know about that. I've seen sheep get slaughtered by coyotes, bobcats, even parrots! Yes, parrots. They eat the sheep alive and the stupid animal doesn't even fight back. Sheep are useless most of the time.
@@KFrost-fx7dt Then you have never seen a heard of sheep trample wolves to death. This is the key thing, sheep are heard animals. They work best as a group, while a single sheep can be put down by a group of predators.
@@Guciom No, I've never seen or heard of that. I have heard of sheep getting massacred by wolves and coyotes because they're so helpless, the predators go into a killing frenzy. It's why sheep ranchers keep big guardian dogs with their herds where I live.
Not really related but that itty bitty herbivore dinosaur saying “dad dad dad” made my eyes water I’m gonna SOB
Oh man, I remember the original premise of Zootopia (before it's script was reworked) was more morbid.
The movie was going to be about a city where Predators and Prey live together, but Predators are forced to wear these collars that shock the shit out of them whenever they get too emotional (such as when they hunt) and Prey animals sit at the top like a Monarchy. The main Fox character was going to be the main protagonist in trying solve a mystery that framed him as a killer, while also trying to deconstruct the proverbial aristocracy and prove that his natural "urges" as a Predator don't define him. The bunny was just a sidekick in that version.
cooldude56g kinda wanna watch that version
They decided against it because they realized they realized the audience would prefer the society they created burned to the ground rather than saved. It's in the extras on the DVD. A few scenes from this version as well.
> like a Matriarchy
Hoo boy, thats a bad take if I've ever seen it. From you, I mean, for referring to it in that way. Women are not prey and men are not predators.
@@moredetonation3755 "hoo boy thats a bad take if i've ever seen it" -who talks like this??
@@moredetonation3755 part of me's thinking they got their words mixed up and meant to say "monarchy" rather than "matriarchy", I could be wrong though that just seems logical given the context
"Is this a story about animals, or is it a story about people?"
Furries: "Allow us to introduce ourselves."
Incorrect: Furries are not people.
@@andrewmcguinness1845
Said the anthropomorphic ape.
@@N3bu14Gr4y that is something mighty powerful you just did
well ye, humans are anthropomorphic apes
@@MazdaTiger so...humans=furries confirmed
It’s “ooh-mah-soh” not “ooh-mah-sue”
Umasou literally means “looks delicious” in Japanese
Fun fact: you're entirely correct when you say that it wouldn't be difficult to transplant the Ringing Bell's story unto one about people. Because that has been done. It's called the Vinland Saga. The story synopsis is almost word for word what happens in the Ringing Bell, except the Vinland Saga is a story about Vikings.
Well, *SPOILERS FOR VINLAND SAGA*
Thorfinn doesn’t get his revenge on Askeladd. Askeladd dies with a sense that it seems like the 2 actually cared about one another.
@@jonahj9519 Yeah. Arguably that makes the point even stronger.
@@jonahj9519 MORE SPOILERS FOR VINLAND SAGA
Askeladd did the exact same thing as Chirin and Thorfinn - he learned violence from people he absolutely hated (the Vikings) to the ultimate goal of protecting his own people (the Welsh) from harm.
@@jonahj9519: Apart from Chirin actually killing the wolf, it ends with the same realization.
I was thinking about that actually. I thought the story could have work if you replace the wolves with vikings and the sheep with peaceful villagers.
Jack Saint : Please don't read "The fox and the hound" book summary
Me: *immediately searches up "the fox and the hound" book summary* oh boy, is it dark
ikr I'm going to read it one of these days
This is not for the faint of heart
but it's definitely a fascinating read when comparing source material to Film Adaptation :
"Copper, a bloodhound crossbred, was once the favorite among his Master's pack of hunting dogs in a rural country area. However, he now feels threatened by Chief, a younger, faster Black and Tan Coonhound. Copper hates Chief, who is taking Copper's place as pack leader. During a bear hunt, Chief protects the Master when the bear turns on him, while Copper is too afraid of the bear to confront him. The Master ignores Copper to heap praise on Chief and Copper's hatred and jealousy grow.
Tod is a red fox kit, raised as a pet by one of the human hunters who killed his mother and litter mates. Tod initially enjoys his life, but when he reaches sexual maturity he returns to the wild. During his first year, he begins establishing his territory, and learns evasion techniques from being hunted by local farm dogs. One day, he comes across the Master's house and discovers that his presence sends the chained pack of dogs into a frustrated frenzy. He begins to delight in taunting them, until one day when Chief breaks his chain and chases him. The Master sees the dog escape and follows with Copper. As Chief skillfully trails the fox, Tod flees along a railroad track while a train is approaching, waiting to jump to safety until the last minute. Chief is killed by the train.
With Chief buried and Master crying over a dead dog he trains Copper to ignore all foxes except for Tod. Over the span of the two animals' lives, man and dog hunt the fox, the Master using over a dozen hunting techniques in his quest for revenge. With each hunt, both dog and fox learn new tricks and methods to outsmart each other, Tod always escaping in the end. Tod mates with an older, experienced vixen who gives birth to a litter of kits. Before they are grown, the Master finds the den and gasses the kits to death. That winter, the Master sets out leg hold traps, which Tod carefully learns how to spring, but the vixen is caught and killed. In January, Tod takes a new mate, with whom he has another litter of kits. The Master uses a "still hunting" technique, in which he sits very quietly in the wood while playing a rabbit call to draw out the foxes. With this method, he kills the kits; then by using the sound of a wounded fox kit, he is also able to draw out and kill Tod's mate.
As the years pass, the rural area gives way to a more urbanized setting. New buildings and highways spring up, more housing developments are built, and the farmers are pushed out. Though much of the wildlife has left and hunting grows increasingly difficult, Tod stays because it is his home range. The other foxes that remain become unhealthy scavengers, and their natures change-life-bonds with their mates are replaced by promiscuity, couples going their separate ways once the mating act is over. The Master has lost most of his own land, and the only dog he owns now is Copper. Each winter they still hunt Tod, and in an odd way he looks forward to it as the only aspect of his old life that remains.
The Master spends most of his time drinking alcohol, and people begin trying to convince him to move into a nursing home, where no dogs are allowed. One summer, an outbreak of rabies spreads through the fox population. After one infected fox attacks a group of human children, the same people approach the Master and ask his help in killing the foxes. He uses traps and poison to try to kill as many foxes as possible; however, the poison also kills domestic animals. After a human child dies from eating it, the humans remove all of the poison, then the Master organizes a hunt in which large numbers of people line up and walk straight into the woods, flushing out foxes to be shot. The aging Tod escapes all three events, as well as an attempt at coursing him with greyhounds.
One morning, after Tod's escape from the greyhounds, the Master sends Copper on the hunt. After he picks up the fox's trail, Copper relentlessly pursues him throughout the day and into the next morning. Tod finally drops dead of exhaustion, and Copper collapses on top of him, close to death himself. The Master nurses Copper back to health, and both enjoy their new popularity, but after a few months the excitement over Copper's accomplishment dies down. The Master is left alone again, and returns to drinking. He is once again asked to consider living in a nursing home, and this time he agrees. Crying, he takes his shotgun from the wall, leads Copper outside, and pets him gently before ordering him to lie down. He covers the dog's eyes as Copper licks his hand trustingly."
Press F To Pay respects
if stories are meant to make you feel emotions.......this succeeded
@@LWoodGaming Already read it. It will crush your soul into a million pieces without preamble, and leave you quivering and crying on the last page.
You: Makes this comment
Me: *searches before watching the video*
I think the worst part for me was the dog licking his hand trustingly ): I guess I'll go hold my dog for a bit
Zootopia seemed to lack a consensus among the creators on whether the story and setting were more allegorical or more literal. The problems fade when viewed more literally but many parts of the film want to be an allegory
Maybe it's best to take ZOOTOPIA literally, since it goes to such great pains to be nuanced that it's open to multiple interpretations. For example, I don't interpret Bellwether as a prey supremacist, but as the victim of a deranged inferiority complex. She was so low on self-confidence and so full of self-loathing that she thought of herself as an underdog even after acquiring great power. And she viewed predators not as innately inferior, but as MORALLY inferior. She stereotyped them all as bullies because of how Mayor Lionheart had treated her, and this simplistic reasoning on her part drove her to want to see all of them punished. I'd compare her to Malcolm X (prior to his religious conversion) rather than Adolf Hitler. She's evil, yes, but also understandable. At least she isn't "punching down."
Repeating some of the Beastars comments. Beastars succeeds most of the time due to the fact that it doesn't have the carnivores/herbivores as stand-ins for anything, but builds the world around them and targets the systems that would exist in such a state of evolved animals and what the types of prejudice that exist would become. It's not shouting out "See?! It's like black people in Americaaaaaaaaa" while having monsters as the stand in for black people or something. It's moreso about touchstones that we recognize in our world giving us a starting point to seeing how the world works in Beastars and the similarities that exist in the creation and maintaining of prejudice and bigotry.
But also it's really good. So watch it. Don't listen to people who say the CG is terrible, it's Studio Orange, it's amazing. Or conversely just read the manga with it's fantastic art
Dude, the CGI for Beastars is like really, really terrible though.
beastars sucks ass. The main guy attacks another student and the entire show is about how this can be used as a romantic plot device, even though he is literal trash. If anything the animal factor is used as a gender more than a race simulation: I attack a rabbit because I am a wolf, I attack a girl because it is my nature, but it is not my fault at all. (but this fails too because when he is back to normal he doesnt apologyse to her or takes the blame)
@@PalitoSelvatico Look who here literally doesn't know what they're talking about and is proud to spout their ignorance.
@@PalitoSelvatico
Are you fucking serious? The gender allegories you imply there to be are non-existant. That allegory doesn't even fit the story. At no point, do hebrivores or carnivores feel like they represent masculinity/toxic masculinity or femininity, or gender conflict.
And the wolf not being apologetic? I repeat, ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?
Not only did he apologize NUMEROUSLY, but Legosi's (the wolf) guilt over his attack on Haru (the rabbit), and fear of what he could do to her, which leads him to trying to keep safe distance from her for some time, is LITERALLY a center point of his story in the early arcs.
The show is about identity issues, and Legosi very much blames himself, and is afraid of his animal instincts, contrast to characters like Bill and later on Riz, who embrace their predatory nature and make up excuses why it is OK.
When he goes to a illegal black market, where hebrivore meat (that is stolen from various sources, like hospitals, without hurtinghebrivores mind you) is being sold, he lost his shit and had a mental breadown over it's existence, where as other predators treated it as a fantastic thing.
Just because you watch the series with forwarding button in one hand, does not mean that rest of us too.
To sort of add to what other people are saying about it, Beastars is very interesting because while it does involve racial tension, it's racial tension that is built out of a fictional hypothetical rather than trying to be metaphorical for IRL racial tension. The other thing about it that interests me is that its central metaphorical theme has to do with sexual pathology, as well as the death drive + reproductive drive, which I think the animal metaphor works best with.
I like the sheep anime mentioned here, because it's less about bio-essentialism, and more focused on how socialization shapes you and what you're capable of. Thanks for the good video, Jack
@brandon roberts
True
Ghost Yon yeah, like he said the animal aesthetic is just that: an aesthetic. it also looks fucking badass.
When I was growing up, my carnivore dinosaur toys were boys and the herbivores were girls. I also grew up in a severely abusive household, so I think there was a correlation there.
"Much to the behest of the village elders"
Behest
Behest... doesn't mean that
What
lol originally the script said "against the behest" and I thought that sounded awkward so I changed it to "much to the chagrin", and then for some reason my brain fried when I recorded it and I just didn't catch it. the dangers of video production!
Jack Saint noticed my comment! My day is made! Carry on, sir. ❤
@@LackingSaint Have ever here'd about beastars and if you have do you think it suffers from the same problems as zootopai .
Fox and the Hound spoiler: they both die because they were only tools for the system, until they were no longer useful
That's why it necessary and proper for people to rise up and send the hammer of the people will crashing through the window of the bourgeoisie. This will be costly but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
At least The Fox and the Hound sheds light upon the horrors of people slave to systems they can't escape from, taking your comment into account! Zootropolis, on the other hand... is so tone-deaf. Visually beautiful, amazing character designs... but its flaws prevent me from enjoying the movie anymore (Spoiler: Nick joining the cops instead of Judy becoming a fellow hustler with a good alignment like 1973's Robin Hood, for example..... I can't trust these Disney bitches)
In Zootopia, though, they said those flowers used in that drug that made the predators go on a rampage can also make herbivores go on a rampage if they come in contact with it, so, in the end, it's not anything distinctly biological, just prejudice creating more prejudice
So basically the drugs epidemic but animals
Most of his argument makes no sense knowing this fact tbh
@@kirbyinhalesjotaro4471 yep
The fact that eating meat is a natural, biological distinction between the two "races" kind of undermines that. Like this societal problem existed regardless of the flowers.
I do like this part of zootopia because it shows how profiling works and how they pretend it's part of "biology"
The anime is super problematic
because the dinosaurs don't have feathers
GIANT CHICKEN TREXES ARE THE BEST
YOU'RE GODDAM RIGHT!
SSSHHHHIIIIIZZZZAAAA
@@samuraijackoff5354 jojo?
But steel is heavier than feathers
An orphaned T-Rex raised by a family of different dinosaur species. Dinosaur Train anybody?
Yes! That's what I was thinking!
Wokest at PBS show.
No. That movie is my childhood.
It seems very hopeless to me to find another person who watch You Are Umasou as a kid.
(If you want to watch it,you can find on RUclips)
It came out before Dinosaur Train, I believe.
Nice keen eyes
One of my favorite movies that follows similar messages is "One Stormy Night." It is also a story about a Sheep and a Wolf, and how they become friends despite the anger of the Sheep and Wolf community. I really recommend it, its a cute movie.
Glad to see more people talking about this kind of thing. See also - every time Bethesda has ever used a racism metaphor.
Bethesda super into their "Both Sides" horse shit. Way worse than trying to do animals as allegory, and then getting caught up in aspects of animals that are inherit to being animal.
I think there could be several video essays on the way race metaphors are treated in bioware games from mass effect to kotor to dragon age.
See the whole Tenpenny Tower quest in fallout 3
@@TheAntiSanta I literally wrote a free novel on why Bethesda does that and how it relates to their game design if you or anyone else are interested: thedonlasagna.wordpress.com/2019/09/20/348/amp/#click=t.co/lFdGQW0LOz
@@joeschmoe9863 Yeah, that quest was pretty fucked up. As soon as you let the ghouls use the same water fountain they murder and replace the humans. Certainly, there's no way to misinterpret that in the context of race relations.
Tbh I thought Detroit Became Human would be part of this
Nyla Robinson mother’s basement did a pretty good analysis of dbh
I thought beastars would be too
“So are you gay or are you straight”
“Im a carnivore”
I̶'m̶ a̶ t̶o̶p̶
I’ll have to start saying that
Bisexuals:
@@max_punch Pansexuals:
Jack Saint: Don't read the summary of The Fox and The Hound
Me: How bad could it possibly be- JESUS CHRIST
@Jordan Hernandez what was the summary, m8?
@@thegod-pharaoh6148 It's quite long, so you may as well go to the Wikipedia link for the original story, but it is... pretty wild: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fox_and_the_Hound_(novel)
The God-Pharaoh well, in the background of the video you can see a bit of it when Jack brings it up, and I’ll just say that there is “kits” and “gassed to death” in there, so that might give you an idea for what you’re in for. It’s quite sad and horrifying.
@@thegod-pharaoh6148 A dog belonging to some farmer attacks Tod (the fox).
Dog is killed by train.
Farmer blames Tod and goes Moby Dick on him with Copper (the Hound).
Tod Keeps escaping the farmer and Copper.
Tod starts several families but the Farmer kills them all (the author goes out of the way to detail his methods as well :( ).
The farms in the area are replaced by a city (in one foxe's lifespan somehow).
Author rants about the foxes becoming culturally degenerate.
Ex-farmer becomes an alcoholic.
City foxes get rabies.
Ex-farmer asked to kills the foxes and accidentally kills a human child.
Ex-farmer and Copper chase Tod again and Tod dies of exhaustion.
Ex-farmer takes Copper round back with a shotgun.
@@samjarrett5017 He goes Ahab, I think you meant? Not Moby-Dick. Ahab was the captain, Moby-Dick was the whale.
Predators are literally wired to eat prey
Humans don't typically eat eachother
The end
Something something eating ass
inglorious_Machina maybe don’t compare a minority to being a savage animal, the end.
It's almost as if allegories aren't meant to be literal equivalents.
Not with that attitude
@@GermanKinsmen
It's not being taken literally, it's being taken as allegory. It's not an unfair assumption that anything significant in the story should mean... something in terms of the real life thing it's alluding to. Animal farm as an allegory to the USSR doesn't mean to literally say that the Soviets spent years building a single windmill, but it's not meaningless either.
You are correct that when Zootopia is viewed as a direct racial allegory, it becomes problematic. There are parts of the story that fit, others that fit awkwardly, and others were it doesn't work at all.
The reason for this is that both the directors and writers have said that the film isn't intended as a racial allegory but was an examination of bias (both personal and societal) and how it leads to stereotyping, prejudice and profiling. The creative team worked extensively with Shakti Butler, PhD, Founder and Creative Director of World Trust, who is an educator in the field of racial equity to make sure they were presenting bias correctly especially when it touched on racial themes.
So rather than being one consistent racial allegory throughout the story, it's a series of different views of bias at work in different situations.
So while your commentary has merits, its fundamental assumption is flawed. You are analyzing the movie through the wrong set of lenses.
So glad I found this comment, I’m gonna watch the movie again w this in mind
Thank you! The film (and Judy, who is a cop) was making me physically sick due to its misuse of racial allegories and that becomes even shadier when you remember it's made by Disney, who are the Ten-headed beast with crowns in the world of capitalism... So I think I'll use your comment as a solace. The "thanks" are heartfelt ones, not sarcasm. Also I'm dumb at sarcasm
I mean, intent doesn’t always matter if the product is telling people something different. When the film calls attention to the direct, real world parallels of racism, it’s difficult not the read the entire thing as an allegory for race, and if everyone that sees it thinks that, it doesn’t really matter what they wanted to show, because they showed something different. Both lenses for analysis are valid. You can see the film as a general or specific metaphor, and neither perception is less true because of what the writer or director may have said. A movie is what people get from it. If you can read it as a race allegory, then it has the potential to be that, and it’s valid to discuss it.
@@fruitcake6372 I agree that any time one goes to analyze a story, one has to decide to what degree one is going to honor "authorial intent" over personal interpretation.
You are correct that "broad examination of bias" and "specific racial allegory" are both valid lenses with which to analyze this movie. However, the authors of the story were aware that it could be interpreted as a racial allegory and they didn't want the viewers to fixate on a specific racial allegory (such as predators are metaphors for black people) and interpret every scene where bias is on display through that lone allegory so they went out of their way to work with Dr. Butler to navigate that slippery slope. As such, I feel that the author's intent should carry some weight and not be overlooked in the analysis.
Especially when the "examination of bias" approach allows the story pieces to fit into place while interpreting it as a "racial allegory" causes some pieces to fit well while others fit awkwardly or not at all.
Jack Saint, in his analysis, doesn't acknowledge any other interpretation than racial allegory and found that there was awkwardness in the narrative when analyzed with that lens. He deemed that a failure in the story-telling as result.
Ultimately, do you look at it as a failure in story-telling or do you consider that the lens you are using for analysis may be incomplete? I feel it's the latter but I do admit that I am strongly honoring authorial intent in doing so.
@@robertadams5126 I think the point of this analysis is to look at what the audience may be interpreting from the movie. In that light, it doesn't matter how much focus testing or expert advice a movie gets if in the end the message received by many is a racial allegory (predator = racial or oppressed minority) throughout the movie. Then again, limiting your movie based on what the audiences reaction is, isn't really ideal or conducive to creating a good movie (at least in terms of risk-taking ideas). I'm sure they did their best given the constraints.
I don't think the case with Umasou is strictly tied to human races, but rather about acceptance of one-self. Sure, the movie makes the distinction quite clearly with dinosaur races, but the theme itself sounded more like "You don't have to sacrifice who you are to be accepted" as in "This character is a carnivore, but he didn't have to sacrifice that aspect of himself in order to be in good terms with his foster family nor did he have to imitate other carnivore traits in order to feel better about accepting himself." I feel like the message was that you don't have to become something or someone you are not in order to fit in with a certain group; that you are who you are and that that's okay. That's why in the end you can see him make peace with the way he was raised along with his meat eating nature, because he no longer cares to stay tied to a general perspective of what he's supposed to be or what he's expected to be. He's just free to be himself.
I could very much be wrong about all this, but yeah, that's how I saw things: not related to races per se, contrary to Zootopia which was much more clear about that subject in particular.
When he said Anime I was expecting Beastars.
Yeah, disappointed he didn't. Then again, it's more about prejudice than just racism.
With Zootopia when I watched it I didn't feel as though it was 1:1 allegory. It was obviously about prejudice but I took it more literally, like "IF this anthropomorphic world existed, THIS is how their racism might be" (rather than "the predators are 1:1 for real world minorities")
That would be a fine and interesting story to tell, except that they filled it with references to real life human conflicts over racism. The "Go back to the forest" "I'm from the Savannah" exchange, for instance, is clearly meant to parallel people of color getting told to "go back to" whatever country a racist asshole decides they must be from.
Also the fact that it came out in 2016 and was in early pre-production in 2013, aka when the Black Lives Matter movement started, cannot be ignored. It was almost certainly meant to be topical. It won an Oscar for it.
Great, then the movie has no theme. Which we know for a fact is not what Disney and Pixar do.
THIS!!! everyone forgets that its simply suppost to mirror our own world but its still its OWN world, and is not a 1 to 1.
@@frostbitetheannunakiiceind6574 then why do they act like humans idiot
“Please don’t read the summary of the original [Fox and the Hound]”
...
Holy s**t Walt, what did you see worth adapting in this thing?
What does it say?
@@riley8385 Imagine a nihilist writing a story about pain and suffering.
@@riley8385 read the wikipedia plot summary if you want, or like dont, it's kinda just sad for no reason
Marcos R. True Disney magic. Making a subpar book into something passably watchable.
@@Firegen1 seriously that book was mediocre and depressing for no reason. Makes me question why it has a 4.2 on goodreads.
So you’re telling me Zootopia isn’t about abortion?
What are you talking about? Clearly it is a homage to our Lord and savior John F Kennedy, and his cruel, unjust assasination
Huh...I always took Ringing Bells as a cautionary tale of how desires of revenge can corrupt us and make us monsters
I would love to hear your opinions on Beastars after this seeing as its pretty similar to the world of Zootopia in many ways
in case you didnt already know, he made a beastsars video like three weeks ago. its oretty good
I haven't seen his beastars video but I feel like it only really works if you take it at face value
did you really have to use the zootopia abortion comic panel as the thumbnail?
wh...what
@@jannecapelle_art for context check out : I will survive zootopia comic
@@evanjones5609 well that was cool and all, but im more interesting in the origin story of that story
There's an ok explanation on know your meme
The first thing I did after clicking on the video was scroll down to the comments to see who else noticed this lmao
Watching this again because apparently Pixar's new Fireboy and Watergirl ripoff is also trying to be a race allegory even though elements harm each other when they touch.
For Umasou, it also helps to remember that Japanese culture is still intensely racist and socially-stratified; and the "keep to your own kind" lesson is considered a valid and positive one in Japanese society to a very great degree.
Still racist tho
i remember when i was visiting my japanese friend and met her husband and started talking to him. hes a huge literature/media studies nerd so we talk about all sorts of interesting stuff. he brought up exactly this trope, although he used one of the pokemon movies as an example (apparently one about tauros?) saying how its a really terrible racist trope that is very prevalent in japanese kid's media. that was when i first became aware of it.
Most people of color report japan not being racist. In America we think of it as racist because white people are American and every single other race are that plus soemthing and it goes back to Greek philosophy and blah blah.
But in japan if you are black and Japanese, then you are Japanese. They don’t care that you black. They are culturally xenophobic and still homophobic cuz it goes against the culture or whatever. It’s not a one for one metaphor.
@Conrad Korbol where'd you learn this? I've watched a lot of interviews on youtube with mixed japanese people who are very much treated as outsiders. I don't know if their experiences are representative.
Tango Blast this is from RUclips videos and Japanese you tubers who are form the west and moved there. Lots of black people feel less discriminated against. For example the ones who have said they experienced bullying was mostly as a small child, and some say they get treated as an outsider until they speak Japanese. The Japanese seen more xenophobic than racist. Not to say there is no racism and it probably depends on region.
It’s not like they get killed by the polic for not being japenese or experience the systemic racism in the same way.
America and South Africa cannot be compared to the rest of the world. These two counties are the most racist. I mean like truly horribly racist. Most other counties experience a sort of nationalism which can be turned into racism, but it’s generally not race based. It’s the perceived culture. Maybe Australia is also really bad, but you hear less about Australia and Canada. So I assume it’s not as bad. Tho all my opinions are not based on living there. It’s just based on what I have seen and heard.
Does anyone else want to hear Jack Saint examine “Arashi no Yoru ni”/“That One Stormy Night” after watching this video analysis, or is it just me?
Was literally just about to comment this exact same thing. That movie's such an underappreciated gem
For sure but I can't think of what it offers for analysis other than comparing it to other Romeo and Juliet stories
Oh man... That gives me some bad memories. Not because of the film itself, I love it in fact, but I just can't without thinking about someone I am no longer friends with.
Nevertheless, I highly recommend One Stormy Night. It always made me cry.
@@krsynx that sucks. for me, it was a movie only I ever saw and watched at least once a year. so I would tell each partner I had that it was a favorite of mine but no one was into it :P
0:04 this joke aged well
Helloooooooo~ I am from the futurreeeeeeee~ and I am very much aliiiiiiiiivvveveveveveeee~
... i thiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnkkkkaaaahhhhh~~~
I mean, You Are Oumasou is a movie literally made in an ethno-state, so "every kind to its own" might very well be intentional there. Bear in mind this is not an American movie and is thus not likely to talk about issues from the perspective or the context of American thinking.
It's You Are Umasou
It's about Japan and their fear of outsiders.
That’s what I was thinking...
Not that I don't get what you're saying, but...
Does Jack Saint sound American to you?
@@JeevesAnthrozaurUS Unless I am completely confused about what country Ohio is in, yes.
Isn't Japan really Xenophobic though, so the lesson of stayin' with one's own kind kinda fits. I mean a lot of countries are Xenophobic and if left homogeneous share a lot of eugenic views.
Like out of all the Russians I have met like 90% of them are hardcore "race realist" and even admit that this is how there countrymen think. Like a very popular belief is that "mixed breeds" like me are crazy or "retarded."
Shits wild, so what I am gettin' at is maybe the message in the anime is more tellin' about the creators cultural biases or beliefs.
That's something that I find weird. Not a lot of white people are willing to admit that Japanese people are capable of institutional racism.
@@Faebiebot idk, I've heard this take a lot tbh. Sounds like a common opinion to me
Japan's xenophobia is weird, because it fetishes and worships foreigners and mixed race people (their top model some time ago was half black), while at the same time prejudices against them.
As for other nations, it's about traditionalism (that is directly linked to nationalism) not homogenity.
Scottland and Sweden is pretty homogenous, way more than Russia or other Eastern European countries, but they are a lot more progressive and their nationalism is not based on imperialism, so they are less racist.
Furthermore on Russia, it is not homogenous at all (certainly mot after USSR) and some groups of people are less prejudiced then others (Caucasians and Central Asians are generally accepted).
Out of the five Russians you've met four and a half were race realists? Come now friend, I'm willing to accept it might be a more commonly held position than in most western countries, but throwing around silly numbers like 90% just reinforces rampant western Russophobia.
I guess when they are referring to mixed people being crazy is either due to basic ignorance and/or bigotry or experiences with mixed individuals and/or they've read statistics supporting their claims.
Here are a few sources so I can forego the demand for citations.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29855805
yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/Mixed-And-Mental-Are-People-From-Mixed-Raced-Backgrounds-More-Likely-To-Suffer-From-Mental-Illness
www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13557858.2017.1315374
ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/pdfplus/10.2105/AJPH.93.11.1865
Observing how nature produces homogeneous groupings all over, I guess going against this inclination is a futile attempt to stop what develops naturally and therefore betrays the naivety of the person going against this silent force.
This video made me go watch You Are Umasou, and I personally really enjoyed it. While I agree that the allegory gets a bit mixed sometimes, I always saw it as more of a result of Heart's internal struggle between feeling like an immoral monster for eating others and his need to do so. That's why he decides to leave the herd at the end: not because he's too different from them to fit in, but because when he was with them, they tried to make him something that he wasn't, and he knows they wouldn't accept him for who he is. Umasou, on the other hand, absolutely does, as seen in the final confrontation with Gonzu, where Gonzu tells him Heart isn't really his dad, and Umasou's response is "I know, I'm not a kid anymore, but a dad is a dad". I don't know, I think it's possible to get a lot of different metaphors out of the movie (heavily influenced by your own background), but that's what I saw it as- more akin to moving out to a college away from a family that was somewhat toxic, even unintentionally. Great video, thanks for introducing me to this amazing piece of media!
It's about nurture vs nature, Umasou is not a race allegory.
Not sure if you'll respond after two years, but where did you watch Umasou? I've been looking and I've gotten nothing so far
@@agaricusthesooty101 i am trying so hard to send a link but youtube isnt letting me
@@agaricusthesooty101 any chance youve got discord? I could dm it to you
Umasou isn't actually a race allegory, the people who are claiming that are making quite big leaps. I'm not sure where that perspective has started, but it's very strange to see applied to a movie that has the same dinosaur relationships as the land before time- just darker.
I wonder how the predator/prey dynamic as a representation for race relations would work if we reversed who was portraying what race.
Like both Zootopia and Beastars allude to a past where the divide was more clear cut, and predators definitely hunted prey and remained on top of the food chain.
And now the society is reformed to treat predator and prey more equally.
I think that would be an interesting metaphor for the impact of colonialism. Since these stories try and show that the predators never really lose their instinct to eat meat, it might not be too bad of a metaphor to show that the effects of colonialism are still felt today by marginalised people.
Idk if such a project would get off the ground, and it would need a lot more care and nuance to tackle these issues directly (unlike Zootopia which only seemed to do so as an after-effect.)
I like this take; it seems weird to me that Zootopia posits the predator as once being on top... and then the prey animals are the ones discriminating against them. It's not exactly how power dynamics work.
Its a big spoiler, so... big spoilers, but-
-the carnivores are later shown to have been known as "life animals" in the past and, initially, had a strong desire to protect the herbivores ("nature animals") when they first met, and they lived in peace before the major war. Its got its own problems not unlike this video, but even with the urge to eat meat Carnivores in Beastars are shown as sympathetic prior to the war and resulting discrimination
@@LexyconDevil
I get the feeling most analogies go this route for impact. If you want the audience to have their expectations subverted, you need to let them think they're the innocent victims (the prey) first. Though, I could definitely see a narrative convincing the audience they're the better ones as predators by using fascist and nationalistic rhetoric (with the ultimate goal of deconstructing that), if it wants to be an analogy for humans that one would also need to lead back into explaining why the predator/prey dynamic isn't inherent and can be changed.
Man, I think this is one of the reasons I sometimes look at the predators as the majority of this world's west.
@@LexyconDevil Well, there are precedences of a similar thing happening. Ever heard of the Rwandan genocide? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_genocide
And it is not unusual for an oppressive group who lost their status through violent means to be treated less than kindly. (Think of the French and Soviet revolutions.)
But yeah, if we are talking about colonialism and racial relations in most countries in America, depicting the dominant group as the biggest victim of prejudice is not a very accurate portrayal. ^^;
I was promised a duck, and yet there is not a single lemonade stand, nor a man running the stand.
Yeah I really struggled with watching Beastars cause I can never decide if I should view it as a commentary on real world social issues, or if it is just supposed to be speculative fiction on the question "what would life really be like in a world populated by talking animals?"
There are moments in the show where the lives of the carnivores seem to be a very insightful look at the experience of minorities who are treated as threatening by society. But then you get to parts where it is established that carnivores really ARE prone to lose control and become violent, and its like oh god that's an extremely troubling way to portray racial minorities.
I can't really ever treat these shows as commentaries on animals because they always spectacularly fail to make a lick of sense with how they categorise things within their own world.
It's only sensical from a human lense (bc it's based on it), even if it's super derogatory and reinforces biases that affect the natural world negatively, so to me it's always just human fanfiction of animal societies (where the general ignorance on animals and how they actually live is present).
In Beastars, through the predator/prey dynamic (and the other social dynamics that are explored), the world/characters are being used allegorically to reflect different aspects of society (such as a deep societal strife, multi-faceted discrimination, etc.) and ideas/themes (such as self worth, internal conflict, nature vs. nurture, id vs ego and superego, etc.) BUT it's done in a more open ended way that doesn't confine it to a one-to-one relationship with any particular aspect/idea/theme in real life.
By not restricting it to being a specific analogy for one thing IRL, it allows the story to be more true to itself. Many shows/films end up having to force a direct one-to-one comparison with something IRL (at the exclusion of other possible avenues of comparison IRL and at the expense of being entirely realistic to its own world/motives and feeling of the characters). To me, doing that hurts the integrity of the story (since you're confining it based off of aspects of the real world, not its own world). That's sometimes done to ground a narrative so it makes better sense to the viewer (but using animal characters does that on its own, their familiarity is part of the reason they've been used in allegorical stories for thousands of years).
While we see aspects of our own society and the human experience reflected in the world of Beastars, at the end of the day it is a different world with very different inhabitants. There is no direct analogue to the predator/prey relationship in IRL. We can draw comparisons to different things IRL but none will match up 100%.
To me, that's great. Reflecting the same things back at us doesn't give us much of a new perspective on a matter. If Beastars was just about, for instance, racism and perfectly replicated the racism seen in the world IRL (but with animals instead of people), it might raise awareness but how much does it make people really view or think differently about it?
Beastars explores many more broad things (idea of vulnerability, consent, innate power imbalances between individual, themes of societal conflict, discrimination, self worth, internal conflict, nature vs. nurture, id vs ego and superego, and many more) and is able to do so effectively by remaining true to the happenings and structure of its own world and the thoughs feelings, and motives of its characters.
Ok, humanizing animals and creating interspecies conflict inspired to natural equilibria always bothered me. How this tyrannosaur was able to survive on berries?
Which to me kinda makes it weird that he not only becomes a meat-eater, but then parts ways with his original family at the end of the film. His existence is proof that tyrannosaurs don't need to kill other dinosaurs to survive, but it gets treated as an immutable part of their being. The writers didn't want their main character to die of starvation but their solution conflicted with the animal part of the animal metaphor.
@@GamerBurgerz He was able to survive on berries when small, but when he got older it simply wouldn't have been enough food for him. Even when he was young he was near-starved from how few of them he could find. The movie makes this pretty clear, I thought.
@@GamerBurgerz exactly, that makes them a totally fictional race that cannot advocate the equilibria of the real natural world to justify their conflict.
@@Clawdragoons That's fair. I haven't actually seen the film so I did a quick Wikipedia search of the plot synopsis to see if that came up. What confuses me then is the mention of an older t-rex who also lives on berries because he's too old for meat.
@@GamerBurgerz He's too old to hunt, and can't chew hard food well, as far as I recall, but he survives off a mix of berries, and also others bringing him meat. I could be wrong about this since I haven't watched for a while, but that's what I remember, at least.
This reminds me of how the X-Men is supposed to be a allegory for LGBT people but kinda ends up falling flat because it shows that people are justified for being scared of mutants.
what? X-men was an allegory for the civil rights movement of the 60's, and although it certainly does show how people could be justified in their fear it shows on numerous occasions how this fear and hatred turns mutants into monsters. That's the whole Professor X/MLK, nonviolent, show them we are brothers and sisters and can be part of civilized society while doing good unto humanity vs. Magento/Malcolm X, we need to take the power for ourselves and unite against the masters approach.
@@halfeatenburrito6195 It was both.
Also I just want to clarify that MLK and M. X aren't as black and white like pop culture wants us to believe. MLK also believed in direct action, and that the only way to really eliminate inequality was to move past the neoliberal model of capitalism. Specifically he was a social-democrat.
Riley also he thought non violence was better optics and he was right
@@halfeatenburrito6195 I meant later on. Later on it turned into a metaphor for LGBT people.
@@weirdo3116 Like the "Have you tried not being a mutant?" scene
I am so unbelievably happy You Are Umasou is being noticed. It's probably one of my favorite movies of all time. Though it suffers from the flaws you pointed out here, I think it's also really great, heartwarming story about family, growing up, and responsibility as well. A little ashamed to admit it did make me a little teary-eyed too haha
Don't know if this is trivia or waht to call it but:
"Umasou" actually means delicious in japanese, so his little herbivore kid is named delicious ebcause, well he probably would be.
oh and you say "sou" not like "zoo" but like the "au" in "sauce"
The “sou” in umasou is pronounced like so or the word sew.
his pronunciation killed me a little inside.... now make him say atatakakunakatta!
@@kaisuuni depends on accent, i picked sauce because his accent sounded like he might say sauce the same way gordon ramsay does loll but ye both work in diffrent circumstances
@Jordan Rodrigues I don't get it, what are you trying to say about Atataka Nakatta? I can easily pronounce that in any bastardized English way I can think of, ignoring or following the correctish way, and as well in proper Japanese pronouncistion.
:)
Idk man I lived in Japan for 2 years and that cute dinosaur movie might actually be about ethnostates 😐
Also the jungle book.
I thought so too, I also think the underlying message of Zootopia was to enforce stereotypes and make people feel more justified and at peace with their ignorance rather than listening and understanding to those actually experiencing them. If that white production staff really wanted the message to be done well shouldn't have been made the movie while omitting the black voice.
Yeah It kinda could be read by some people to be a whole it's wrong to discriminate against Chinese and Koreans but also that they should all live in their countries and not Japan kind of thing.
SOMEGUY7893 well that’s how “smart” nationalists phrase it
“It’s not about deporting brown people, it’s about the European race having its on homeland, like Israel! :~D”
@@dead_yami yeah, but also they are having no choice but to give in (to having to accept immigrants). Because of the the age population. And from what I can sense there is a two tiers of immigrant workers, the well educated rich professionals coming to teach english and fill english needed positions in big companies and then the southeast asian workers who get the shit jobs with shit pay. It's really unfair.
One thing I noticed about zootopia is that it showed that prey are systematically oppressed in the past, but the predators are the ones seen as oppressed nowadays. It reminds me way too much of the argument made by Anti SJWs that "women/POC used to be oppressed in the past, but now, white people/men are oppressed!" I feel the problem with zootopia is that its message is so vauge that anyone can agree. A white nationalist and an intersectional feminist can both nod their heads in agreement, imaging two different things zootopia is saying
You should check out Beastars
The story takes place in a world of modern, civilized, anthropomorphic animals with a cultural divide between the carnivores and herbivores. The series takes its name from the in-universe rank of Beastar, an individual of great talent, service, and notoriety.
Legoshi, a large gray wolf, is a timid and quiet student of Cherryton Academy where he lives in a dorm with several other carnivorous students including his outgoing Labrador friend, Jack. As a member of the school's drama club, Legoshi works as a stagehand and supports the actors of the club headed by the star pupil Louis, a red deer.
Out of nowhere, Tem the alpaca is brutally murdered and devoured in the night, setting a wave of unease and distrust between the herbivore and carnivore students. At the same time, Legoshi has a fateful encounter with Haru, a small dwarf rabbit, and begins developing complex feelings for her.
(just copied and pasted from the wiki)
Eating meat is frowned upon(I think) and people usually get it from the Dark/Black Market.
You can read the manga or watch the anime, but the anime is only out in Japan. So you can either use a VPN, pirate, or wait until it comes out in the US. I heard it will come out sometime around March.
Its like Zootopia but with a darker turn.
Pro tip, if they don't want to sell to you, pirate it. They don't care anyway.
Beastars is also licenced by Netflix. And his name is Legosi.
@@fearedjames It's actually Legoshi. It was inspired by a Hungarian actor, Lugosi ( "lugoshi" ). They just translated it wrong.
@@redpanda6497 There is an actual argument that its Legosi. Its just a localisation decision to settle on the one that also matches Hepburn romaji closer. Personally I find the way its pronounced in the show is closer to the Nihon-Shiki romaji, where it would be Regosi.
It's irrelevant aside. His name is レゴシ, the English spelling wasn't decided by the creator anyway.
I am truly hard-pressed to think of any fictional races in sci-fi/fantasy that doesn't repeat the myth of biological race.
I don't know too much about her but Ursula k guin is a really good scifi writer
this reminds me of the cumtown clip where theyre talking about chechens and nick says "chechens are basically klingons, they're a warrior race."
@Lúzia A Morta some people believe that the human brain is immune to the forces of evolution and/or selectively turn off their ability to recognize patterns
Maybe because writers tend to forget that one specie can have many cultures inside it, and that cultures have many individuals that can accept, interpret differently or reject them. Is crazy how a whole planet and its population, separated by all the natural barriers that you can imagine, have the same religion,language, and customs.
Check the argentine comic El Eternauta. Don't know if there is an English version though.
I'm pretty sure that the different animals in "Zootopia" weren't meant to specifically correlate to any real life groups. It's a tale about prejudice in general, not anything about race.
Ya, i agree. Who you could consider "predator" or "prey" in a real human society is in flux constantly and is very situational. Alot of the slurs that are used in that movie are stripped of their real life meanings and could be applied to any ethnicity.
But how can there be prejudice when there's fundamental, genetic and behavioral differences between two species. If one anthromophised animal people are predators and another is prey then these two groups can never coexist as equals because no amount of affirmative action is going to get rid of their genetics, it's in their nature and they have predetermined biological needs they must fulfill in order to survive. It is not evil for a predator to eat prey because the carnivorous predator has a to eat the prey in order to live just as the heirbravor, the prey must eat other living things a.k.a. plants in order to live. No morality can be prescribed in these cases because it's a biological problem not a moral one.
Exactly. The movie is about prejudice and how it can slice both ways. The villains who played the victim allowed the prejudice of fear about predators to play into their hands in order to gain power. If you think of the animals as racial groups you'll miss the point of the film entirely.
@@navilluscire2567 You're missing the point. If we roll with the premise of Zootopia, all mammals have achieved sentience and a high technological level. In behind the scenes, it has been established that predators eat bugs, fish, or meat substitutes. It's implied that these groups have not achieved sentience. So no, at this point in Zootopian society, they don't have to eat each other to survive. And at any rate, the main prejudice wasn't saying that a tiger is more likely to each you than a bunny, it was saying that a tiger is more likely to revert back to it's primal instincts than a bunny. Considering the fact that all mammals in Zootopia have the same level of intelligence, this becomes an issue. The prejudice is saying "you're less intelligent than me just because you're different". Or you're more likely to cheat, steal, or be violent just because of a stereotype. When in reality, all the mammals in Zootopia just want the same things. They all want to just live their lives. That's the message of the film. Even with biological differences, you can still get along.
@@wolftamer5463
Late reply my apologies but...
While *different sentient species* can theoretically coexist that doesn't get rid of the problem of HOW do they coexist, what is the nature of these relationships or dynamics? If say you're a sentient species that came from pure carnivores whos past members have been documented to have eaten members of my herbivorous species as food on many occasions eaten their victims while they're still living but have since then seen most members of current times adapted to eating meat substitutes then I wouldn't have much problem being polite with you as a pure carnivore sentient despite the gruesome history. *The big question for me is how strong and unpredictable are your species killer instincts? Does seeing or sensing a weaker, more vulnerable but sentient being that is of a species your species once preyed upon have you experience strong urges or instincts to attack or kill them?* Basically despite the meat substitutes and dying off the older generations of past meat eaters from your species of my species if you answered truthfully that you DO feel urges to attack and eat another sentient being then I don't think it's unreasonable to be more than a little uncomfortable being around you if you honestly had compulsions to eat me or harm me based on an instinctual drive or stimulus. Would you be comfortable around a being that eats people like you because of instincts? Maybe so but I wouldn't be surprised if a majority of people did not feel safe or practice more than a bit of caution around such carnivores beings.
But in conclusion I think it's indeed possible for different species or "races" (in this case think fantasy rpgs not the real world) can coexist but that doesn't mean it's going to produce societies that are 1 to 1 perfect replicas of our own, they'd face there own problems and challenges depending on the biological and psychological differences between fantasy races or species. Imagine a society in fantasy world where each of the fantasy "races" coexist in a society but that society is a caste system that puts preference for some races for some roles. ex. Say elves are all naturally gifted at (generic) nature magic but wait a plucky young orc wants to learn nature magic because they love nature and think being a guardian of nature as awsome but sadly because all orcs have zero affinity for it there's no point in attempting to try and even if you achieve some results your would be elf witch teacher thinks it's a waste of time as time spent training you to attempt even a most basic of spells and rituals would be time much better spent teaching several more gifted elf students in a fraction of the possible time. This is a example of how natural ability and or biological traits determining place in a society and said ability's nature determined by birth or what race a person is.
Technically you could reinterpret Ringing Bell as about incompatible cultures and assimilation, but hey, anything with a certain level of metaphor can't sanitize all possible negative ramifications... Just try not to be "Bright"...
heh, RAMifications... I'll see myself out
I think there's a huge plot point that you missed in Zootopia-- the "predator instinct" that carnivores are said to have by prey is something that isn't true. The movie goes out of its way to proves that predators aren't like that, so they're being unfairly discriminated against because there really is no reason to fear them more than you would any other person. The predator instinct argument was literally a fabricated cover-up to justify jailing preds for no reason. That was, like, a huge major twist?
But they are still predators, even if they have no drive to kill the "prey" the fact is that they are animals born to kill. Just admit that the movie is shit and sucks at everything it trying to do.
Predators weren't a stand in for black people.
For example, Nick playing with the hair of Bellweather? That's because of a long running critique of white people touching black women's hair. Or how about when Bellweather says; "He just did it to get the sheep vote..."?
More over Judy saying; "A bunny can call another bunny 'cute', but when other animals do it ...."
After all, the predators literally dominate politics. Mayor Lionheart, for instance? Mayor Lionheart is codedly bourgeoisie and white. Last I checked, lions were predators. Mayor Lionheart represents how white people will tout a 'Mammal inclusion program' ... all while doing *very little* about the *actual racism* that happens behind closed doors.
To Mayor Lionheart, 'inclusion' is about appearance only. Not actually dealing with problems...
Need more convincing? ...
Shakira is a gazelle in the movie.
Both Nick and Judy were voiced by white people....
Idris Elba portraying a water buffalo.
The predator/prey dynamic isn't meant to 100% mirror the racism on Earth. It's meant to be a stand in for xenophobia and intolerance *in general.* It's not meant to represent specific ethnocentric groups, rather represent how our ideals keep us from succumbing to vague factionalism and tribalism.
Like Islamophobia, transphobia, homophobia, immigrants, and more.
The predator/prey dynamic could be a stand in for any *majority* empowered group in the face of any *minority* group that faces deep polarizing conditions.
Bourgeoisie and labourer, cis and trans, white and black, Christian and 'other' ... it can be read in so many different ways.
Saying prey are white people, and predators are black people, is woefully inaccurate. They weren't meant to represent specific 'in' groups and 'out' groups ... they were meant to represent in groups and out groups irrespective of specificity.
How did you fail to grasp that?
Honestly this makes perfect sense you can even say the fox stereotypes in the movie actually share that of Jewish people too .
Then why are the predators being portrayed as the oppressed minority
@@Quackervoltz For the same reason Barack Obama didn't magically cure racism in America.
@@adelahogarth2761 The reason (according to this commenter(not saying I disagree with the commenter, just saying that that's the base concept)) white people stand-ins in this movie are being portrayed as the oppressed minority is the same reason Barack Obama didn't magically cure racism in America?
@@adelahogarth2761 Obama isn't white, which is what OP is saying predators are
I don't want to talk about Umasou ;;
And more recently Beastars does an amazing job to present that conflict in a more nuanced and gray way, and separating pretty clearly what's allegory and what's not. Most of the scenarios are pretty much impossible to interpret outside their own world.
I've heard a lot about it, the cheap-looking CGI just turns me off - but I've heard good things.
@@iwiffitthitotonacc4673 try the manga. It has a lot of good reviews too.
@@iwiffitthitotonacc4673 i would also at least try an episode? As the cgi actually has a lot of work involved in it, but i get if it's blend of 3d and 2d ends up not working for you. In that case yeah just try the manga then.
I love beastars, I feel like it works better because it's a more mature story. it feels less "what if people were furries" like zootopia does and more "what if animals were forced to live in a society"
@@Jovian12 both zootopia and beastars run on fantastical racism, zootopia just has much less of it. Fantastical racism is generally used as a stand in for classical racism, but both have different axioms and (as a result) ask different things of the audience.
Beastar has a similar setting to Zootopia but instead of putting racial allegories into the story it just explores how a world shared between predator animals and herbivore animals would actually work. And it is a greater story for that reason.
Beastars suffers from the exact same metaphorical issues
@@nullavitasinemusica1 It really doesn't. Zootopia draws deliberate parallels between our world and their world, like in the "cute" scene were Hopps is called cute by a tiger, and she explains how its only okay for other bunnies to call each other cute, drawing a parallel to the n-word. Beastars does the opposite, even the problems that Beastar world and our world both have aren't presented in the same way. Louis hatred of towards predators is based on experiences that could only happen in their world not our, his desire for strength is linked exclusively to his species there's no real world parallel to that. Legoshi's struggles are linked entirely to his animal instincts. Beastar explores how the world like that would really look like and function, and how characters in that setting would be effected by such a world. It doesn't try to be metaphor, it will go in the direction that is realistic for their world, sometimes it might have small similarities to our world but more often its completely different from our world since their world is fundamentally different from our world since the characters aren't really human.
@@gracjanlekston134 Legoshis mom committed suicide cause she was a mix of two predator species and didn't consider herself pretty
But yeah
Beastars social commentary is AMAZING
LMAO
Read some good books
Jesus
I'm pretty sure the intent of Zootopia's story was just to encourage vore fanfiction.
Sadly I missed the premiere. But hey, this video came together great! Quite a treat to see you tackle roughly the same topic and see where perspectives differ. Thank you a lot for the shout-out!
Granted it’s been a while since I last saw Cats Don’t Dance, but I remember it being a good movie in terms of handling racism. The animals are only cast in very minimal ways in movies, often only given one line to say, and if I remember correctly, every human is white, which emphasizes how disadvantaged the animals were. The animals end up showing audience members just how “racist” Darla Dimple was against animals, which turns them against her and ultimately shows a montage of future movies prominently starring animals. The movie is a bit yikes, like depicting racial minorities as animals next to white people as humans is a questionable concept, but I think the movie handled it fairly well.
The animals in Cats Don't Dance are what you would call "Funny Animals" (from TV Tropes):
"They're animals who think, talk and act mostly like human beings. The Funny Animal has almost all the mannerisms of a human being. Sometimes, only their appearance distinguishes them from the hairless primates who draw them. "
That helps with the discrimination allegory. If the 'animalness' is only limited to their appearance, but behaviour wise, they're pretty much human, it makes the whole thing less problematic. Things get sticky when writers try to get creative with biological realities.
I was also thinking about Cats Don't Dance during this and I do think it works better as a racial allegory than Zootopia. I think the ending of Cats Don't Dance is a bit simplistic (racism is OVER because non-whites were given a platform to prove they're more than just a stereotype!), but a lot less messy than the predator/prey comparison.
I think it's a better representation of how racism functions, from individual to structural barriers. It was always a story about people, who despite good work ethic and talent, are held back by a system that has already decided they aren't good enough. There isn't a white savior stand in, they fight for the recognition they're due because no one was going to give them the opportunity otherwise.
Also... the music is better.
Cats Don't Dance, imho, does something VERY wrong besides making talking animals representative of minorities: it frames systematic racism in showbusiness as being gatekept by one shitty child whose removal gets rid of all bias and inequality, rather than a huge system the child just happens to be a part of. It also implies some pretty uncomfortable assumptions being made about the real-life Shirley Temple though Darla being a blatant expy of her, given that Shirley Temple's movies, through no decision of her own as she was a literal child and did not write or direct the movies she starred in, often involved Bill "Bojangles" Robinson playing an uncle tom stereotype next to her. I doubt the creative team for Cats Don't Dance considered that implication and were more concerned with "haha how funny to have the cute little hollywood darling be a villainous brat", but the implication is still there, and in some ways gets a lot worse when you look at Max, Darla's gorilla-like assistant, and how she uses him to enforce that inequality.
While I agree for the most part, the movie also goes out of it's way to show how others are treated by the business, and without Darla's hand. Sawyer and Woolie in particular. It is clear - at least to me - that it is the people running the business themselves who are responsible for keeping the divide in place, assuming it is what the audience wants. The very second it was made clear that the audience does, indeed, want the talents of animals to be of primary focus in productions, all the animals who starred on the performance are instantly welcomed and placed in movies that became hits.
Before that last performance, nobody gave them the time of day, and it wasn't all Darla's doing. She just wanted to maintain the status quo that had been built long before she became a star, assuming she is actually a child, of course. She saw them as threats, rivals and she comes across as the type of person who'd do the exact same thing to her white pretty little human girl rivals (just not as easily)
On Darla, I've heard that there was a rumour about how Temple was given drugs to stump her growth or something or another. This is referenced in the film, particularly the part where she claims she loves "children and animals" as if she's not a child herself (so this actually makes her real age very vague). Her inclusion was probably just a joke based off that alongside the whole Hollywood Darling thing. (also correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't young Temple "lightly" prayed upon during her work? I'm unsure if it was just -of the time- that's considered inappropriate today, or if she was actually sexually exploited and nobody wanted to say anything. This makes the demonetisation of the girl uncomfortable for me, but they [the creators of CDD] may have not been aware of this)
I'm not saying that Cats Don't Dance did it all perfect or that there's nothing wrong with any of it, I just disagree that the business was gatekept by Darla alone, as if nobody else had anything to do with it. (and decided otherwise the moment they saw money)
Thought the Uncle Tom stereotype is not something I ever considered, but you are right.
This is something I haven’t thought about at great lengths, so feel free to rebutt it or poke holes in it. But to me, the specific dynamics of the metaphor in Zootopia are quite different from what you present here. To me, the race metaphor is more about the cyclical nature of oppressor/oppressed social dynamics.
The predators seemed far more “white”/“male” coded, as they were previously the “oppressor” class now living in a world that is trying to break down those divides. This can be seen by the very way that the history of the world is presented at the beginning, but also in the fact that they are the dominant social class in terms of occupying positions of authority. Even though it’s seemingly a world of equality, they still make up almost the entire police force and most (if not all) of the political offices we see.
Because of this, I see the movie more as a cautionary tale about perpetuating oppressive systems from a perspective similar to that posed by Paulo Freire in “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.” He argues that oppression stems from social systems that create divides in society, and then encourage one group to oppress the other. Almost universally, attempts to end oppression are not truly that. They are instead attempts to turn the tables, so that the previously oppressed group become the oppressors, and the previous oppressors become the new oppressed class. He argues that the only way to end oppression is to deconstruct the systems that encourage it, not just to turn the tables.
This seems much closer to what Zootopia is getting at. The prey were previously the oppressed class, and arguably still are, but Bellwether wasn’t attempting to put an end to the oppression. She was trying to maintain the dynamic, only flipping the tables so that the prey were the new oppressors.
I think there are definitely still messy parts of the metaphor, and this view still doesn’t line up perfectly, but I feel like it’s a closer fit. I also don’t know if this makes the movie any worse or better, that’s up to individual philosophy.
This perspective definitely makes the movie 100 times better.
Except that all falls flat when again the *PREDATORS* are animals that are *literally* built to be killing machines and *the other group* is referred to as *literal PREY.* There's no beating around the bush with this one, when you have a species no matter how sentient they are have predatory instincts like the anthromorphic lions, tigers and wolves of Zootopia's setting it is ever bit justified for the afford mentioned anthromophised prey animals to be fearful and it only becomes perfectly rational to treat their predatory neighbors fundamentally differently because both groups ARE fundamentally different from each other. Real world discrimination is built on the idea of irrational behavior and one or more groups making baseless claims about the capability and how credible an actual threat another group or groups are, which they are not because it's the minorities or the powerless of a society that are the targets of hate, not by fundamental differences such as their physiology or mental capacity i.e. the baseless claims of real, historical rascism. That's why racial allegories often fail in many fantasy settings, they try to tackle intangible problems with stock fantasy 'races' like elves, drawves and orcs by having each of these groups have fundamental, psychological and physiological differences from each other thus missing the point of why racism is so awful. If for example all orcs are blood thirsty because of *their inborn nature* then any attempt to portray them as not that feels like an exercise in futility, *no amount of affirmative action is going to change instincts, biology and alien psychology.*
@@navilluscire2567I've never been impressed with this argument. It requires a very subjective interpretation dependent upon assumptions on how predators/prey evolved as species and a society. No one in the film ever describes racist fears and assumptions as natural or rational in the film before the "Savage" panic. Hell, I don't recall anyone stating that females couldn't be good cops. In fact as I recall there were a few female cops in the bullpen, and let's not forget Judy's drill instructor. In fact I'm for more used to racist trolls trying to bust this one out to discredit a movie that portrays discrimination as not just personal but systemic. The fact that Jack Saint seems to have bought into it is kinda disappointing.
The Patricia Taxxon music at the end is always a treat
Another funny thing to think about with the predator/prey dynamic is that "prey" animals can actually be WAY more dangerous to others than their "predator" counterpart; good examples include Moose, Hippo, Wild Pig, Buffalo, Cattle, and Elephants. In short, predators may see you as competition for a resource, but a prey animal will see you as a threat that needs to be eliminated.
So I’m making this point around the 18 minute mark. I believe that in Zootopia they’re showing that these animals have evolved past their primal nature and are able to live in complex societies. Just as we humans have evolved and left the wilderness and build our own complex societies. We now have the ability and choice to introspect and decide where we get our nutrients from and how we choose to live and not just struggle to live.
What they’re showing here is if these animals who you see every single day live as wild animals somehow were able to grow a society and have a fair code of ethics in coexistence, the evolved and ethical audience must be either capable of the same or must not be so civilized after all. So honestly I don’t think you should worry where the audience should separate them self from these animal analogies. You shouldn’t draw parallels to genetic superiority because that’s never implied in the movie. the movies is trying to get the audience to reflect and think ‘wow the animals in the movie really acted a lot more human than people that I know in my real life’ and compel them to think rationally.
Yep
among these films, zootopia was the one he got wrong/misrepresented the most
There's an anime called Beastars that I really like ( the manga is very good too) and it also gets pretty messy when it comes to being a allegory to racism. For me it seems like it started as an allegory, but now the autor decided to just give up on being an allegory and just explore the world it's set in and how racial dynamics would work on it, which I think can be more interesting for the racial issues conversation then making allegories, since comparing animals to humans will always get messy (at least when comparing carnivores to herbivores).
But yeah, Beastars is pretty great and I recommend it a lot.
*t h i s* and it still gets the point across without it feeling like some forced racism/discrimination allegory
Unicorn Tsuki NC I don’t think it was ever an allegory? To me it didn’t seem like they were trying to connect anything to our real world and carnivores and herbivores weren’t stands ins for anything. It’s really just a “what if animals had to live in a society together” story.
@@mouseonthestreets8675 yeah! I like it specifically because it leans waaaaay in to exploring stories within a world not really like our own. From its inception you'd have to accept that a large portion of people eat what would (allegorically) be other people, were it analogous
I feel like it v a g u e l y explores some themes of discrimination and prejudice, but doesn't attempt to assign any animals to any one race of people, which I think is a good move. Anyone who has been discriminated against might relate to what happens in Beastars, rather than pointing to any specific cases of human prejudice which can get problematic real fast.
It explores the "what-if" social interactions of carnivores (predatory or otherwise) and herbivores (meek or violent) in a society of humanized animals. It's not meant to be any sort of commentary on human society at large, though many of the smaller-scale interactions definitely mirror things you could see on a daily basis. As the series is from Japan, expecting it to be a parody of something more centralized in America is a bit egotistical.
Can I just say how much I love the tone of these videos, always? Even in making jokes, it's never... cynical. It takes authorial intent into account without letting it be an excuse to overlook what meaning the work might carry on it's own. It doesn't treat the examples as fuel for the fires of the internet anger engine, just a case study. It's great, thank you :)
This entire video falls apart because Zootopia didn't use predators and prey to directly represent black and white. In the movie, Lionheart's position as mayor is attributed to the fact that he's a strong and confident predator. The drug dealers are sheep. Bellweather's actions are wrong, but her perceived oppression is legitimized throughout the entire first act. Beyond all that, each species is discriminated based on their individual species, like how Judy is constantly told she can't do stuff (by other prey animals, like the chief of police) because she's a bunny.
That's actually the great part about this movie, is that it doesn't work as a direct allegory for real world issues, but is still able to talk about it.
Very good video as always.
However, one qualm: are you sure Ringing Bell is a commentary on intolerance towards marginalised social groups? To me, it sounds like it might simply be a straightforward story about the difficulties of resisting evil, especially when one is motivated by revenge.
Its message seems to be something to the effect of: people who are evil aren't born evil (not necessarily, at least, is what we can gather from the plot), as even a docile sheep can turn into a destructive wolf-creature. Hence it is necessary to work to be good, including in resisting pointless desires for vengeance and retribution. Revenge seems to be the main theme in the ending, rather than anything to do with discrimination: the sheep shun Cherim because of the evil person he's chosen to become, and the message seems to be that revenge doesn't pay and will simply bring you more suffering.
The only way an animal-charactered movie could be about discrimination is if it did what Zootopia et al try to do: create a story where there are tensions between animal species due to differences between them that any animal inherits by birth, but then have an ending where the characters learn that those differences are trivial and don't warrant discriminatory treatment. Ringing Bell doesn't seem to want to do anything like that: the closest thing it does is show that being born evil isn't necessary to being evil in general (as with Cherim's transformation). But, in order to be in any way anti-racist, the movie would need to make the stronger claim that choosing to be evil is necessary to being evil (i.e. that it is impossible to be evil simply in being born that way). In that case, Cherim and the wolves would all be the evil people they are simply due to their choices. Yet, instead, Ringing Bell simply leaves this matter an open question, as Cherim shows only that choosing to be evil is sufficient to being evil. His transformation is logically consistent with the wolves being born evil, since the claims that being born evil is sufficient to being evil and that choosing to be evil is sufficient to being evil can both be true simultaneously.
The likelihood of course is that the wolves are meant to be born the carnivorous, dangerous creatures they're presented as in the film. But, as I say, I don't think this is a sign of Ringing Bell failing as a work of anti-racist cinema so much as it is a sign that it isn't intended to be any such thing.
it's not so much that the film is an allegory for the intolerance of marginalized groups, but rather that its narrative presupposes a different answer to the nature vs nurture question than many of the other films jack cites, at least it does to an extent
cherim isn't who he is because of some biological predestination, though you could argue the wolf king is. regardless, the former is emphasized, and the notion that people are the products of their environments first and foremost is a political one that entails perspectives on racial issues
we're not saying the creators intended to convey this message, but a piece of media can communicate more than its author intends
I mean, why can't it convey both meanings? In my book, it's ultimately up to the viewer's interpretation.
I think beastars is an interesting case of this, i'm only a couple of eps in but if feels a lot more like a "what if animals were people" story than and "animals as people" story
read the manga. its better imo
It gets really tragic later on.
Um... you realize that in Zootopia, if it was about races, then why would the predators be apparently in charge at first, as the movie clearly shows? Zootopia was about ANY kind of prejudice. In fact, I was making jokes about all those Toxic masculinity claims when the whole "Predators going savage was in their DNA" was being mentioned. I'm just tossing that out there, cause I also think part of the lesson of Zootopia was that judging ANYONE was wrong.
The predators actually start off looking like they have more control then the prey- we have the lion mayor constantly overshadowing and raging at Bellweather. who is very meek and quiet but turns out is exploiting things to get what she wants. It's not about just racism or sexism: a bunny can go savage, a sheep can be manipulative, a fox can be just a jerk, and then grow up regretting it.
Personally what I got out of it was that the problem isn't solved by moving it on to someone else.
This is Jack saint. if it's a prejudice that doesn't involve being nonwhite, female, or gay it doesn't exist.
@@mrrselfdestruction1077 So then, if prey is "white" then how is it that Nick and Judy make the "you can't just touch a sheeps wool" joke?
That's usually a 'black' deal.
Or the "Bunnies can call eachother cute, but when other animals do it it's offensive"?
Partly why I thought the whole fact that it was about profiling anyone PERIOD. If being a minority was what made the predators "black" then why did the prey have all the things usually associated with being offended by others? Why was Judy part of a "Mammal diversity" thing, which allowed her to get to be a cop after working her bunny butt off? There were female cops: the elephant in the room who was having a birthday was named "Francine", and the polar bear drill sergeant was most DEFINATELY female, even on the off chance that it was only set up that way so that she could share a bathroom with Judy and do that "FILTHY TOILET- YOURE DEAD, FARM GIRL!" joke, that polar bear was female and NOT pulling punches. (in fact, for such a short amount of screen time, that polar bear was one of the best characters)
It's funny that you can divide everyone into only two groups (with separate stereotypes about ALL of the different subcategories of those groups... Like the talk about weasels being untrustworthy) yet it's not as straightforward as people are willing to lable it, and results in people increasingly missing the point by trying to attach their pre-conceived notions on whats discrimination...
@@battybuddy lots of people don't like their hair touched.
@@mrrselfdestruction1077 Yes, but that's being shown as a distinctly black thing as of late.
Buzzfeed for example.
This deserves more likes.
The manga (and anime) Beastars also tackles a society of prey and predetors interestingly. It's simmular to Zootopia, but in Beastars predetors still have the desire to eat prey and there is a blackmarket where prey sells their bodyparts to be eaten. The main character, a wolf, lives his life, always obscuring his true strenght, never showing his teeth, but not all predetors think that way. As far as I can tell neither of the group represents a group of humans at all times. What is an definetly an allegory for humans is how "mixed" animals are treated. Not only is it reconmended that you pick a partner of your own species, but animals that are the result of one parent beeing prey and the other predetor, are shunned and so are their parents. Marrige between the two groups is impossible and even animals that are kids of two different types of preditors hide the fact they are hybrids in fear of beeing not acepted.
I"ve also heard that predator instincts in Beastars can be an allegory for the Jungian shadow. Aleczandxr has a great video on the subject.
The way I see it, part of thinking about these movies is separating what's meant to be an allegory to real life and what's not actually a metaphor, but instead simply a truth of the world they've created. While the stories do teach us life lessons that we can apply, the idea of taking them so literally that we apply every ramification as a moral lesson is pretty hyperbolic to me.
Predators have a certain nature, and some species have certain weaknesses inherent to their biology. That's not an allegory for race - it's taking the differences we have and turning them up to 11 by looking at a SIMILAR situation that's still grounded in a realistic world. It's like a picture of a cat and a mouse cuddled up and sleeping together - the lesson is that, if these two creatures who are lacking intelligence and speech and are driven much more by base instincts can learn to live together and appreciate each other despite near-insurmountable differences, why are we fighting over nonsense like skin color and what type of clothes we wear?
But, anyway, I don't think this makes these 'bad' allegory bits not flawed in nature. Having uncomfortable implications in a story that's clearly meant to be a metaphoric one is not a strength, but it's not exactly a killer, either. At least, I don't personally think it hurts the message all that much unless what comes across most strongly is something misleading and terrible. I don't think that's the case for these.
I was looking for this comment ! Thanks I totally agree
Damn, never knew about Ringing Bell but it's just gone right to the top of my must-watch list. Looks like it can also be read as a pretty damn strong metaphor for the repeating cycle of domestic violence via modelling of observed behaviour.
The point about the characterisation of Zootopia’s history is that predatory behaviour /isn’t innate/. It’s allegorising the “innate” differences based on its own diegetic pseudoscience, which it goes out of its way to demonstrate is harmful and untrue. It’s a way of addressing those same bullshit arguments in real life. Zootopia literally has Judy repeating the prejudices she learned in school at the press conference - which is not only shown to be the thing that almost destroys the city, but also isn’t accurate diegetically either, as the predators aren’t “going savage” but being poisoned. They specifically aren’t a threat because of their background, and the prejudices Judy repeats to the media are the unthinking, unconscious, baseline assumptions she was taught by society being used by Bellweather to subjugate predators. It’s the movie’s way of dealing with unconscious prejudices, not a failure of its messaging. Surprised you missed that.
But the problem is that predatory behaviour IS innate in predatory animals. If the film wanted to completely do away with the whole concept of predators then this metaphor might have worked in-universe, but this awkward half-half thing, where sometimes the animals are fundamentally biologically different for the sake of a joke, but at other times pointing out the biological differences is presented as bigoted and wrong, really doesn’t work.
Alex Bennet We can absolutely talk about the potential pitfalls of allegorising an oppressed minority in society, who are often cast by that society as predatory or violent, as predators! It can be dicey, sure. I think Zootopia directly deals with that assumption in the story it tells and the way it presents the world and characters. And while the movie absolutely does use species stereotypes and biological differences (based around environmental preferences, or size, or lemming bankers all following each other, etc.) for comedic effect; it goes out of its way to subvert expectations when it would be funnier to do so, too - e.g. an elephant with a terrible memory, or a sloth called Flash being ticketed for speeding in a ridiculous sports car.
But the specific line of argument Jack uses to make his case is that it’s actively confirming the prejudices Judy spouts to the press, when the entire point of that plot thread from the opening scene through to the climax of the movie is that the pseudocientific racism they were all taught is /exactly what Bellweather is using to persecute predators/. The assumption Judy makes (reinforced by a scientist she overhears saying it “might be something to do with their biology”) is shown to be based on stories everyone in their society is told as a kid, which she then unthinkingly propagates via the media. It’s not presented as the reason for their “going savage”. They were poisoned in order to play on public prejudice and irrational fears, so Bellweather could seize power. The press conference and its aftermath are the lowest point of the movie for a reason.
No film is perfect, and Zootopia’s by no means that either. But the whole “aeons ago, predators ate prey” thing absolutely is its take on scientific racism, and the entire subsequent plot thread connected to it concerns unconscious prejudice. It does not come to the conclusion Jack has read it as coming to regarding biology, and in fact subverts and contradicts its initial presentation throughout. You can argue that it undermines itself a little with the stereotyping around species, and I’d probably agree? But a few jokes about crafty foxes or beavers being good with lumber don’t invert a central theme and main plot thread of the movie.
The movie is VERY clear that it isn't, at least not in this world. It is called "suspension of disbelief". The text says "predators aren't inherently dangerous, and the drug which cases them to go crazy would work just as well on prey animals". Jack basically does the same thing Jodie does in the movie, he reflects the stories he knows on the reality represented there, which creates a distorted view on the society presented in the movie. Kind of ironic.
Alex Bennet Yeah I agree the whole metaphor just sounds stupid and full of cringe the more you think about it. It’s one reason why I don’t l really like the movie anymore along with other reasons like being for racism and it being overrated
Yep
among these films, zootopia was the one he got wrong/misrepresented the most
One of my favourite comic book panels ever is the one in Maus where Art's father talks about having to eat mice to survive, and he suddenly reflects on how confusing this becomes as a metaphor when the characters are anthropomorphic mice.
I've always kind of felt similarly about the X-Men. It feels like the civil rights metaphor gets a little muddled when the oppressed minority can shoot laser beams out of their eyes, control the weather, modify peoples memories etc.
It turns out, the dinosaurs actually went extinct...
when the carnivores and herbivores discovered that both of their mothers were named “Martha”.
It was all happily ever after until the carnivores starved and the herbivores deforested the earth.
anyway, goodbye.
oh, I mean, save Martha! 👋
Happy 2020, Jack. This really spoke to me as a Zootopian metaphorical predator. These kind of stories always piss me off more than I’d like to admit. You hit upon why and now I want to watch Ringing Bell.
AND WHERE DO PREDATORS GET THE MEAT THAT THEY PHYSICALLY HAVE TO EAT
ALL ANIMALS IN THIS SOCIETY ARE SAPIENT
Liliputian07 Did you swallow your megaphone? Why are you writing in all caps? You have a salient point... just chill out a bit...
Oh fucking thank you! i remember watching zootopia in 2016 with my two white friends from college and when i tried to articulate why it made me, a black woman, uncomfortable, i was shut down and told i was thinking too much about it. i didn’t have the vocabulary to articulate what it was that bothered me about the story, but you nailed it. The implication that predators are dangerous, but in order to become “civilized” they just had to repress that - i liked this movie but the allegory was weak!