“Zootopia 2” recently came out to theaters on Nov. 26, 2025. It is the sequel to the original Zootopia film that came out in 2016. The film centers on a bunny and fox cop duo, an unlikely pairing that team up together to investigate and take down corrupt power leaders in a town seemingly fit for every animal.
The sequel reveals to the audience that the entire reptile community has been kicked out of Zootopia due to a false claim that one snake named Agnes De’Snake, was responsible for the murder of a tortoise. In reality, she had invented weather walls, an insulated heating device that could provide proper temperatures for each animal’s district. Her ideas were written down in a diary that was stolen by one of the film’s antagonists, Milton Lynxley, a powerful lynx in the city. Milton and the rest of his family use their high social status and wealth to scare and threaten civilians in the town who question their judgement and ownership of the weather wall journals. The main characters Nick and Judy work together with De’Snakes grandson Gary to uncover the truths and reveal the lies that the Lynxley’s were holding back about Zootopia’s history. In the end, Gary is reunited with the rest of his snake family, the Lynxley’s get arrested and Nick and Judy restore their partnership with each other after tension arises between the two of them throughout their adventure.
The film uses conflicts in the storytelling to reveal a narrative of class and society corruption, erasure of cultures and traditions and threatening coercion to keep animals quiet from questioning powerful authorities. All of these messages and ideas in the film aren’t just central to the plot of “Zootopia 2.” In fact, they may sound familiar to you because these are exactly the kinds of things that are happening in the world right now.
Chaos has struck the country as America’s claims of “freedom” and “justice for all” are being questioned more than ever. Zootopia seems to treat animals that are different from the main population in a similar way that the U.S. also judges citizens that either question or get in the way of the government’s often problematic uses of controlling the population by force and violence.
The removal of traditions and cultural erasure aimed towards snakes and reptiles in the film can be tied to the United States’ practices of excluding minority groups from history by terminating Native Americans of their culture and sending them off to boarding schools to americanize them. An article from EBSCO information services details the history of cultural discrimination in the U.S. Similar things can be said about African-Americans in the Civil Rights movement who struggled with receiving equal rights, having to deal with segregation and racism. Other correlated themes between the film and U.S. history include controversial leaders in power and purposeful disinformation as a means to manipulate.
Expressing these ideas in media formats such as children’s films may be a recent and slight change in programme to what many viewers have been used to seeing as it is typical to steer away from more serious topics. In light of recent events in the world, showing these ideas and images in a softer medium like an animal community in Zootopia can help frame these events in a more digestible way for the younger audiences that may be watching. If seeing that different groups of animals can all live together in harmony and survive past difficult moments in life, that can instill a hope for the future of our country where we are currently witnessing similar moments of frustration that could potentially be overcome by the strength of community building and justice.
Edited by Stuti Khadka
