Nick Wilde Struggling through the Stereotypes in Zootopia Essay Example

Books and movies for kids always target foxes as being tricky, mischievous and changeless.In the movie Zootopia, the character Nick Wilde the fox, challenges the traditional stereotypes.  Nick Wilde contradicts the stereotype of a typical fox because of his changing psychology , caring personality, and cooperative nature. This character is a prime example of how stereotypes aren't always true, and how crooked society portrays certain people or groups. Here are some facts about Nick Wilde and how he breaks stereotypes about the casual foxes

At the start of the movie, Nick Wilde is shown as a selfish con artist, who doesn't care about anybody apart from himself. As a fox with the conventional stereotype of not caring about anything, the animals in the movie, and the audience of the movie would expect that a fox is no different from what they were taught. After the part where Renato Manchas the panther goes crazy, Chief Bogo thinks that Judy isn't worthy of the police badge.He tries to take her badge from her, but Nick steps in. He argues that Judy still has another 10 hours to solve the case, and that it was just absurd to give Judy only 2 days to solve the case, when the entire police department couldn't do it in 2 weeks . This scene shows that Nick Wilde does in fact care for the people surrounding him. Nick could have just kept his mouth shut and left to go home, but instead he stepped in and helped Judy finish the case, and keep her police badge.This level of consideration and caring completely contradicts the stereotype of how foxes act, and how much a fox should care for any animal, nevertheless a bunny.

Nick Wilde isn't only a caring fox, but also a surprisingly cooperative animal, given that he is a fox. Nick Wilde has his fair share of adventures, when he was scamming the public,  saving the public, or even pretending to have a grown man as their child. During the investigation of the cause of animals going rabid, Nick Wilde seemed surprisingly happy  with the teamwork going on between him and Judy. After a bit of warming up, Nick was a great partner and showed extreme cooperation. Typically in the media, foxes and rabbits are displayed as enemies, so you would not expect Nick to be so cooperative and friendly with Judy. Nick Wilde even explicitly said in an argument with Judy that “It's probably best that you don't have a predator as a partner” after her catastrophic interview.Nick Wilde directly contradicts the stereotype that foxes are not cooperative by not only teaming up with a fellow predator(the fake baby fennec fox), but by also teaming up with a bunny, nevertheless a police officer. 

As well as being cooperative, Nick Wilde is surprisingly impressionable, and can change the way he acts really quickly. During the entirety of the movie, Nick Wilde has developed as a character drastically. He went from being a con artist, to being the world's first fox police officer. A hint to Nick's development, and Judy’s influence on him is when he helped Judy find where the Night Howlers Car went. This development in Nick’s behavior shows that he actually started caring about Judy. This caring in Judy shows that he started to warm up, and that she is actually starting to influence him towards the direction of a detective. She even explicitly said “Hey you’d make a good detective”.Judy Hopps saying “Hey you’d make a good detective” is actually foreshadowing him becoming a detective, and his development towards being a detective. Nick Wilde contradicts the stereotype of the typical crafty influential fox, by actually being heavily influenced by Judy Hopps(in a positive way).

The logical conclusion would be that stereotypes are not always true. Nick Wilde is far from the stereotypical fox, with his caring features, impressionable personality and cooperative/ friendly nature. Stereotypes are simply inferences and guesses about how a certain group of beings act/lives based on facts that aren't always true. Not only that, but stereotypes often set an image on a group, who are then targeted based on inaccurate assumptions. In our case, Zootopia is full of stereotypes, and wrong guesses based off of wrong facts. Animals would constantly target other animals, just because of who they are, what they look like.