An Interpretation of Metaphorical Art in Zootopia

Jilin University of Finance and Economics,Jilin,China Email:2639355806.qq.com

[Abstract]Analyzing film and television works from the angle of metaphorical art is helpful to deeply interpret the characteristics of the characters in the film,excavate the values and ideological connotations that the works want to express,and help the audience to understand the meaning of the film more reasonably.Taking Zootopia as an example,this paper interprets the role of metaphorical art in film works in detail from the conceptual metaphor of film naming,the metaphorical connotation of role shaping and the metaphorical expression of the social reality of the whole United States,thus it will bring new enlightenment to Chinese animation films by conveying the connotation of Chinese traditional culture.

[Keywords]metaphor;metaphorical art;Zootopia;role shaping;American social reality

Introduction

Overview of Metaphors

The study of metaphor has a long history.More than two thousand years ago,Aristotle,the ancient Greek philosopher,put forward a systematic elaboration of metaphor in his works.Aristotle’s definition of metaphor is that metaphor gives words belonging to other things to another thing,from“genus”to“species”,from“species”to“genus”,from“species”to“species”,or by analogy.(Aristotle,1981,p.40)Aristotle’s interpretation of metaphor is to regard metaphor as a rhetorical device.Meanwhile,Richards thinks that metaphors are all around us,“we can not get through the ordinary fluid discourse of the three sentences without metaphor”.(Richards,1936,p.61)But with the development of the ages,many scholars think that metaphor is not only a rhetorical device,but also a thinking activity.American scholar Lakoff,in his bookMetaphors We Live By,co-authored by Johnson,points out:“Metaphors are everywhere,not only in our language,but also in our thoughts and actions.The conceptual system by which human beings think and act is fundamentally metaphorical”(Lakoff & Johnson,2003,p.8).Their definition of metaphor is that the essence of metaphor is to understand and experience something through another thing.According to this definition,metaphor is not only a linguistic phenomenon,but also a cognitive phenomenon.Metaphor gives other things different connotations with the connotation of one thing,makes different things connect and gives people a new feeling.Metaphor is a rhetorical way to interpret a word or phrase correctly in different ways,without changing its meaning.Rather than simply saying what you want to say,it’s a different choice to use metaphors to say something more beautiful.(Leezenberg,2001,p.70)Because people are the main body of metaphorical cognition and people live in different cultural environments,metaphor becomes the bridge of communication between different cultures.In some film and television works,metaphor has become an important means of creation and expression,which is helpful to deepen the expressiveness of film visual art and language art,to make the image of film characters more vivid,and to deepen the theme of film.The use of metaphor in movies can not only make movies more attractive,but also bring more thinking space to the audience.

Introduction to Zootopia

In 2006,Zootopiais Disney took three years to produce a 3D animation film!Zootopiainvented a whole urban system,a modern characteristics of the animal city divided into the city center,desert,glaciers,rain forest.The protagonist Judy,who lives in rabbit nest town,dreams of becoming a policeman from an early age.Under the incomprehension and contempt,Judy comes to the metropolis alone from the small town,and she becomes the first rabbit police officer in the animal city.But in a group of large animal police,Judy is often ignored,she can only be reduced to a traffic policeman to issue a ticket.In order to prove her strength,Judy decided to work hard to solve a mysterious case of serial disappearance of carnivores.In the process of seeking the truth,Judy met a fox named Nick,who experienced many hardships and challenges from the initial mutual distrust to the final joint investigation.Finally,they found a huge plot hidden behind the case that could subvert the peace of the animal world.As more and more carnivores become“savage”,the original harmonious relationship between carnivores and herbivores becomes increasingly tense.Judy and Nick’s friendship was also tested,and Nick was hurt by Judy’s unconscious“carnivore DNA that made them savage”biased remarks and silently turned away.At the end of the film,Judy stumbled upon the real cause of the predator's loss of control,found Nick’s old friendship,and joined hands to see through the plot of the deputy mayor of the biggest villain sheep,the animal city returned to life,and carnivores and herbivores coexisted peacefully.

The Embodiment of Metaphorical Art in Zootopia

Conceptual Metaphors

“In particular,some cultural representations of the metaphor,enable people to certain aspects of the conceptual metaphors’transfer to the culture in the world,so that people use language in problem solving,decision making,and so on,do not need to rely solely on inner mental representation.”(Gibbs,1999)Crazy Animal City is called zootopia,and it is a synthetic word of zoo and utopia.The literal translation is the meaning of animal utopia.Utopia is meant to be“nowhere”or“good place”.To extend to the ideal,That’s impossible.Utopia is the best society in human ideology.In Thomas Moore’s eyes,Utopia is a symbol of“bright future”,“ideal country”,“perfect life”.But in today’s society,the metaphorical connotation of topia is more derogatory and mocking.When it comes to Utopia,people think of words with strong derogatory meanings,such as utopia,fantasy,and dream.Zootopiameans animal utopia,an idealized animal city of social system,where all animals can live together freely,equally and lovingly.Through the situation setting of modern urban interpersonal relationship,the film constructs an“equal”animal world.Here,carnivores and herbivores can coexist,animals have their own profession and life,and everybody has their own ideals and goals.Zootopia the word in the film is a metaphor for American society,a country that looks rich,democratic,free,equal and peaceful to outsiders.But does this utopia with the ideal of a better life exist? Indeed,as the film describes it,even in this“animal utopia”town,“anti-Uniak”factors are hidden everywhere:gangs,thieves,swindlers lurking in the dark corners of the city,racial discrimination between herbivores and carnivores,inefficient government functions and lazy staff.After watching the film,you will find that this is a great irony to American society,Zootopiathrough a series of metaphors to expose the lies behind the freedom of American society.Because of the strong similarity between the target field of conceptual metaphor created in the title,the audience associate the image conveyed by the film at the moment of seeing the title,it evokes rethinking of the beautiful world represented by Utopia.

Metaphorical Representation of Role Shaping

The film shapes different characters from the perspective of metaphor,making each character have connotation significance.And different characters have different metaphorical meanings.Next,this paper makes an analysis of the metaphorical meanings of the Three main characters.

Rabbit Judy

At the beginning of the film,from the rabbit nest town alone to the animal metropolis Zootopia,Judy,is not the true portrayal of many young people fighting alone in the first-tier cities? Judy is the representative of quite a few young people in modern society.She is too much like each of us.She has dreams,knows what she wants.Even if this dream is not recognized by friends and relatives,she will still struggle with her fantasy.However,reality is always vulnerable,living alone in a narrow apartment,enduring the unfriendly and noisy neighbors,eating waxy fast food,and suffering from the blow of work.Even so,when you call your family,you still have to laugh and report good news.Isn't it through Judy that the disappointments and frustrations of this scene come to us all?Work unsatisfactory,other people’s ridicule,can not talk to parents,can only silently bear this frustration and loneliness.At the end of the film,the weak Judy overcame the contempt of his boss and his colleagues,broke the traditional prejudice and solved a major case with Nick,unraveling the truth and saving the peace of Animal City.In shaping Judy’s overall image,the director deliberately turns to set off Judy’s positive hero image.The happy ending inherent in Disney animation also seems to inspire the audience to struggle for the dream like Judy.

Fox Nick

The film’s other protagonist,Nick Fox,is on the appearance of the fox’s cunning.The audience unconsciously labeled Nick“cunning,treacherous,untrustworthy”and other biased labels.Is this biased picture of people in real life inevitably wearing colored glasses to see people,unconsciously“l(fā)abel”others,always unconsciously biased against a certain group,region,race.It is true that Nick first showed a cunning,using other people’s characters,but the film then created Nick’s brave,witty,kind and humorous positive image.It can be seen that prejudice does not define a person's inner.Isn't it because of the lack of understanding,discrimination and prejudice that Nick slowly became cynical and tactful.Those who are labeled in life may be as innocent as Nick,but can not change people's views and live forever in the shadow of prejudice.

Sheep Deputy Mayor

The sheep,vice mayor,is the unexpected character in the film.At the beginning,the audience find that the deputy mayor of sheep has no real power in her hands,and her work is more like the private secretary of the mayor of the lion,and can only do some trivial and complicated things.As the plot progressed,the sheep deputy mayor,who looked docile,submissive and obedient,was essentially a calculated,ambitious,ruthless conspirator who tried to stir up public anger and manipulate public opinion to seize power.The role of the deputy mayor of sheep is sinister and cunning,and the political metaphor conveyed by her negative image is self-evident.By a strong contrast with the lion mayor in size,character,power,to imply the class differences in police stations.At the same time,the ambition of the deputy mayor of sheep is also a microcosm of the real society.Many people are ambitious to seize power and interests by any means,but in the end they are disgraced.The film presents a series of social problems that may arise under the guidance of wrong values and the incitement of negative characters.

Metaphor of American Social Reality

Zootopiaseems to be a dream as the theme of the film,telling a rabbit through her continuous efforts to overcome all kinds of obstacles,and finally realized her ideals.In fact,the relationship between the animals and their background all reflect the complex reality of American society today,including racial discrimination,social and political ecological problems.A cultural metaphor is a unique or very distinctive institution,phenomenon,or activity of a nation’s culture that most or all of its citizens consider to be very important and with which they identify closely.(Cannon,2001,p.9)

A metaphor for racial discrimination in American society

In“mad animal city”,rabbit Judy dreams of being a cop,and although she does well in all subjects in the academy,it just doesn’t fit in with the bull officer’s eye.Bison police officers suspected she was a weak rabbit,so she was sent to be a traffic police.Although this appears to be a professional discrimination,it is essentially racial discrimination between animals.Fox Nick is even more pathetic.He has been subjected to this discrimination in the animal kingdom and labeled cunning by other animals.So we will see that the salesman elephant refused to sell ice cream to Nick,just because of his fox status.In the film,the racial discrimination is also reflected in the discrimination of herbivores against predators.As the largest group,herbivores have always discriminated against predators.Although predators have been reformed and no longer eat meat,herbivores are still biased against them and are always on guard against them.With this racial discrimination,it was that the deputy mayor of the sheep dared to carry out his own political conspiracy.All in all,the intricacies of racial discrimination in the film are a replica of racial discrimination in American society.By carving animal relations,the film is extremely simplified and reflects the various racial disputes in real society.As a multi-ethnic social society,the internal racial relations are not harmonious.Although the United States government has always told the world that its own countries attach great importance to human rights,but this is not the case.Every year,there are many serious incidents of racial discrimination in the United States.The film mentioned that herbivores and carnivores should eliminate discrimination,mutual respect,and the principle of permanent peaceful coexistence,which immediately reminiscent of the spirit of democracy and human rights promoted in American law,but the true racial status of American society is consistent with the plot of the film.It seems that the whole social ecology is very harmonious,in fact,the flow of racial contradictions has been constantly disrupting the social order.However,Zootopia is not to insist on criticizing and insinuating the real world race,it still gives people hope.So,the film ended up with a perfect ending on the racial theme,and the viewer would see Judy the rabbit win respect in the end,and Nick the fox would no longer be discriminated against by other animals,and even it would become a hero.Of course,the ending of the film is only a beautiful vision in the artistic context,but in the real world,the American race problem is a long way to go.

A metaphor for the political ecology of American society

America’s political ecological problems were also revealed by the film.The film is a metaphor for American politics in four ways:

The first is the power struggle.The sheep deputy mayor in the film is affable,conscientious and hard-working.It always appears in front of the public in the animal city as a pro-people image.However,in order to seize power and gain its own interests,it does not hesitate to harm predators.Also good at speaking in front of the media,inciting public sentiment,creating social order turmoil.This is clearly an American politician's face,a face,a set behind,like to win public opinion with political show,but always do shady things behind,and the mayor of the lion,as the supreme leader of the animal city,but it is bureaucratic,in the work of the deputy mayor of sheep,demanding,which is one of the reasons for the deputy mayor of sheep to seize power.When the mayor of the lion found signs of conspiracy,but did not make the facts public,but for his own personal interests,deliberately hide the truth,the result not only let himself in prison,but also almost let the vice mayor of sheep conspiracy to succeed.The lion mayor also symbolizes the typical image of American politicians.

The second is the electoral system.Because it skillfully used the political election system of Animal City:it succeeded in taking office and becoming mayor by demagoguing the people and winning the support of the people who did not know the truth.Have real power.And the plot design in the film,is the United States multi-party elections,street politics ruthless satire and criticism.They seem democratic but hide huge crises,and American politicians can easily take advantage of people’s ignorance and blindness to gain public support,complete power grabs,and then suppress political opponents and realize their plots.In a popular American play Game of Rights,we can also see the defects of the American electoral system,but unlike this Animal Madness City,it is not a fairy tale fable,but more directly from the perspective of critical realism.To reveal the stain of the American electoral system.

The third is the political black gold of the United States.In the film,there is a particularly memorable passage,when the rabbit Judy and Fox Nick went to work,they were imprisoned by a small mole.The Mole lived in a luxurious villa,surrounded by a group of polar bear thugs,who haughtily and disdainfully interrogated Judy and Nick,and immediately ordered them to be executed when he learned that Judy the Rabbit was a policeman.From here we can see that the mole is very social,it is not afraid of litigation,even the police are not afraid,we can see that it insinuates the United States’large wealth.It is they who use black gold to control American political elections and arrange their own representatives in the government,so they are not afraid of the law and can kill people.Had it not been for Judy the rabbit to save the mole's daughter,they might have been thrown into the ice hole under the floor.

The fourth is extremely low government efficiency.In the film,Judy Rabbit and Nick Fox,in order to solve the case,went to the government vehicle management office to inquire about the license plate,and the civil servants who received them were slow and took a long time to go through the formalities for them.This scene becomes a big joke in the film.It is a metaphor for the inefficiency of the real government in the United States.More ironically,the sloth is called lightning,and it is so dull.As viewers watched,they immediately felt the slackness of government officials in their day-to-day work,despite the president's frequent talk to the public through speeches and the media,promising to devote himself to serious profit and service.

Conclusion

Zootopiais a very good animation film,in commercial,it uses superb stunt means and exquisite storyline,perfectly presents a group of lovely animal images,attracted countless viewers to the cinema to watch.In the humanities of art,it is also very outstanding,by the market praise,it uses Disney’s fairy tale fable,metaphor of many of the current situation of American society,to viewer a bright behind the dark America,Therefore,it is very realistic and critical.Overall,it is one of the best films Disney has ever produced.Of course,as an excellent fable film,the viewer can also interpret its exquisite metaphor from more angles,explore its connotation in depth,and reveal the truth of American society.