Zootopia, the 2016 Disney animated masterpiece, is the perfect symbolism of the modern myth of a contemporary multi-ethnic society, where all animals , prayers and predators, live together in peace, in a perfectly functioning society where each animal has its place in the economy, politics and culture. But as in any society considered balanced, the system also hides secrets: the prejudices and stereotypes that the two social groups harbor against each other, and the discriminatory ideology that these concepts convey within them. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”? Get an original essay An ideology, according to the Oxford Dictionary, is a “system of ideas and ideals, especially that which forms the basis of 'an economic or political theory. and politics, the set of beliefs characteristic of a social group or an individual” or more generally, “a visionary speculation, particularly of an unrealistic or idealistic nature”. Karl Marx, a German philosopher and revolutionary socialist political theorist, defined every ideology as a superstructure of society, as a social projection of a cultural consciousness: therefore, a dominant ideology is a reflection of the conception of the ruling class and can be created and shaped in many ways. In Zootopia, we can see the ideology of this utopian system formed primarily through the representation of its individuals. Probably the simplest way to describe representation is through stereotypes and prejudice, both in film and in real life. The global stereotype comes from the Greek STEREOS (rigid) and TUPOS (imprint), and can be described as a belief, a highly simplified, collectively shared image of a social category, generalized and often exaggerated, in which identical attributes are attributed to all members of a group without taking into account differences between members. In the same way, a prejudice is a pre-established illogical and irrational way of presenting certain individuals or groups without rational justification, a way imposed by environment and education. system and based on traditional or common beliefs. As the artifact shows, Zootopia does an excellent job of not presenting any of the social classes (the animal "species") as a particular social class in the real world, but it still presents the problems associated with them: prey are more numerous than predators, but are also considered weaker: for example, the main character of the cartoon, policewoman Judy, has difficulty succeeding in her job, since she plays the discriminatory role of prey and female . Similarly, the population of Zootopia does not trust Nick, the other main character, because he is seen as a cunning, trickster fox, and nothing more. These ways of representing the world are individual constructions which lead to negative predispositions towards groups. that are not ours (the “outgroups”: a prey in Zootopia may consider the outgroup of predators as dangerous and untrustworthy), or a protective image of our own “ingroup” (a prey may recognize another prey as civilized and legitimate, but not a predator). This happens because people increase their self-esteem by identifying with a specific social group, but only if they perceive it as superior to others: the group often views members of out-groups as devious, morally inferior, and potentially threatening to their values. For this reason, a homogeneous group is createdstrangers to the ingroup: as we are more familiar with our ingroup, we tend to distinguish the members of our group in many aspects, while the members of the outgroups are typical and homogeneous. This causes a diversity of judgment, generally more negative and with more abstraction and generality towards external groups: and this can lead to an illusory correlation, a non-existent association between belonging to a certain category and an attribute of a single person belonging to the same group. For example, since 9/11, the correlation in the media between the words “Muslims” – “enemy” and “immigrants” – “fear”, has increased by 100%, prompting readers to create an illusory correlation between the two. In the film, some predators have been secretly drugged by Bellwether (a sheep, a prey, who wants to take power, led by a lion, a predator). This drug causes predators to become wild and extremely aggressive, and the unconscious prey population is tricked into thinking that every predator is dangerous through an illusory correlation, and as prey outnumber predators, the sheep can eventually gain power over the lion. Arguably the Predators are being used as scapegoats by Bellwether to succeed in his political career, nothing we haven't seen before. After World War II, many social psychologists studied stereotypes, prejudices, and illusory correlations to explain the Holocaust and understand the psychological processes underlying the scapegoat phenomenon. This mechanism can actually be explained by two theories: Dollar's frustration-aggression theory and Adorno's authoritarian personality theory. They explain that people, when frustrated, cannot achieve a predetermined goal, or are unhappy and dissatisfied, tend to show more aggression against more unpopular, less visible and marginal outgroups, who have the scapegoat function, dissipating aggression towards this weaker social group, exactly how prey behave when they do not feel safe in the presence of predators, attacking them not as dangerous individuals, but as a group dangerous and inferior exterior. Scapegoat situations are generally generated and propagated by authoritarian personalities, and as the philosopher Hannah Arendt explains in her work "The Banality of Evil", these individuals are dominated by rigid and dogmatic thinking, succubi of a probable severe family upbringing and a relative tendency to follow higher orders, authoritarian figures who are the symbolic reproduction of the parents, and these individuals are often miserable ethnocentric and conservative beliefs, exactly as the character of Bellwether the sheep is presented. An individual who is in this sense an authoritarian subject, channels anger through prejudices and stereotypes, broadcasts it to the public and brainwashes them with a series of political and social attitudes consistent with these tendencies. groups that end up being seen as extremely negative, especially after individual events related to these out-groups (all predators are seen as dangerous after a few predators start attacking) and they start to be delegitimized, constantly excluded and banned from get in touch with other groups. The ingroup's desire to elevate their group, coupled with the illusory sense of perceived threat from the outgroup, creates a very simplified division between good and evil, reducing individual complexity to a dualistic dichotomy between good and evil, which can lead to.