This qualitative content analysis takes a critical media literacy approach to analyze and evaluate representations of rural people and places in the movie Zootopia. The chapter begins with a definition of critical media literacy and discussion of representations of rural people and places in popular culture. Next, the author analyzes and evaluates the themes that emerged throughout the critical inquiry. Zootopia conveys the following themes: a lack of opportunity through narratives of outmigration, romantic notions of rurality, exaggerations of urban violence, and portrayals of farming as the lowest status profession. The researcher provides a pedological tool for critiquing the film through reflection and action for teachers' use with students called BAAM.
TopIntroduction
Schoenbach and Greenleaf (2009) task secondary teachers of disciplinary literacy to introduce students “to the idea that texts are not repositories of received wisdom” (p. 101). Understanding that a person writes multimodal texts with a purpose in a specific context is empowering to readers (Schoenbach & Greenleaf, 2009; Kellner and Share, 2005). This study demonstrates how using critical media literacy as a theoretical framework and BAAM (bias, values, point-of-view; author; audience; message construction) as a pedagogical tool searches out purposes in a particular context, revealing dominant narratives about rurality in a multimodal text from popular culture like Zootopia.
A crucial reason to analyze the film Zootopia is that the analysis demonstrates how popular culture perpetuates stereotypes even in a movie that critics praise for its theme of acceptance (Rotten Tomatoes, 2016). Because Zootopia’s themes center on acceptance and inclusion, it is even more essential for students to realize the value of critiquing what might appear to have holistically “good” messages. Virtuous messages may be mistaken for messages that are posited wisdom or, in other words, objectively true messages. Because a text may appear to be inherently righteous, one may believe that text is free from bias, values, and points-of-view. However, to construct a full understanding of reality, students must understand the text through the perspectives of the author, audience, and context.
Another valuable reason for analyzing Zootopia is that it misrepresents rural people and places. Unfortunately, deficit thinking is pervasive among rural people and about rural people (Tieken, 2014; Theobald & Wood, 2010). Theobald and Wood (2010) state, “Somewhere along the way, rural students and adults alike seem to have learned that to be rural is to be sub-par” (p.17). This perception of inferiority concerning rural people and places emerges throughout the film, representing larger messages media conveys about rurality in popular culture. On the other hand, Zootopia also romanticizes wholesome and idyllic rural people and places in contrast with dystopian, overly violent, and chaotic urban spaces.
Analyzing these messages in Zootopia is meaningful to education because movies affect the knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes of students (Clifford, Gunter, & McAleer, 1995). Adolescents look to figures in popular culture for identity formations to answer questions like “who am I?” (Erikson, 1959). Adolescents also look to peers to form their philosophical beliefs about others (Erikson, 1959). If popular culture portrays and accepts that students’ communities are not “good enough,” students’ ways of knowing about themselves identify with this deficiency (Theobald & Wood, 2010). Popular culture’s representations of rural people may have significant implications for rural students’ self-identification.
Using a critical media literacy approach, educators help students gain agency in the way they see themselves in a text (Comber, 2016). By investigating Zootopia, this study demonstrates what it means to read a multimodal text through a critical media literacy lens while revealing the misrepresentations of people and places. This investigation is important for the English classroom as Common Core standards encourages the use of multimodal texts such as film in the classroom. This analysis may provide a framework for examination of other films and popular culture in the English classroom, evoking agency, and social action.
First, the chapter examines the need for educators to analyze multimodal texts through a critical media literacy lens, leading to the creation of the pedagogical tool of BAAM. Second, the chapter reviews the literature about rural misrepresentations. The next section outlines the methodological underpinnings of the study, discussing how critical media literacy works to uncover issues of power when answering the research question and demonstrating how the formulation of BAAM occurred. Third, the researcher weaves the findings, discussion, and elements of BAAM together to explore the stereotypes that are present in the film. Finally, the chapter closes with classroom recommendations on how to help students root out stereotypes and take action in ratifying them.