New 'Zootopia' Trailer Fights for Equality: Is Disney Tackling Gender Social Issues?

Zootopia is the next in line in Walt Disney Animation Studios' films, and while the first trailer showed a cute and somewhat bland world filled with anthropomorphic animals, the second trailer raises some eyebrows as it shows the movie metaphorically tackles gender and race equality in the most Disney way possible: with adorable (and feminist) animals!

According to BGR, the new trailer for the upcoming film suggests that the fight for equality in this anthropomorphic animal world is one of the project's biggest themes, just as the company released a major success in the subject of general representation, with Star Wars: The Force Awakens being lauded as one of the most diverse blockbusters in recent times.

In the film, Zootopia is, as it would sound from the name, a land ruled by animals, where they all take different roles in society, like office government workers (hilariously, they're all sloths, because who else would represent bureaucracy in the animal world?) or police officers, like the film's main character, a bunny named Judy Hopps (voiced by a Disney star, Once Upon a Time actress Ginnifer Goodwin), who's just entering the police force and has to work extra hard to be taken seriously.

In the trailer, Judy faces sexism and general discrimination over being a little bunny in a big animal-oriented job. The metaphor is so evident that, at one point of the trailer, she asks a fox (Jason Bateman in the role of Nick Wilde) about a case and he says that the police "should have gotten a real cop" to solve it.

As The Verge reports, by the looks of it, Disney is "trying to tackle gender and race in a cute and really effective way" with this project, and it sounds madly exciting!

After decades of being criticized over perpetuating female stereotypes of male-centric characters through their Princesses, Disney has been launching much stronger heroines in the past few years, including Merida from Pixar's Brave and Queen Elsa from the megahit Frozen -- and it seems they've done it again!

The upcoming film, which is set for a spring release, features an all-star cast besides Goodwin and Bateman, including voice work from the likes of Luther actor Idris Elba, Oscar winner J.K. Simmons, Octavia Spencer and even Colombian pop star, Shakira.