In my survey of the scholarly landscape, I had identified a secondary source that spoke on the gender roles in Zootopia and argued that the film portrayed neither men or women as superior. In this article, Julie Elman continues the conversation on gender roles, but focuses more on the unexpected implications of feminist empowerment. She argues that in mobilizing the female figure, Zootopia also demobilizes those with disabilities, and therefore presents an ableist representation of bodies and movement. Elman cites the film's emphasis on Judy's smallness to support the argument of "capacity feminism," which she defines as "a depoliticized and individualized feminism that manifests women’s empowerment through representations of individual bodily strength and tenacity as the sole requirement to overcome physical limitations and social barriers." In reference to the slow pace of the sloths at the DMV, Elman notes how the humor of that scene is rooted in racist and ableist perceptions of government workers, a majority who are African American.

In this scholarly article, Linsay Cramer places Zootopia in the frames of strategic whiteness and postracism to argue that the film reestablishes the "otherness" of blacks and the centrality of whites in a way that romanticizes racism. She identifies Nick as a black male or "other" in the scene where he is denied a jumbo pop from the ice cream parlor and notes how Judy's defense of him is actually offensive and maintains the stereotype that primarily whites are capable of being "articulate." In reference to the predator versus prey theme, Cramer emphasizes how the film reflects racialized social constructions of Native Americans, Mexicans and Latinx, along with blacks as uncivilized and untrustworthy people who are to be feared. She notes that the plot, in which Zootopia evolved from a divided space between savage predators and innocent prey to a harmonious utopian society where predator and prey occupy the same space, wrongfully implies that non-whites originated from animal-like beings.