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Zootopia Exposed! (Part Two) · Revisionist History

0:16
Speaker 1: Pushkin. So I went to Caesartopia at 3.15 p.m. on
0:24
Speaker 1: a Friday afternoon. It was me, seven children, and their
0:30
Speaker 1: associated mothers or nannies, no fathers present. I was the
0:35
Speaker 1: only adult male in the theater. So not only was
0:41
Speaker 1: I there as a professional, but I had never... been
0:44
Speaker 1: so demonstrative about the fact that I'm a professional. I
0:47
Speaker 1: took my notebook out of my backpack and I was like,
0:50
Speaker 1: I'm not here to enjoy the film. Silence, children. This
0:54
Speaker 1: is a, I'm close reading.
0:58
Speaker 2: I sent my colleague Ben-Nadav Hafri, a film buff and
1:03
Speaker 2: literary scholar, to see Disney's new blockbuster animated film Zootopia 2.
1:09
Speaker 2: I told him it was urgent. First things first, did
1:13
Speaker 2: you enjoy the film?
1:14
Speaker 1: I did. I really did. I actually like Zootopia 1 better,
1:21
Speaker 1: but I think it's a good intellectual property.
1:25
Speaker 2: Yeah. So you came in knowing that there was this
1:30
Speaker 2: controversy that exists around Zootopia 2 and why the particular
1:35
Speaker 2: plot choices that they pursued were pursued. And you came to,
1:43
Speaker 2: as I understand it, You came out of the theater
1:48
Speaker 2: with some really strong ideas about why this movie is
1:52
Speaker 2: the way it is. Is this correct?
1:54
Speaker 1: Yes, it is correct.
1:56
Speaker 2: Ben called me up a few days later. Zootopia 2
1:59
Speaker 2: was now available online. He told me to pull it up.
2:03
Speaker 2: He wanted to show me something that he thought was
2:05
Speaker 2: a clue to unlocking the true meaning of the film.
2:09
Speaker 1: At 20 minutes and 10 seconds, when... Going to right now.
2:15
Speaker 2: The heroes of the Zootopia franchise are two cops, Judy Hopps,
2:20
Speaker 2: a rabbit, and her partner, Nick Wilde, a fox. In
2:24
Speaker 2: Zootopia 2, they launch an audacious investigation into the Linksleys,
2:29
Speaker 2: the ruling animal family of the city of Zootopia, who
2:32
Speaker 2: live in a giant mansion called Linksley Manor.
2:37
Speaker 1: Okay, so 20 minutes and 10 seconds. Okay. Just to
2:39
Speaker 1: set the scene, Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde, the heroes
2:42
Speaker 1: of the movie... are going to the Lynxley Manor because
2:49
Speaker 1: it's the Zootennial.
2:52
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness. It's insane.
2:57
Speaker 1: You know what I'm going to say. You know what
3:00
Speaker 1: I'm going to say.
3:02
Speaker 2: My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to Revisionist History,
3:05
Speaker 2: my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. This is the
3:09
Speaker 2: second part. of our investigation into the very curious mystery
3:13
Speaker 2: behind Zootopia, the Walt Disney Company's insanely successful and possibly
3:19
Speaker 2: soon to be two-time Oscar-winning movie franchise about a magical
3:23
Speaker 2: world inhabited entirely by animals. If you have not listened
3:28
Speaker 2: to part one of our exploration, you should do that
3:31
Speaker 2: before we go on. And for those who have, allow
3:34
Speaker 2: me to remind you of where we are in our story.
3:37
Speaker 2: Almost 20 years ago, A screenwriter named Gary Goldman says
3:41
Speaker 2: he went to Disney with an idea for a movie
3:43
Speaker 2: about an animal kingdom named Zootopia, where every animal was
3:48
Speaker 2: told they could be whatever they wanted to be. Disney passed.
3:52
Speaker 2: But then, several years later, came out with a movie
3:55
Speaker 2: called Zootopia about an animal kingdom named Zootopia, where every
4:00
Speaker 2: animal was told they could be whatever they wanted to be.
4:04
Speaker 2: Gary Goldman sued Zootopia. and lost in a bitter seven-year
4:08
Speaker 2: legal battle, whereupon, late in 2025, Disney came out with
4:13
Speaker 2: a sequel called Zootopia 2. And what is Zootopia 2 about?
4:17
Speaker 2: A snake named Gary, whose family invented the technology behind Zootopia,
4:24
Speaker 2: the weather walls that make it possible for animals from
4:26
Speaker 2: all over the world to live together, and who had
4:29
Speaker 2: their patent stolen by a family of wealthy lynxes. Lynxes.
4:34
Speaker 2: Could the symbolism be clearer? Stolen by the literal embodiment
4:39
Speaker 2: of corporate fat cats? In this episode, we attempt to
4:43
Speaker 2: answer the most important question of all in this long,
4:46
Speaker 2: bizarre story. Who was behind this cinematic crime? What did
4:51
Speaker 2: they intend to say? And what could their motivation possibly
4:55
Speaker 2: have been? To start, to silence any doubts you may
5:01
Speaker 2: still have about the legitimacy of this enterprise, Let me
5:05
Speaker 2: now share with you what my colleague Ben found at
5:08
Speaker 2: the 20 minute, 15 second point of the movie. It's
5:12
Speaker 2: a shot, a brief image, looking down at the mansion
5:17
Speaker 2: of the evil corporate fat cats from high in the sky.
5:21
Speaker 1: The camera is like high above Linksley Manor and we
5:26
Speaker 1: see the fireworks going off. Because it is the Disney logo.
5:31
Speaker 1: It is the Magic Kingdom logo.
5:33
Speaker 2: Ben, every single night for the last two and a
5:37
Speaker 2: half years, I have sat in my little study with
5:41
Speaker 2: one or two of my daughters, and we have seen
5:43
Speaker 2: that exact scene before we watch a Disney movie. And
5:47
Speaker 2: I missed it. I missed it.
5:49
Speaker 1: How did I miss it? It's right there.
5:50
Speaker 2: It's right there. It is an unbelievable visual quotation.
5:55
Speaker 1: It is an exact visual quotation of how every Disney
5:58
Speaker 1: film starts with the fireworks over the Magic Castle.
6:01
Speaker 2: So just to be clear, what this image is suggesting
6:04
Speaker 2: is that Lynxley Manor, the home of the fat cats
6:09
Speaker 2: who stole the IP from Gary DeSnake, is essentially the
6:14
Speaker 2: Disney Castle.
6:16
Speaker 3: Yes.
6:16
Speaker 2: The fat cats are in the Disney Castle.
6:18
Speaker 1: The fat cats are in the Disney castle.
6:20
Speaker 2: Disney, famously the Fortune 500 company most consumed with protecting
6:26
Speaker 2: its association with everything wholesome and good, has done something
6:31
Speaker 2: completely out of character. They've made a movie, a huge movie,
6:35
Speaker 2: in which the home of evil cats who steal ideas
6:39
Speaker 2: from innocent reptiles is presented with exactly the same visual
6:42
Speaker 2: language as the iconic Disney castle.
6:46
Speaker 1: Well, wait, Malcolm, maybe this is too much. Maybe, you know,
6:49
Speaker 1: they had a party. There's just the fireworks display, whatever. Like,
6:54
Speaker 1: you know, you could write this off if you were
6:56
Speaker 1: a true skeptic. But I would say then we should
6:59
Speaker 1: look at the frame at 26 minutes and 42 seconds.
7:05
Speaker 1: So this is after. 26, 42.
7:08
Speaker 3: Okay.
7:08
Speaker 2: Hold on. So Gary DeSnake has revealed himself. Ben had
7:16
Speaker 2: me take a look at the moment where Gary DeSnake
7:19
Speaker 2: has finally gotten a hold of the evidence he needs
7:21
Speaker 2: to prove that snakes really invented Zootopia. The crucial bit
7:25
Speaker 2: of evidence in his case against the Linksleys. You can
7:29
Speaker 2: hear the emotion in his voice.
7:31
Speaker 4: We aren't the bad guys.
7:33
Speaker 2: They are.
7:35
Speaker 1: And this journal holds the secret that will prove it. Please.
7:47
Speaker 1: I was thinking to myself, as this happened, I was like,
7:53
Speaker 1: I had seen the fireworks display six minutes earlier, and
7:55
Speaker 1: I was like, wow, that really looked like the Disney logo.
7:58
Speaker 1: But if it were Disney, then surely there would be
8:00
Speaker 1: some other sign in here that were meant to read
8:03
Speaker 1: this as a parallel to the Magic Castle. And so
8:06
Speaker 1: 26 minutes and 42 seconds, watch what happens when they
8:09
Speaker 1: race out of the ballroom and through the kitchen.
8:12
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm watching right now. The snake goes through the kitchen.
8:16
Speaker 2: It's mayhem. They're racing for their lives. She follows him
8:19
Speaker 2: down a hallway, going through the kitchen. They take the
8:21
Speaker 2: hat off the chef.
8:22
Speaker 1: Do you know what that is? It's from Ratatouille, a
8:25
Speaker 1: famous Disney film.
8:26
Speaker 2: Oh, my God. It goes on. At one point, we
8:32
Speaker 2: see a weatherman. What's his name? Bob Tiger. Get it?
8:37
Speaker 2: Bob Iger is the CEO of the Walt Disney Company.
8:41
Speaker 2: In a movie about the weather in Zootopia, the person
8:44
Speaker 2: charged with telling everyone about the weather in Zootopia is
8:49
Speaker 2: the head of Walt Disney.
8:52
Speaker 1: Tomorrow's weather is, again, everything.
8:55
Speaker 2: They brought Bob in to voice the character, of course.
8:58
Speaker 2: There's more later in the movie. Judy Hobbs and Nick
9:01
Speaker 2: Wilde leave the castle and pass a weasel selling bootleg
9:04
Speaker 2: DVDs of Disney films. Surely this is gratuitously self-referential. Just listen.
9:11
Speaker 2: Anything you need, I got them.
9:13
Speaker 5: Sequels, prequels, requels.
9:15
Speaker 4: Who says the industry's going.
9:16
Speaker 1: Down the tube? So I think the whole thing is
9:20
Speaker 1: just like, fuck you, Disney. And, okay, last thing. Sorry,
9:23
Speaker 1: I'll stop after this. No, don't stop.
9:26
Speaker 2: Don't stop. Coming up after the break, we invite some
9:32
Speaker 2: other critics to join the party. Before we go on,
9:50
Speaker 2: it is important to establish a few things. First, there
9:55
Speaker 2: is a universe where the obsessive critic sees things in
9:57
Speaker 2: a script that do not exist. In the 1980 masterpiece
10:02
Speaker 2: The Shining, the director Stanley Kubrick has the little boy
10:05
Speaker 2: Danny wearing a sweater decorated with a reference to the
10:09
Speaker 2: Apollo 11. moon landing. And there are people on the
10:12
Speaker 2: internet who see that sweater as freighted with significance. I'm
10:17
Speaker 2: quoting now from Reddit.
10:19
Speaker 3: In the movie The Shining, we see Danny is wearing
10:22
Speaker 3: a sweater which has Apollo 11 writing on it. It's
10:25
Speaker 3: due to the fact that Stanley Kubrick directed this movie
10:28
Speaker 3: and he was also the guy who directed the fake
10:31
Speaker 3: moon landing.
10:33
Speaker 2: Maybe. Or maybe not. Sometimes a sweater is just a sweater.
10:38
Speaker 2: On the other hand, speaking of Kubrick, there's a whole
10:41
Speaker 2: sequence in Zootopia II that also seems to reference The Shining.
10:45
Speaker 2: The villainous Paubert Linksley grimaces and limps his way through
10:49
Speaker 2: a maze behind a castle in an exact visual quotation
10:54
Speaker 2: of of the way Jack Nicholson famously grimaces and limps
10:57
Speaker 2: his way through a maze in The Actual Shining. That
11:01
Speaker 2: is not a coincidence. There are no coincidences in animated movies.
11:07
Speaker 2: They take years to make. Every single frame is drawn
11:10
Speaker 2: and plotted and executed according to a plan. My point is,
11:14
Speaker 2: if there's a Ratatouille moment, weasels selling bootlegged Disney DVDs,
11:19
Speaker 2: a weatherman named Bob Tiger, and fireworks exploding over the
11:23
Speaker 2: Linkstein Manor in exactly the same way that fireworks explode
11:26
Speaker 2: over the Disney Castle, the people who made Zootopia 2
11:31
Speaker 2: did that for a reason. Okay, second thing. What was
11:37
Speaker 2: that reason? It's not a sly dig, an inside joke,
11:42
Speaker 2: some wink-wink. Whoever was behind Zootopia 2 clearly wanted to
11:47
Speaker 2: make a statement. Exhibit A. A pivotal scene at the
11:51
Speaker 2: 1 hour and 29 minute mark. Judy Hopps and Nick
11:55
Speaker 2: Wilde have finally apprehended Poppert Linksley, scion of the evil
11:59
Speaker 2: Linksley family. Gary DeSnake wraps his body around Poppert, immobilizing him.
12:05
Speaker 2: Poppert is angry, speaking his truth. And then Judy Hopps...
12:10
Speaker 2: silences him.
12:11
Speaker 1: No one will believe you over us. We've always been
12:16
Speaker 1: better than you, and we always will be.
12:20
Speaker 2: Nothing you do matters.
12:25
Speaker 1: Well, it matters to him. Now that, I think, is
12:31
Speaker 1: the crucial part. Nothing you do matters. This film is
12:35
Speaker 1: not going to change anything. It's not going to change anything.
12:39
Speaker 1: Disney owns Zootopia.
12:40
Speaker 2: But it matters to him.
12:42
Speaker 1: But it matters to him.
12:43
Speaker 2: Talking about Gary the Snake, you've just pointed me to
12:46
Speaker 2: a scene that is, in essence, the climax of the movie.
12:49
Speaker 1: It is the end of the film.
12:50
Speaker 2: The Lynxes have finally been brought to justice.
12:53
Speaker 1: The fat cats are going to live in the Magic Kingdom.
12:55
Speaker 2: Fat cats are going to live in the Magic Kingdom.
12:57
Speaker 2: And our heroes, the bunny, Judy Hopps, and Judy says
13:01
Speaker 2: it does matter. And she looks at Gary the Snake
13:04
Speaker 2: and says it matters to him. And this is I mean,
13:08
Speaker 2: I can't believe I missed this. This is the screenwriter
13:11
Speaker 2: saying to Gary, Gary, I understand what you've been through.
13:18
Speaker 2: We took your idea. I can't give you, you're never
13:22
Speaker 2: going to get recognized in the court of law for
13:24
Speaker 2: being the originator of Zootopia, but we can at least
13:27
Speaker 2: give you this small moment of satisfaction. that we understand
13:31
Speaker 2: what you went through, and we understand your contribution, that
13:34
Speaker 2: you are, you carry the snake, and you invent, your
13:37
Speaker 2: family invented this. It's like, it's insane.
13:41
Speaker 1: It's crazy. It's very explicit. It tracks so perfectly.
13:46
Speaker 2: Ben and I talked about this moment with the filmmakers
13:49
Speaker 2: Britt Marling and Zolbutt Manglage. On my instructions, Britt and
13:53
Speaker 2: Zol dropped everything and went immediately to Seizutopia II.
13:58
Speaker 5: It's not like they made it subtle.
14:00
Speaker 6: As if someone in the writing team knew the score
14:03
Speaker 6: and wanted to do a wink to Gary, like, hey,
14:07
Speaker 6: I know what went down. This is our internal apology,
14:11
Speaker 6: a quiet apology to you that only you would understand.
14:15
Speaker 2: They made it in.
14:16
Speaker 6: A way that, like, any part of the audience, his family,
14:21
Speaker 6: the surrounding community that knows anything about it would know that.
14:26
Speaker 7: This is what the movie is.
14:28
Speaker 5: Like, it's not quiet.
14:31
Speaker 1: It's public.
14:32
Speaker 2: It is not a Straussian reading of the controversy in
14:35
Speaker 2: a sense of, you know, you know, the famous theories
14:39
Speaker 2: of Leo Strauss, who argued that texts in conflicted times
14:45
Speaker 2: have hidden messages. And the goal of the scholar is
14:47
Speaker 2: to decode the hidden message. Right. The person attacking the
14:51
Speaker 2: church in the 15th century would never do a a
14:56
Speaker 2: real attack. They would make it subtle. They would praise
15:01
Speaker 2: the church, but if you read Between the Lines, you
15:02
Speaker 2: would see this. There's no Straussian reading here available in
15:07
Speaker 2: Zadopia II. It is what it is. Yeah, it's not.
15:10
Speaker 6: Between the Lines, it's The Lines.
15:12
Speaker 2: It is literally The Lines on the book.
15:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's not Iranian cinema, which has to get
15:18
Speaker 1: through all the censorship.
15:21
Speaker 7: So that is an interesting thing about Disney. It shows
15:24
Speaker 7: you There's no one at the wheel. Like, they were
15:29
Speaker 7: able to get this through because the powers that be,
15:34
Speaker 7: the lynxes, did not know what was happening.
15:37
Speaker 2: He's right. Before any script is greenlit, it has to
15:41
Speaker 2: be reviewed by the studio's legal team. The last stop
15:44
Speaker 2: before the wheels start to turn. Is there anything in
15:47
Speaker 2: the script that is potentially problematic? Do we have the
15:50
Speaker 2: rights for everything that needs rights? Is this bit of
15:53
Speaker 2: dialogue or description defamatory? Is this character a little bit
15:57
Speaker 2: too close to a real-world character? On and on. Someone
16:02
Speaker 2: did this for the script for Zootopia 2, and for
16:06
Speaker 2: some mysterious reason, that person or maybe team of people said,
16:10
Speaker 2: all good. It almost feels like the author of an
16:14
Speaker 2: anti-Disney film got an anti-Disney film past Disney Legal. in
16:19
Speaker 2: order to make a point about respecting creativity.
16:22
Speaker 7: It is a roadmap for true authorship. Yeah, I agree.
16:28
Speaker 5: It's an acknowledgement. It's only, I think, an apology if
16:31
Speaker 5: it's just directly to the person you harmed. But when
16:34
Speaker 5: you make something that's not between the lines, but the
16:37
Speaker 5: line themselves, you're talking to the entire community.
16:41
Speaker 2: All of us involved in the forensic analysis of Zootopia
16:45
Speaker 2: II agreed. It's the perfect literary crime. The perfect crime
16:49
Speaker 2: reading of Zootopia is that there was a quiet insurrection
16:54
Speaker 2: in the creative ranks at Disney, where they felt that
16:58
Speaker 2: the Disney overlords had committed a kind of moral crime
17:03
Speaker 2: against this brilliant man, Gary Goldman. They contrived to come
17:06
Speaker 2: up with a secret form of revenge in the form
17:10
Speaker 2: of Zootopia II. That was a crime in the sense
17:12
Speaker 2: that they were violating their implied contract with Disney. But
17:16
Speaker 2: it's a perfect crime because the movie's so good, they
17:19
Speaker 2: can never be convicted of any crime. They can't get punished.
17:22
Speaker 1: Because the movie's a- Right, they paid all this money
17:24
Speaker 1: and to punish them would.
17:25
Speaker 2: So the way to get away with a crime in
17:27
Speaker 2: Hollywood is to make a work of art, a work
17:30
Speaker 2: of great commercial art. And that makes you completely above
17:36
Speaker 2: the law. It's genius.
17:39
Speaker 1: I think that there is a strong message being sent
17:43
Speaker 1: about Disney. And it revolves around authorship and a snake
17:46
Speaker 1: named Gary. And that's a lot of coincidences.
17:52
Speaker 2: And who is this genius who pulled off the perfect
17:55
Speaker 2: literary crime? After the break, our best guess at the culprit.
18:20
Speaker 2: Let me warn you, this is going to require what
18:23
Speaker 2: will seem in the moment like a massive digression. Like
18:26
Speaker 2: when there's a huge construction delay on the interstate and
18:30
Speaker 2: Google Maps directs you down a side road and then
18:33
Speaker 2: another side road and then a farmer's lane in the
18:36
Speaker 2: middle of a cornfield. And you're like, wouldn't I have
18:39
Speaker 2: been better off just sitting in traffic for two hours?
18:41
Speaker 2: And the answer is, no, you wouldn't. The digression is
18:45
Speaker 2: a digression and not an alternate route because the whole
18:48
Speaker 2: point of the digression is to get you back on
18:51
Speaker 2: the interstate. Patience, Grasshopper.
18:55
Speaker 1: Thank you.
18:55
Speaker 2: Well, thank you for doing this. I appreciate it.
18:57
Speaker 7: Well, I have no idea what direction we're heading, but
19:00
Speaker 7: let's get on our seatbelts and we'll go.
19:03
Speaker 2: All of this starts with a man named Lester Bush Jr.
19:07
Speaker 2: Not the fancy bushes of Texas and Connecticut and 1600
19:10
Speaker 2: Pennsylvania Avenue, the bushes of Iowa. Unfortunately, I wasn't able
19:16
Speaker 2: to speak with Lester Bush Jr. because he died in 2023.
19:20
Speaker 2: But I tracked down his best friend and longtime collaborator,
19:22
Speaker 2: Greg Prince, who told me that his friend Lester was
19:25
Speaker 2: a physician who joined the CIA and rose to the
19:28
Speaker 2: position of the agency's medical director. Lester was also, crucially,
19:34
Speaker 2: a Mormon.
19:36
Speaker 3: He.
19:38
Speaker 7: was in a family whose mother converted to Mormonism, and
19:41
Speaker 7: he and his younger brother were brought along at the
19:44
Speaker 7: same time. His father converted many years later. He became
19:48
Speaker 7: aware of the discriminatory policy of the church towards blacks,
19:54
Speaker 7: was always uneasy about it, never felt that it was
19:58
Speaker 7: quite right.
20:00
Speaker 2: Up until the late 70s, the Mormon church had a
20:03
Speaker 2: policy that said that Black people could not serve as
20:06
Speaker 2: priests in the church, which is a big deal, because
20:09
Speaker 2: the Mormon church has a model of lay priesthood. Priests
20:12
Speaker 2: come directly out of the congregation. And if you have
20:15
Speaker 2: a policy that says that Black people can't be priests...
20:19
Speaker 2: you're effectively saying that black people cannot fully participate in
20:23
Speaker 2: the life of the church at all. It meant that
20:26
Speaker 2: the church, which was trying to become a worldwide movement,
20:30
Speaker 2: couldn't really expand beyond North America and Europe. And why
20:34
Speaker 2: did the Mormons have this policy? Because it was believed
20:38
Speaker 2: that it was part of the divine inspiration given to
20:41
Speaker 2: the prophet Joseph Smith when he founded the Mormon church
20:44
Speaker 2: in the early 19th century.
20:47
Speaker 7: Conventional wisdom all the way up to the top of
20:49
Speaker 7: the church was, well, this was a revelation that started
20:52
Speaker 7: with Joseph Smith, and we have never allowed blacks into
20:55
Speaker 7: our priesthood.
20:56
Speaker 2: But while he did his medical training, Lester began to
20:59
Speaker 2: dig into the Mormon church archives, spent years reading old
21:03
Speaker 2: manuscripts that no one had ever bothered to look at.
21:06
Speaker 7: What he found first was, no, that wasn't the case,
21:09
Speaker 7: because during the administration of Joseph Smith, the founder of
21:14
Speaker 7: the religion, there were well-documented cases of several black members
21:18
Speaker 7: being ordained to the priesthood.
21:20
Speaker 2: Lester's discovery was that the ban on African Americans was
21:24
Speaker 2: started by Joseph Smith's successor, Brigham Young. Lester wrote up
21:29
Speaker 2: his findings in an academic article in 1973 that rocked
21:34
Speaker 2: the Mormon world.
21:36
Speaker 7: Lester's article showed that this wasn't revelation. This wasn't etched
21:42
Speaker 7: in concrete doctrine. This was a policy, and it was
21:45
Speaker 7: a policy that began with Brigham Young, and it arose
21:50
Speaker 7: out of, would you believe it, that there was racism
21:53
Speaker 7: in the United States in the.
21:55
Speaker 1: 1840s and 50s.
21:57
Speaker 2: And here, I will admit, we are in the middle
21:59
Speaker 2: of the cornfield. But trust me, the interstate awaits. Five
22:05
Speaker 2: years after Lester published his manuscript, the Mormon Church was
22:09
Speaker 2: rescinds the ban on African Americans. And it's Lester's article
22:14
Speaker 2: that provides the justification for that decision. When you look
22:18
Speaker 2: at the history of the Mormon church, which over the
22:20
Speaker 2: past half century has exploded in size, particularly in the
22:24
Speaker 2: developed world, everything begins with Lester Bush's stubborn desire to
22:30
Speaker 2: get at the truth. But, and this is crucial, even
22:34
Speaker 2: though Lester Bush changes the course of Mormon history, is
22:38
Speaker 2: he recognized as a hero?
22:40
Speaker 7: Know.
22:41
Speaker 2: Some of the leaders of the church fight tooth and
22:43
Speaker 2: nail to block publication of his famous essay. He has
22:47
Speaker 2: challenged a powerful institution, and powerful institutions do not take
22:52
Speaker 2: those kinds of challenges lightly.
22:55
Speaker 7: He paid a price for it. He was shunned by
22:58
Speaker 7: the church. Eventually, he just withdrew from activity in the church,
23:03
Speaker 7: as did his three children. His wife remains an active
23:07
Speaker 7: church member, but She has her eyes open. I thought
23:14
Speaker 7: that it was the cumulative pain that caused him to withdraw,
23:18
Speaker 7: but eventually we were talking about it, and he said, no,
23:21
Speaker 7: it wasn't that. He said, it was just that I
23:25
Speaker 7: saw that there was less and less room in the
23:28
Speaker 7: church for people who thought the way I did.
23:30
Speaker 6: Yeah.
23:31
Speaker 7: That's a sad statement to have to make, but there
23:35
Speaker 7: was merit in that.
23:36
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
23:38
Speaker 2: Only at the end of his life did the church
23:41
Speaker 2: make amends. Lester was invited to give an honorary lecture
23:45
Speaker 2: in Salt Lake City. An acknowledgement of his contribution.
23:50
Speaker 8: So here I am, feeling like Rip Van Winkle and
23:55
Speaker 8: looking like something from a storage closet at a museum.
23:58
Speaker 8: So it's an honor to speak to this symposium and
24:03
Speaker 8: quite a surprise. Both be asked after so many years
24:06
Speaker 8: and that the subject is still active.
24:09
Speaker 2: Afterwards, he had a private breakfast with an official high
24:12
Speaker 2: in the church, a man named Jeff. In the Mormon hierarchy,
24:15
Speaker 2: a so-called apostle.
24:17
Speaker 7: And then as we walked out to the underground garage,
24:21
Speaker 7: Jeff put his arm around Lester's shoulder and said, Lester,
24:24
Speaker 7: I just want you to hear it from me how
24:27
Speaker 7: much I appreciate what you have done for the church.
24:30
Speaker 7: So we did have closure eventually.
24:37
Speaker 2: Lester Jr. was a moral warrior, a man who took
24:40
Speaker 2: on giants on behalf of truth. Oh, and by the way,
24:45
Speaker 2: who was Lester Bush Sr., his father? A CPA who
24:50
Speaker 2: was a spy in the Second World War and spent
24:52
Speaker 2: the 1940s setting up credit unions in the Deep South
24:56
Speaker 2: for African Americans who had been locked out of the
24:58
Speaker 2: financial system. Oh, and Lester Sr. had another son, Larry.
25:03
Speaker 2: Lester Jr. 's brother, who went to Brigham Young University
25:06
Speaker 2: and was kicked out for being gay and then moved
25:09
Speaker 2: to San Francisco and became a gay activist. Can you
25:12
Speaker 2: imagine Thanksgiving dinner in the Bush household? Grandpa talks about
25:17
Speaker 2: taking on the Nazis and then Jim Crow, wandering the
25:20
Speaker 2: Deep South to bring outsiders back into the fold. Uncle
25:23
Speaker 2: Larry talks about being cast out of school for the
25:26
Speaker 2: simple fact of his sexuality. Dad talks about the pain
25:30
Speaker 2: he knew that African Americans felt. on account of their exclusion,
25:34
Speaker 2: and the fight he took up on their behalf, the
25:37
Speaker 2: price he paid. Stories about the power of a personal
25:42
Speaker 2: redemptive gesture. Families have narratives, patterns of practice and behavior
25:47
Speaker 2: that define who they are. You spend your childhood listening
25:50
Speaker 2: to those stories. What do you become? Prince would spend
25:55
Speaker 2: every Sunday night with his friend Lester.
25:57
Speaker 7: Very good family man, had three kids, just as a
26:01
Speaker 7: sidelight Wait for it. His second child and first son
26:07
Speaker 7: is the director of animation for Walt Disney Studios.
26:14
Speaker 2: Lester Bush's eldest son, Jared Bush, runs all of animation
26:19
Speaker 2: for the Walt Disney Company. And ten guesses what script
26:22
Speaker 2: Jared Bush is most famous for writing. He's the guy
26:26
Speaker 2: who wrote Zootopia 2.
26:28
Speaker 1: And Zootopia.
26:30
Speaker 7: Zootopia 2. Moana, and Encanto.
26:34
Speaker 2: But this is a question I had, though, because this
26:37
Speaker 2: is actually what led me into all of this. I
26:39
Speaker 2: watched Zootopia II, and Zootopia II is a movie about
26:44
Speaker 2: how an excluded class of animals, the reptiles, had been
26:49
Speaker 2: kept out of the world of the animals. And the
26:54
Speaker 2: movie is all about bringing the reptiles back into the fold,
26:57
Speaker 2: bringing the despised snakes back back into the fold and
27:01
Speaker 2: honoring them as, and I'm wondering is, is, is Zootopia,
27:04
Speaker 2: am I correct in reading Zootopia too as a kind of,
27:08
Speaker 2: Jared is, is, is he, is he continuing the family
27:12
Speaker 2: intellectual tradition here?
27:15
Speaker 7: I haven't talked to him about that, but I think
27:18
Speaker 7: you're onto something there. If you go back and look
27:21
Speaker 7: at Encanto, you see the same type of thing. They're, um,
27:28
Speaker 7: Number one, the focus is on extended families, which comes
27:31
Speaker 7: right out of his heritage. But the other is that
27:34
Speaker 7: the star in it wears glasses. And there had never
27:39
Speaker 7: been a star of an animated movie who wore glasses.
27:43
Speaker 7: And he said, in fact, when he was given the
27:46
Speaker 7: British equivalent of an Academy Award for it, he brought
27:49
Speaker 7: the young lady who had sent him the letter saying,
27:53
Speaker 7: why don't you have any animated movies with glasses? People
27:57
Speaker 7: wearing glasses.
27:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
28:01
Speaker 7: Yeah, Jared has a very strong moral compass.
28:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
28:05
Speaker 2: Because it does seem, I mean, it fascinates me that
28:10
Speaker 2: the father is the one who provides the intellectual foundation
28:14
Speaker 2: for bringing a group fully into the, exclude a group
28:18
Speaker 2: fully into the Mormon church. And then the son writes
28:21
Speaker 2: a movie that's all about bringing an excluded group fully
28:25
Speaker 2: into the animal kingdom.
28:27
Speaker 7: I think it's a brilliant storyline. I had not considered it.
28:32
Speaker 1: Go for it.
28:33
Speaker 2: But I did find something in a New York Times
28:35
Speaker 2: article that gave me some sense of how he thinks
28:38
Speaker 2: about these things. The piece came out before Zootopia II,
28:42
Speaker 2: and in it, there was a moment which makes no
28:44
Speaker 2: sense unless you were the one sitting at the dinner
28:47
Speaker 2: table at the Bush family Thanksgiving. The reporter wrote, Mr.
28:51
Speaker 2: Bush's emotions sometimes run close to the surface.
28:55
Speaker 3: Mr.
28:55
Speaker 2: Bush started to tear up, for instance, while talking about
28:59
Speaker 2: the social justice subtext in Zootopia II. I think that
29:04
Speaker 2: if Larry and Lester Jr. and Lester Sr. had gone
29:08
Speaker 2: to see Zootopia II, they would have teared up as well.
29:14
Speaker 2: It was Gary Goldman who made the connection between Jared
29:17
Speaker 2: Bush and the greater Bush family legacy, or rather his
29:20
Speaker 2: wife Judy, who he describes fondly as the Internet's proctologist.
29:25
Speaker 2: She did the digging, unearthed the story of the remarkable bushes.
29:29
Speaker 2: And Gary says the revelations gave him peace. He feels
29:33
Speaker 2: he understood, finally, where Gary DeSnake came from. So Jared
29:38
Speaker 2: is representing the family honor here.
29:41
Speaker 4: Yes, that's my interpretation.
29:42
Speaker 2: The bushes are standing up for the Goldmans.
29:46
Speaker 4: That's my interpretation. It makes me feel very... good, I
29:50
Speaker 4: have to tell you. I mean, so this is a
29:52
Speaker 4: weird thing. I'm telling you this story and I feel
29:54
Speaker 4: I've been done wrong in a lot of ways. But
29:58
Speaker 4: I feel so close and connected and grateful in a
30:02
Speaker 4: certain way. to Jared Bush, and in my imagination, he's
30:06
Speaker 4: a courageous person.
30:07
Speaker 2: Have you ever met Jared Bush?
30:09
Speaker 1: No.
30:09
Speaker 4: Well, I sent him a handwritten letter.
30:12
Speaker 2: Oh, you sent him a handwritten letter?
30:15
Speaker 1: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
30:16
Speaker 2: When did you send this letter?
30:19
Speaker 4: After I found out that Gary the Snake was a
30:21
Speaker 4: good guy.
30:22
Speaker 2: Did he respond? No, he can't.
30:24
Speaker 1: He can't.
30:25
Speaker 2: Because Disney, they would go nuts.
30:29
Speaker 4: Right.
30:29
Speaker 2: Somewhere, Jared is listening. Jared, are you out there? On
30:36
Speaker 2: behalf of everyone who saw Zootopia II, let me join
30:39
Speaker 2: the Goldman family chorus. Well done. Revisionist History is produced
30:51
Speaker 2: by Nina Bird-Lawrence, Lucy Sullivan, and Ben-Nadav Hafri. Our editor
30:55
Speaker 2: is Karen Shakerji. Fact-checking by Sam Rusick. Our executive producer
31:00
Speaker 2: is Jacob Smith. Engineering by Nina Bird-Lawrence. Original music by
31:04
Speaker 2: Luis Guerra. Sound design and mastering by Marcelo D'Oliveira. I'm
31:09
Speaker 2: Malcolm Grabow.