Zootopia Exposed! (Part Two)

Did Disney make an anti-Disney movie? Ben and Malcolm engage in a bit of literary sleuthing to find out. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is Jacob Goldstein. When you're a business owner interested in expanding to new markets, there's a lot to consider and countless questions to answer before making the call. The most important one being, are you ready? That's where ChatGPT comes in. Give it a goal, add your files, and ask Chat to help you map out different scenarios for the future of your business. So when growth is on the table, you've got an expansion plan ready to implement. Get started today at ChatGPT.com.

• 0:28Speaker 01

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• 0:58Malcolm Gladwell?

  This is a paid message from Apple Card. It's easy, I think, in the hubbub of our lives to lose track of our spending. We pay the bills and move on, and don't understand the deeper patterns in our spending, the many different decisions we're making knowingly or unknowingly. You have to understand where your money is going in order to make better decisions about it. That's one reason Apple Card stands out to me. You can earn unlimited daily cash back on every purchase you make. I also appreciate the simplicity. Apple Card doesn't have annual, late, or over-the-limit fees. No fees, ever. There's even an option to open a high-yield savings account through Apple Card. And while I haven't done it yet,

• 1:39Malcolm Gladwell?

  if I do, my daily cash can grow automatically over time without any extra effort. When you better understand your spending habits, it's easier to make your money work harder for you. Apply in the Wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval. Variable APRs for Apple Card range from 17.74% to 27.99% based on credit worthiness. Rates as of October 1, 2026. Existing customers can view their variable APR in the Wallet app or card.apple.com.

• 2:13Malcolm Gladwell?

  Savings is available to Apple Card owners subject to eligibility. Savings and Apple Card by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City Branch, member FDIC. Terms and more at applecard.com.

• 2:33Speaker 03

  Pushkin.

• 2:38Speaker 03

  So I went to see Zootopia at 3:15 PM on a Friday afternoon. It was me, seven children, and their associated mothers or nannies. No fathers present. I was the only, I was the only adult male

• 2:56Speaker 03

  in the theater. So I, not only was I there as a professional, but I have never been so demonstrative about the fact that I'm a professional. I took my notebook out of my backpack and I was like, I'm not here to enjoy the film. Silence, children. This is a, I'm close reading.

• 3:16Malcolm Gladwell?

  I sent my colleague Ben Nadaf Hafray, a film buff and literary scholar, to see Disney's new blockbuster animated film, Zootopia 2. I told him it was urgent. First things first, did you enjoy the film?

• 3:32Speaker 03

  I did. I really did. I, I actually liked Zootopia 1 better, but I think they're, they're, it's a good, it's good intellectual property.

• 3:42Malcolm Gladwell?

  Yeah. Now, you, so you came in knowing that there was this controversy that exists around Zootopia 2 and why the particular plot choices that they pursued were pursued. And so, and you came to, as I understand it, you came out of the theater with some really strong ideas about why this movie is the way it is. Is this correct?

• 4:11Speaker 03

  Yes, it is correct.

• 4:14Malcolm Gladwell?

  Ben called me up a few days later. Zootopia 2 was now available online. He told me to pull it up. He wanted to show me something that he thought was a clue to unlocking the true meaning of the film.

• 4:26Speaker 03

  At 20 minutes and 10 seconds, when...

• 4:31Malcolm Gladwell?

  Going to right now. The heroes of the Zootopia franchise are two cops, Judy Hopps, a rabbit, and her partner Nick Wilde, a fox. In Zootopia 2, they launch an audacious investigation into the Lynxleys, the ruling animal family of the city of Zootopia, who live in a giant mansion called Lynxley Manor.

• 4:54Speaker 03

  Okay, so 20 minutes and 10 seconds.

• 4:56Malcolm Gladwell?

  Okay.

• 4:56Speaker 03

  Just to set the scene, Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde, the heroes of the movie, are going to the Lynxley Manor because...

• 5:05Malcolm Gladwell?

  Oh, my goodness!

• 5:07Speaker 03

  It's the zoo tenille.

• 5:09Malcolm Gladwell?

  Oh, my goodness! It's insane!

• 5:14Speaker 03

  You know what I'm gonna say. You know what I'm gonna say.

• 5:19Malcolm Gladwell?

  My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to Revisionist History, my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. This is the second part of our investigation into the very curious mystery behind Zootopia, the Walt Disney Company's insanely successful and possibly soon to be two-time Oscar-winning movie franchise about a magical world inhabited entirely by animals. If you have not listened to part one of our exploration, you should do that before we go on. And for those who have, allow me to remind you of where we are in our story. Almost 20 years ago, a screenwriter named Gary Goldman says he went to Disney with an idea for a movie about an animal kingdom named Zootopia,

• 6:04Malcolm Gladwell?

  where every animal was told they could be whatever they wanted to be. Disney passed, but then, several years later, came out with a movie called Zootopia, about an animal kingdom named Zootopia, where every animal was told they could be whatever they wanted to be. Gary Goldman sued and lost in a bitter seven-year legal battle, whereupon, late in 2025, Disney came out with a sequel called Zootopia 2. And what is Zootopia 2 about? A snake named Gary, whose family invented the technology behind Zootopia, the weather walls that make it possible for animals from all over the world to live together,

• 6:45Malcolm Gladwell?

  and who had their patents stolen by a family of wealthy lynxes. Lynxes. Could the symbolism be clearer? Stolen by the literal embodiment of corporate fat cats? In this episode, we attempt to answer the most important question of all in this long, bizarre story. Who was behind this cinematic crime? What did they intend to say? And what could their motivation possibly have been?

• 7:16Malcolm Gladwell?

  To start, to silence any doubts you may still have about the legitimacy of this enterprise, let me now share with you what my colleague Ben found at the 20-minute, 15-second point of the movie. It's a shot, a brief image, looking down at the mansion of the evil corporate fat cats from high in the sky.

• 7:38Speaker 03

  The camera is like high above Lynxley Manor, and we see the fireworks going off because it, and it is the Disney logo. It is the Magic Kingdom logo.

• 7:50Malcolm Gladwell?

  Ben, every single night for the last two and a half years, I have sat in my little study with one or two of my daughters, and we have seen that exact scene before we watch a Disney movie. And I missed it. I missed it. How did I miss it?

• 8:06Speaker 03

  It's right there.

• 8:07Malcolm Gladwell?

  It's an unbelievable. It is an unbelievable visual quotation.

• 8:12Speaker 03

  It is an exact visual quotation of how every Disney film starts with the fireworks over the, over the Magic Castle.

• 8:18Malcolm Gladwell?

  So just to be clear, what this image is suggesting is that Lynxley Manor, the home of the fat cats who stole the IP from Gary the Snake, is essentially the Disney castle.

• 8:33Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 8:33Malcolm Gladwell?

  The fat cats are in the Disney castle.

• 8:35Speaker 03

  The fat cats are in the Disney castle.

• 8:37Malcolm Gladwell?

  Disney, famously the Fortune 500 company, most consumed with protecting its association with everything wholesome and good, has done something completely out of character. They've made a movie, a huge movie, in which the home of evil cats who steal ideas from innocent reptiles is presented with exactly the same visual language as the iconic Disney castle.

• 9:03Speaker 03

  Well, wait, Malcolm, maybe, maybe this is too much. Maybe, you know, they had a party. There's just a fireworks display, whatever. Like, it's, you know, you could write this off if you were a true skeptic. But I would say then, we should look at the frame at 26 minutes and 42 seconds. So this is after.

• 9:25Malcolm Gladwell?

  2642, okay. Hold on. So.

• 9:29Speaker 03

  So, okay, now, so Gary DeSnake has revealed himself.

• 9:33Malcolm Gladwell?

  Ben had me take a look at the moment where Gary DeSnake has finally gotten a hold of the evidence he needs to prove that snakes really invented Zootopia. The crucial bit of evidence in his case against the Lynxleys. You can hear the emotion in his voice.

• 9:48Speaker 04

  We armed the bad guys. They are.

• 9:53Speaker 04

  And this journal holds the secret that will prove it. I have to prove it, please.

• 10:04Speaker 03

  I was thinking to myself, as this happened, I was like, I had seen the fireworks display, you know, six minutes earlier, and I was like, wow, that really looked like the Disney logo. But if it were Disney, then surely there would be some other sign in here that were meant to read this as a parallel to the Magic Castle. And so 26 minutes and 42 seconds, watch what happens when they race out of the ballroom and through the kitchen.

• 10:30Malcolm Gladwell?

  Okay, I'm watching right now. The snake goes through the kitchen. It's mayhem. They're racing for their lives. She follows them down the hallway, going through the kitchen. They take the hat off the chef.

• 10:40Speaker 03

  Do you know what that is?

• 10:41Malcolm Gladwell?

  Is that Ratatouille?

• 10:42Speaker 03

  That's from Ratatouille, a famous Disney film.

• 10:43Malcolm Gladwell?

  Oh, my God.

• 10:47Malcolm Gladwell?

  It goes on. At one point, we see a weatherman. What's his name? Bob Tiger. Get it? Bob Tiger is the CEO of the Walt Disney Company. In a movie about the weather in Zootopia, the person charged with telling everyone about the weather in Zootopia is the head of Walt Disney.

• 11:09Speaker 05

  Tomorrow's weather is, again, everything.

• 11:12Malcolm Gladwell?

  They brought Bob in to voice the character, of course. There's more. Later in the movie, Judy Hobson and Nick Wilde leave the castle and pass a weasel selling bootleg DVDs of Disney films. Surely, this is gratuitously self-referential. Just listen.

• 11:28Speaker 00

  Anything you need, I got them. Sequels, prequels, requels. Who says the industry's going down the tubes?

• 11:35Speaker 03

  So I think the whole thing is just like, fuck you, Disney. And, okay, last thing, sorry. I'll stop after this.

• 11:42Malcolm Gladwell?

  No, don't stop. Don't stop.

• 11:47Malcolm Gladwell?

  Coming up after the break, we invite some other critics to join the party.

• 12:03Speaker 00

  This is Jacob Goldstein. With ChatGPT, you can do more than get answers. You can get things done. When you're running a business and looking to expand, you need a clear view of the landscape before making any decisions. ChatGPT can help you prepare. Connect your Google Drive, point to relevant files and reports, and ask it to research competitors, industry forecasts, and market signals. It can turn the findings into a strategic deck in your team's template that you can review before presenting to your leadership team. Growing a business is ambitious, and ChatGPT can help you do it with confidence. Get started today at chatgpt.com.

• 12:41Malcolm Gladwell?

  This is a paid message from Apple Card. It's easy, I think, in the hubbub of our lives to lose track of our spending. We pay the bills and move on and don't understand the deeper patterns in our spending, the many different decisions we're making, knowingly or unknowingly.

• 12:58Malcolm Gladwell?

  You have to understand where your money is going in order to make better decisions about it. That's one reason Apple Card stands out to me. You can earn unlimited daily cash back on every purchase you make. I also appreciate the simplicity. Apple Card doesn't have annual, late, or over the limit fees. No fees ever. There's even an option to open a high-yield savings account through Apple Card. And while I haven't done it yet, if I do, my daily cash can grow automatically over time without any extra effort. When you better understand your spending habits, it's easier to make your money work harder for you. Apply in the Wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval.

• 13:38Malcolm Gladwell?

  Variable APRs for Apple Card range from 17.74% to 27.99% based on credit worthiness. Rates as of October 1, 2026. Existing customers can view their variable APR in the Wallet app or card.apple.com. Savings is available to Apple Card owners subject to eligibility. Savings and Apple Card by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City Branch, Member FDIC. Terms and more at applecard.com.

• 14:11Speaker 06

  Hey, it's Niall Rogers, host of Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series. I'm driving across the country, meeting some of today's most fascinating artists. We're exploring the stories before the moment that changed everything. This week, I'm joined by breakout singer-songwriter Alex Warren.

• 14:31Speaker 07

  To this day, Ordinary would not have done anything, and I would have not been able to put it out if Book Talk didn't back it up and if my wife and her friend didn't back it up.

• 14:39Speaker 06

  Amazing.

• 14:40Speaker 07

  So, pretty crazy how, like, just one thing.

• 14:42Speaker 06

  Right.

• 14:43Speaker 07

  I mean, I bet you, we could point to nine different things in our careers where it's just one thing, all of a sudden. If that one thing didn't happen, then I wouldn't be here.

• 14:49Speaker 06

  What you're talking about right now

• 14:52Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 14:52Speaker 06

  is what I've been talking about since the beginning of my career. There's these things outside of you

• 14:57Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 14:58Speaker 06

  that make everything happen. These other forces somehow came into contact with each other

• 15:05Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 15:05Speaker 06

  and helped propel you to this place.

• 15:07Speaker 07

  It's just insane.

• 15:08Speaker 06

  Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series on the iHeartRadio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 15:20Malcolm Gladwell?

  Before we go on, it is important to establish a few things. First, there is a universe where the obsessive critic sees things in a script that do not exist. In the 1980 masterpiece, The Shining, the director Stanley Kubrick has the little boy Danny wearing a sweater decorated with a reference to the Apollo 11 moon landing. And there are people on the internet who see that sweater as freighted with significance. I'm quoting now from Reddit. In the movie The Shining, we see Danny is wearing a sweater which has Apollo 11 riding on it. It's due to the fact that Stanley Kubrick directed this movie, and he was also the guy who directed the fake moon landing.

• 16:04Malcolm Gladwell?

  Maybe, or maybe not. Sometimes a sweater is just a sweater. On the other hand, speaking of Kubrick, there's a whole sequence in Zootopia 2 that also seems to reference The Shining. The villainous Pobert Linsley grimaces and limps his way through a maze behind the castle in an exact visual quotation of the way Jack Nicholson famously grimaces and limps his way through a maze in the actual Shining. That is not a coincidence. There are no coincidences in animated movies. They take years to make. Every single frame is drawn and plotted and executed according to a plan.

• 16:44Malcolm Gladwell?

  My point is, if there's a Ratatouille moment, weasels selling bootlegged Disney DVDs, a weatherman named Bob Tiger, and fireworks exploding over the Linsley Manor in exactly the same way that fireworks explode over the Disney castle? The people who made Zootopia 2 did that for a reason. Okay, second thing. What was that reason? It's not a sly dig, an inside joke, some wink wink. Whoever was behind Zootopia 2 clearly wanted to make a statement.

• 17:21Malcolm Gladwell?

  Exhibit A, a pivotal scene at the one hour and 29 minute mark. Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde have finally apprehended Paupert Linsley, scion of the evil Linsley family. Gary the Snake wraps his body around Paupert, immobilizing him. Paupert is angry, speaking his truth, and then Judy Hopps silences him.

• 17:42Speaker 05

  No one will believe you over us. We've always been better than you, and we always will be. Nothing you do matters.

• 17:56Speaker 04

  Well, it matters to him.

• 18:01Speaker 03

  Now, that, I think, is the crucial part. Nothing you do matters. This film is not gonna

• 18:07Malcolm Gladwell?

  Change anything.

• 18:08Speaker 03

  It's not gonna change anything. Disney owns Zootopia.

• 18:12Malcolm Gladwell?

  But it matters to him.

• 18:13Speaker 03

  To him.

• 18:14Malcolm Gladwell?

  Talking about Gary the Snake, you've just pointed me to a scene that is, in an essence, the climax of the movie.

• 18:20Speaker 03

  Is the end of the film.

• 18:21Malcolm Gladwell?

  The Lynx has finally been brought to justice.

• 18:24Speaker 03

  The fat cats are gonna live in the Magic Kingdom.

• 18:26Malcolm Gladwell?

  Fat cats are gonna live in the Magic Kingdom. And our heroes, the bunny, Judy Hopps, and Judy says it does matter. And she looks at Gary the Snake and says, it matters to him. And this is, I mean, it's, I can't believe I missed this. This is the screenwriter saying to Gary, Gary, I understand what you've been through. We took your idea. I can't give you, you're never gonna get recognized in the court of law for being the originator of Zootopia, but we can at least give you this small moment of satisfaction that we understand what you went through and we understand your contribution. That you are, you're Gary the Snake and you invent, your family invented this.

• 19:10Malcolm Gladwell?

  It's like, it's insane.

• 19:13Speaker 03

  It's crazy. It's very explicit. It tracks so perfectly.

• 19:18Malcolm Gladwell?

  Ben and I talked about this moment with the filmmakers Britt Marling and Zol Bumanglidge. Under my instructions, Britt and Zol dropped everything and went immediately to seize Zootopia 2.

• 19:29Speaker 04

  It's not like they made it subtle, as if someone in the writing team knew the score and wanted to do it, wink to Gary, like, hey, I know what went down. This is our internal apology, a quiet apology to you that only you would understand.

• 19:46Malcolm Gladwell?

  They made it in a way that like, any part of the audience, his family, the surrounding community that knows anything about it would know that this is what the movie is. Like, it's not quiet. It's it's public. It is not a Straussian reading of the controversy in a sense of, you know, you know, the famous series of Leo Strauss, who argued that texts in conflicted times have hidden messages and the goal of the scholar is to decode the hidden message. Right. The person attacking the church in the 15th century would never do a

• 20:28Malcolm Gladwell?

  real attack. They would, they would, they would make it so, they would make it subtle below that. They would praise the church, but if you read between the lines, you would see this was, there's no Straussian reading here available in Zootopia 2. It is what it is. Yeah, it's not between the lines. It's the lines themselves. It is literally the lines on the book.

• 20:46Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah. And it's not Iranian cinema, which has to get through all the censorship. So that is an interesting thing about Disney. It shows you there's no one at the wheel. Like, they were able to get this through because there no, the powers that be, the linkses did not know what was happening.

• 21:09Malcolm Gladwell?

  He's right. Before any script is greenlit, it has to be reviewed by the studio's legal team. The last stop before the wheels start to turn. Is there anything in the script that is potentially problematic? Do we have the rights for everything that needs rights? Is this bit of dialogue or description defamatory? Is this character a little bit too close to a real world character? On and on. Someone did this for the script for Zootopia 2. And for some mysterious reason, that person, or maybe team of people, said, all good. It almost feels like the author of an anti Disney film got an anti Disney film past Disney legal in order to make a point about respecting creativity.

• 21:54Malcolm Gladwell?

  It is a

• 21:55Speaker 04

  Map for true authorship. Yeah, I agree. It's an acknowledgement. It's only, I think, an apology if it's just directly to the person you harmed. But when you make something that's not between the lines, but the line themselves, that you're talking to the entire community.

• 22:13Malcolm Gladwell?

  All of us involved in the forensic analysis of Zootopia 2 agreed. It's the perfect literary crime. The perfect crime reading of Zootopia is that there was a quiet insurrection in the creative ranks at Disney, where they felt that the Disney overlords had committed a kind of moral crime against this brilliant man, Gary Goldman. They contrived to come up with a secret form of revenge in the form of Zootopia 2. That was a crime in the sense that they were violating their implied contract with Disney. But it's a perfect crime because the movie's so good, they can never be convicted of any crime. They can't get punished because the movie's a

• 22:54Speaker 03

  They get all this money and to punish them would

• 22:56Malcolm Gladwell?

  So the way to get away with a crime in Hollywood is to make a work of art, a work of great commercial art. And that makes you that that makes you completely above the law. It's genius.

• 23:10Speaker 03

  I think that there is there is a strong message being sent about Disney, and it revolves around authorship and a snake named Gary. And that's a lot of coincidences.

• 23:23Malcolm Gladwell?

  And who is this genius who pulled off the perfect literary crime? After the break, our best guests at the culprit.

• 23:48Speaker 00

  This is Jacob Goldstein. With ChatGPT, you can do more than get answers. You can get things done. When you're running a business and looking to expand, you need a clear view of the landscape before making any decisions. ChatGPT can help you prepare. Connect your Google Drive, point to relevant Files and reports and ask it to research competitors, industry forecasts and market signals. It can turn the findings into a strategic deck in your team's template that you can review before presenting to your leadership team. Growing a business is ambitious and ChatGPT can help you do it with confidence. Get started today at chatgpt.com.

• 24:27Speaker 06

  Hey, it's Niall Rogers, host of Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series. I'm driving across the country, meeting some of today's most fascinating artists. We're exploring the stories before the moment that changed everything. This week, I'm joined by rising star Sienna Spyro. I love the sixties. I feel really jealous that I I wasn't alive for it. I'd be interested, like, knowing what that was like and seeing the way culture and art has has progressed today. How do you find it? Wait a minute. I'm sorry, I have so many questions. Sorry. You're not nervous, are you? I am nervous. You are? I am. I feel like insecure about my experience. I know I shouldn't, but, you know, I'm 20. I haven't really lived my life yet.

• 25:10Speaker 06

  And then sitting in front of somebody that has lived an enormous life is is intimidating. And sometimes I feel like talking about myself is just not as interesting. So that's why I feel a bit nervous. I'll try and I'll try and ignore it then. Please do. Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series on the iHeart Radio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 25:34Malcolm Gladwell?

  Let me warn you, this is going to require what will seem in the moment like a massive digression. Like when there's a huge construction delay on the interstate and Google Maps directs you down a side road and then another side road. And then a farmer's lane in the middle of a cornfield. And you're like, wouldn't I have been better off just sitting in traffic for two hours? And the answer is, no, you wouldn't. The digression is a digression and not an alternate route because the whole point of the digression is to get you back on the interstate. Patience, crosshopper. Thank you. Well, thank you for doing this. I appreciate it.

• 26:12Speaker 00

  Well, I have no idea what direction we're heading, but let's get on our seat belts and we'll go.

• 26:18Malcolm Gladwell?

  All of this starts with a man named Lester Bush Jr. Not the fancy bushes of Texas and Connecticut and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the bushes of Iowa. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to speak with Lester Bush Jr. because he died in 2023. But I tracked down his best friend and longtime collaborator Greg Prince, who told me that his friend Lester was a physician who joined the CIA and rose to the position of the agency's medical director. Lester was also, crucially, a Mormon.

• 26:50Speaker 00

  He was in a family whose mother converted to Mormonism, and he and his younger brother were brought along at the same time. His father converted many years later. He became aware of the discriminatory policy of the church towards blacks. Was always uneasy about it, never felt that it was quite right.

• 27:14Malcolm Gladwell?

  Up until the late 70s, the Mormon Church had a policy that said that black people could not serve as priests in the church, which is a big deal. Because the Mormon Church has a model of lay priesthood. Priests come directly out of the congregation. And if you have a policy that says that black people can't be priests, you're effectively saying that black people cannot fully participate in the life of the church at all. It meant that the church, which was trying to become a worldwide movement, couldn't really expand beyond North America and Europe. And why did the Mormons have this policy? Because it was believed that it was part of the divine inspiration given to the prophet Joseph Smith

• 27:57Malcolm Gladwell?

  when he founded the Mormon Church in the early 19th century.

• 28:01Speaker 00

  Conventional wisdom, all the way up to the top of the church, was, "Well, this was a revelation that started with Joseph Smith, and we have never allowed blacks into our priesthood."

• 28:11Malcolm Gladwell?

  But while he did his medical training, Lester began to dig into the Mormon Church archives, spent years reading old manuscripts that no one had ever bothered to look at.

• 28:21Speaker 00

  What he found first was, "No, that wasn't the case, because during the administration of Joseph Smith, the founder of the religion, there were well-documented cases of several black members being ordained to the priesthood."

• 28:35Malcolm Gladwell?

  Lester's discovery was that the ban on African Americans was started by Joseph Smith's successor, Brigham Young. Lester wrote up his findings in an academic article in 1973 that rocked the Mormon world.

• 28:49Speaker 00

  Lester's article showed that this wasn't revelation. This wasn't etched in concrete doctrine. This was a policy, and it was a policy that began with Brigham Young, and it arose out of, would you believe it, that there was racism in the United States in the 1840s and 50s.

• 29:10Malcolm Gladwell?

  And here, I will admit, we are in the middle of the cornfield. But trust me, the interstate awaits. Five years after Lester published his manuscript, the Mormon Church rescinds the ban on African Americans, and it's Lester's article that provides the justification for that decision. When you look at the history of the Mormon Church, which over the past half-century has exploded in size, particularly in the developed world, everything begins with Lester Bush's stubborn desire to get at the truth. But, and this is crucial, even though Lester Bush changes the course of Mormon history, is he recognized as a hero? No.

• 29:55Malcolm Gladwell?

  Some of the leaders of the Church fight tooth and nail to block publication of his famous essay. He has challenged a powerful institution, and powerful institutions do not take those kinds of challenges lightly.

• 30:08Speaker 00

  He paid a price for it. He was shunned by the Church. Eventually, he just withdrew from activity in the Church, as did his three children. His wife remains an active Church member, but she has her eyes open.

• 30:27Speaker 00

  I thought that it was the cumulative pain that caused him to withdraw. But eventually, we were talking about it and he said, no, it wasn't that. He said, it was just that I saw that there was less and less room in the church for people who thought the way I did.

• 30:45Malcolm Gladwell?

  Yeah.

• 30:45Speaker 00

  That's a sad statement to have to make, but there was merit in that.

• 30:50Malcolm Gladwell?

  Only at the end of his life did the church make amends. Lester was invited to give an honorary lecture in Salt Lake City, an acknowledgement of his contribution.

• 31:04Speaker 05

  So here I am, feeling like Rip Van Winkle and looking like something from a storage closet in a museum. So it's an honor to speak to this symposium and quite a surprise. Both be asked after so many years and that the subject is still active.

• 31:23Malcolm Gladwell?

  Afterwards, he had a private breakfast with an official high in the church, a man named Jeff, in the Mormon hierarchy, a so-called apostle.

• 31:31Speaker 00

  And then, as we walked out to the underground garage, Jeff put his arm around Lester's shoulder and said, Lester, I just want you to hear it from me, how much I appreciate what you have done for the church. So we did have closure eventually.

• 31:51Malcolm Gladwell?

  Lester Jr. was a moral warrior, a man who took on giants on behalf of truth. Oh, and by the way, who was Lester Bush Sr., his father? A CPA who was a spy in the Second World War and spent the 1940s setting up credit unions in the deep south for African Americans who had been locked out of the financial system. Oh, and Lester Sr. had another son, Larry, Lester Jr.'s brother, who went to Brigham Young University and was kicked out for being gay and then moved to San Francisco and became a gay activist. Can you imagine Thanksgiving dinner in the Bush household? Grandpa talks about taking on the Nazis and then Jim Crow,

• 32:34Malcolm Gladwell?

  wandering the deep south to bring outsiders back into the fold. Uncle Larry talks about being cast out of school for the simple fact of his sexuality. Dad talks about the pain he knew that African Americans felt on account of their exclusion and the fight he took up on their behalf, the price he paid.

• 32:54Malcolm Gladwell?

  Stories about the power of a personal redemptive gesture. Families of narratives, patterns of practice and behavior that define who they are. You spend your childhood listening to those stories, what do you become? Prince would spend every Sunday night with his friend Lester.

• 33:11Speaker 00

  Very good family man, had three kids. Just as a sidelight.

• 33:17Malcolm Gladwell?

  Wait for it.

• 33:17Speaker 00

  His second child and first son is the director of animation for Walt Disney Studios.

• 33:28Malcolm Gladwell?

  Lester Bush's eldest son, Jared Bush, runs all of animation for the Walt Disney Company. And 10 guesses what script Jared Bush is most famous for writing? He's this guy who wrote Zootopia 2.

• 33:43Speaker 00

  And Zootopia, Moana, and Encanto.

• 33:48Malcolm Gladwell?

  Yeah. But here, this is a question I had though, because this is actually what led me into all of this. I watched Zootopia 2, and Zootopia 2 is a movie about how an excluded class of animals, the reptiles, had been kept out of the world of the animals. And the movie is all about bringing those, bringing the reptiles back into the fold, bringing the despised snakes back into the fold and honoring them as... And I'm wondering, is Zootopia, am I correct in reading Zootopia 2 as a kind of, Jared is, is he, is he continuing the family intellectual tradition here?

• 34:29Speaker 00

  I haven't talked to him about that, but I think you're on to something there. If you go back and look at Encanto, you see the same type of thing. There, number one, the focus is on extended families, which comes right out of his heritage. But the other is that the star in it wears glasses.

• 34:52Speaker 00

  And there had never been a star of an animated movie who wore glasses. And he said, in fact, when he was given the British equivalent of an Academy Award for it, he brought the young lady who had sent him the letter saying, why don't you have any animated movies with people wearing glasses?

• 35:12Malcolm Gladwell?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 35:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, Jared has a very strong moral compass.

• 35:18Malcolm Gladwell?

  Yeah, yeah. Because it does seem, I mean, this is, it fascinates me that the father is the one who provides the intellectual foundation for bringing a group fully into the, an excluded group fully into the Mormon church. And then the son writes a movie that's all about bringing an excluded group fully into the animal kingdom.

• 35:41Speaker 00

  I think it's a brilliant storyline. I had not considered it. Go for it.

• 35:47Malcolm Gladwell?

  But I did find something in a New York Times article that gave me some sense of how he thinks about these things. The piece came out before Zootopia 2, and in it, there was a moment which makes no sense unless you were the one sitting at the dinner table at the Bush family Thanksgiving. The reporter wrote, "Mr. Bush's emotions sometimes run close to the surface. Mr. Bush started to tear up, for instance, while talking about the social justice subtext in Zootopia 2. I think that if Larry and Lester Jr. and Lester Sr. had gone to see Zootopia 2, they would have teared up as well.

• 36:28Malcolm Gladwell?

  It was Gary Goldman who made the connection between Jared Bush and the greater Bush family legacy, or rather, his wife Judy, who he describes fondly as the internet's proctologist. She did the digging, unearthed the story of the remarkable Bushes, and Gary says the revelations gave him peace. He feels he understood, finally, where Gary De Snake came from." So Jared is representing the family honor here? Yes, that's my interpretation. The Bushes, the Bushes are standing up for the Goldman's? That's my interpretation. It makes me, it makes me feel very good, I have to tell you. I mean, so this is a weird thing. I'm in this telling you this story, and I feel I've been done wrong.

• 37:09Speaker 00

  In a lot of ways, but I I feel so close and connected and grateful in a certain way to Jared Bush. And I, in my imagination, he's a courageous person.

• 37:22Malcolm Gladwell?

  Have you ever met Jared Bush?

• 37:23Speaker 00

  No. Well, I sent him a handwritten letter.

• 37:27Malcolm Gladwell?

  Oh, you sent him a handwritten letter? Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. When did you send this letter?

• 37:33Speaker 00

  After I found out that Gary De Snake was a good guy.

• 37:36Malcolm Gladwell?

  Did he respond? No, he can't. He can't because Disney, they would go, they would go nuts.

• 37:43Speaker 00

  Right.

• 37:43Malcolm Gladwell?

  Somewhere, somewhere Jared is listening.

• 37:47Malcolm Gladwell?

  Jared, are you out there? On behalf of everyone who saw Zootopia 2, let me join the Goldman family chorus.

• 37:57Malcolm Gladwell?

  Well done.

• 38:03Malcolm Gladwell?

  Revisionist History is produced by Nina Bird Lawrence, Lucy Sullivan, and Ben Nadaf Hafry. Our editor is Karen Shakurji. Fact checking by Sam Russek. Our executive producer is Jacob Smith. Engineering by Nina Bird Lawrence. Original music by Luis Guerra. Sound design and mastering by Marcelo de Oliveira. I'm Malcolm Gladwell.

• 38:35Malcolm Gladwell?

  For I don't know how long, maybe 12, 13 years, I've worn a Whoop band on my wrist. I started doing it because I met the founder of Whoop at a conference. He heard that I was a runner and he said, oh, you'll love this. It's perfect for athletes. And he was right. I've worn one ever since. Every time I work out, I see how hard I worked, how long I need to recover. I wake up in the morning and I get a complete picture of how my sleep went, which helps me understand the kinds of things that lead to a bad night and the kinds of things that lead to a good night. It's sleek, long lasting battery, and now with AI looking at all my numbers and coaching me. Whoop is a winner. New members can try Whoop with a 30-day free trial before committing to a membership.

• 39:20Malcolm Gladwell?

  That's whoop.com for your free month of Whoop. This is Malcolm Gladwell from Revisionist History. In military families, service is more than a job. It's a legacy. At American Military University, that legacy can help open new doors through education. If someone in your family served in the military, you could be eligible for reduced tuition. Take the next step with flexible online programs built for real life. Learn more at amu.apus.edu/military.

• 39:53Speaker 00

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