Judy Hopps

"I am a real cop."

- Judy Hopps

Officer Judy Hopps is the protagonist of the 2016 Disney animated feature film Zootopia.

Official Bio

 * "Judy Hopps is the first bunny ever to join Zootopia's police department. Determined to prove herself, Judy jumps at the chance to crack a case, even if it means teaming up with a con-artist fox."

Personality
A rabbit with high optimism, Judy Hopps is an energy-driven achiever first and foremost. She has a strong belief that "anyone can be anything" due to the idealistic farm community she was raised in. However, due to bullying during her childhood, Judy dislikes prejudice and the subject of racism, but in a way that she is determined to prove others wrong about it. Judy wants to do what is right as well, and combining this with her beliefs is what made her eager to prove that she is a real cop ever since she was little. As an officer, she tries to retain this while still trying to help those in need.

Judy's optimism and determination to be a police officer tends to lead her to be, at times, overzealous and impulsiveness. As a parking maid, she gave 200 tickets, after Chief Bogo commented she could give 100 tickets, including to her own vehicle, when she heard the parking meters run out and writes the drivers up at the last second. This happened for the second day, this time from negative statements from the drivers. Also, she arrested Duke for stealing, even though meter maids can't arrest someone, which was disclosed from a furious Bogo. She had also nearly caused herself and Nick to be "iced" by Mr. Big when she threatened the crime lord out of impatience, as well as accidentally destroying evidence for the mammal conspiracy.

Judy's intellect proves to her greatest asset, she was a valedictorian at the police academy. She once made Nick confess about his tax evasion and recorded it on her carrot pen then blackmails him into helping solve a case then used it again after Bellwether confessed about turning every predator savage.

Judy's sense of equality makes her have firm respect towards other animals, however, it proves to lead to be manipulated. It happened once when Nick manipulated her into buying a ice pop by telling that his son, his partner Finnick to be exact, to be an elephant.

Despite Judy's sense of morality about prejudice, she has a tendency to have a mild fear of predators due to her recent bullying from her childhood that this manifests as prejudice itself; she even kept the fox repellant, she nearly used it on Nick when he was angered by her unintentionally bigoted comments about predators. During a press conference, she accidentally stated how the predators had gone wild because of their "biology" in their DNA. She also doesn't like being called cute, when first arrive at the police force Clawhauser commented on her but she considered it to be offensive if any animal, excluding rabbits, to call a rabbit cute.

Being the cheerful, self-righteous, enthusiastic, and independent rabbit she is, Judy cares for the well-being of others, her family, Mrs. Otterton's despair of the disappearance of her husband, and even Nick. Judy even shows to be emotional but doesn't show it to others, other than Nick, for learning from her own mistakes, she cried and was comforted by him, showing she took Nick's "never let them see that they get to you" advice, since Nick was the only person who shows the same sense of equality and morality against prejudice.

After the conspiracy was resolved, Judy gains a larger sense of the world around her and the delicacy of society by how dangerous racism is, even when it is unintentional. She encourages others to stop discriminating and put in effort to try and make Zootopia a better place by accepting others, no matter what they are.

Role in the film
In the community of Bunnyburrow, young Judy has dreamed of becoming a police officer in the city of Zootopia, where anyone can be anything. Her parents Bonnie and Stu try to dissuade Judy from following a risky goal and encourage her to become a carrot farmer with the family instead. At the farm fair, Judy confronts a young fox named Gideon Grey picking on prey children; Judy demands him to give the kids their tickets back. Gideon mocks the young rabbit but gets kicked by Judy, prompting him to threaten and eventually claw Judy's cheek, claiming that she will never be a cop because she is prey. After Gideon leaves without knowing that she got the tickets from him, Judy becomes inspired to prove Gideon wrong. Years later, Judy joins the Zootopia Police Academy; at first struggling with the course demands, she gradually becomes stronger and graduates as the first rabbit officer for Zootopia's police. Because her occupation is in the city, Judy prepares to move to Zootopia. Bonnie, Stu and the rest of her family all say their goodbyes to Judy at the train station, with Bonnie and Stu accepting the path she is taking but warn her of the dangers of predators in the city and give her a fox repellent just in case.

In Zootopia, Judy finds a home in the Grand Pangolin Apartments. Optimistic and excited to start her first day on the police force, Judy enters Zootopia Police Department and finds the large number of predator animals in the force. At the police meeting, Judy is ignored by Chief Bogo and placed on parking duty, the latter not willing to acknowledge Judy as a real officer because of her species. Despite this, Judy steps up to the task as meter maid and, thanks to her hearing, is able to detect every meter on time, making 200 tickets by noon (even giving a ticket to her own vehicle).

During her time at work, she spots a shady fox going into Jumbeaux's Café and decides to follow him, suspicious of his motives. There, she discovers that the fox actually brought his son there to get a jumbo popsicle for his birthday. However, the server Jerry Jumbeaux Jr. refuses to sell him an elephant-sized treat. Judy interrupts the argument by pointing out potential health violations, convincing Jerry to sell the popsicle (with Judy paying for it) to the foxes. The fox introduces himself as Nick Wilde, and thanks Judy for helping him, with Judy admitting that she believes foxes like him should not be treated as sly or crooked. While filing tickets in Sahara Square, she spots Nick melting the popsicle down with his son. Following them throughout the city, Judy discovers Nick's "son" to actually be a hired fox named Finnick and the entire scenario was a money-making scheme concocted by Nick, which Judy had unwittingly played a part of. When Judy confronts Nick, Nick deduces Judy's background and her idealistic life of what she believed Zootopia to be like. He then explains how Zootopia is not perfect; based on how she was made a meter maid by her superiors, Nick effectively points out the bias of the police force. And as a fox that had managed to trick her, Nick concludes that she should know what kind of position she's in because of what she is and nothing will change that. As Nick leaves the rabbit in shock (and in wet cement), Judy returns home with her hopes of being accepted on the police force ruined.

The next day, Judy continues to do her job, but is harassed by the citizens she gave tickets to. As she asserts that she is a real cop, she is alerted to a crime courtesy of Duke Weaselton, who had robbed a food store. Ecstatic, she removes her meter maid garb and pursues Weaselton, taking the chase into Little Rodentia. She apprehends the crook with a donut sign, rescuing a young female shrew in the process, and delivers him to the ZPD office. Upon her arrival, a furious Bogo confronts her on her duties.

Just then, Mrs. Otterton arrives at Bogo's office, desperately seeking someone to search for her missing husband Emmitt; Judy accepts the challenge, much to Mrs. Otterton's joy. Bogo, outraged, fires Judy, but a talk with Bellwether forces him to assign Judy the case. He makes a deal that she solve the case in 48 hours, or else she's fired.

As Clawhauser provided Judy with the casefile on Emmitt, Judy realizes that Nick was present when Emmitt disappeared and confronts Nick. Using a carrot pen with a recording function, she gets Nick to admit to tax evasion to coerce him into aiding her investigation.

Nick brings Judy to the last place he saw Emmett, the Mystic Springs Oasis, where to Judy's horror and discomfort, was a naturalist club. The club leader, Yax, mentioned that Emmett was last seen jumping into a limousine and provided the plate number. Having no authority to run a plate, Nick took Judy to the Department of Mammal Vehicles, to seek the assistance of his friend Flash, where to Judy's dismay, Flash and his co-workers were all sloths. After some frustration with the sloth's slow nature and Nick telling Flash a joke, they were able to get a plate number, identifying which company the limo belonged to. Upon stepping out of the DMV, Judy was dismayed to find that night had already fallen.

The pair locate the motorpool where the limo was parked, but to Judy's annoyance, was locked, and she lacked a warrant to search the place. Believing his debt to her paid, Nick then asked for the recording, but Judy casually tossed her pen over the fence, tricking Nick into climbing over, as this gave her probable cause to tunnel under the fence to confront him. They then find the limo and discover the back compartment riddled with claw marks. Nick soon realized that the limo belonged to Mr. Big, Tundratown's biggest crime boss. Before they could get out, a pair of polar bears find them and take them directly to Mr. Big, whom Judy discovered was an arctic shrew. When Mr. Big addressed Judy, Nick tried to silence her from revealing that she was a cop but failed, and she directly accused Big of being behind Emmett's disappearance. Mr. Big ordered the pair "iced", but before the polar bears could drop them into a pool of icy water, his daughter Fru Fru, the same shrew Judy saved the previous day, arrived and recognized Judy and told her father what she did for her, resulting in Big sparing her's and Nick's lives. In gratitude, Big kissed Judy on both cheeks and invited her and Nick to Fru Fru's wedding.

During the wedding dinner, Mr. Big explained that Emmett was his florist, who was coming to tell him something important, but en route, suddenly went savage and attacked his chauffeur Manchas, a black jaguar. Judy and Nick go to see him at his home in the Rainforest District. Manchas mentions “Night Howlers” were responsible for the attack on him before he goes savage and chases the pair. Judy calls for backup as they reach a lift dropoff. Judy managed to cuff Manchas before he could touch Nick. Soon after, the pair became entangled in a series of vines as Bogo and reinforcements arrived. Judy leads Bogo to Manchas, insisting that the case is bigger than she thought, only to find no trace of the black jaguar. Bogo demands Judy to resign, but Nick takes a stand, insisting they have 10 more hours to solve the case. As the pair leave the Rainforest District, Judy learns from Nick that he was bullied by prey animals as a pup and resolved to live out the fox stereotype as defiance.

Nick soon realized that the traffic cameras may have captured how Manchas disappeared, and the pair consult Assistant Mayor Bellwether, who had earlier promised to help Judy. Reviewing the footage, they learned that a pair of wolves captured Manchas and trace their truck to Cliffside Asylum. As they attempted to infiltrate the facility, a wolf guard picks up on Nick's scent. Thinking quickly, Judy provokes the pack into starting a howl, enabling them to slip by and get inside, where they find all the missing predators, all who had gone savage. They then hide as they discover that Mayor Lionheart was keeping the savage predators imprisoned and their existence concealed from Bogo. Judy used her phone camera to record Lionheart's admission, but their presence was given away by an inconvenient call from her parents. As Lionheart summoned his wolves, Judy quickly placed her phone in a plastic bag and used the toilet to flush herself and Nick to the outside. With her evidence intact, Judy called ZPD, who raided the asylum and arrested Lionheart. As he was led away, Lionheart protested that they have idea how the outbreak was occurring, but Judy quickly silenced him by reminding of his right to remain silent.

Later, before attending an important press conference, Judy offered Nick a chance to join ZPD. As it came her turn to speak, a pressured Judy describes the savaged mammals' condition as them reverting to their natural instincts. This seemingly confirms Judy's bigotry against foxes to Nick, who angrily walks out on her offer.

As time went on, more cases of predators going savage began sprouting across Zootopia, resulting in fear and discrimination from the prey population. Later, Judy and Bogo were summoned at the behest of Acting Mayor Bellwether, who asked that Judy be the face of ZPD. However, a guilt-ridden Judy declined, saying that in her attempts to make the world a better place, had only broken it, and resigned from the force.

Judy returned home to Bunnyburrow and rejoined the family business. One day, she meet a much more mature Gideon, who had since partnered with her parents. Subsequently, Stu yelled at a few of Judy's siblings not to trod over their night howler flowers. Curious, Judy asked her father what he meant and learned that night howlers cause severe psychotropic effects on mammals, which her parents used to protect their crop. Realizing she was wrong regarding the savage predators, Judy took her father's truck and returned to Zootopia and tracks down Nick and reconciles with him.

Recalling that Duke Weaselton had stolen a bunch of night howlers when she first arrested him, Judy and Nick confront him, demanding to know who he was stealing the flowers for. When he refused to cooperate, they take him to Mr. Big, who threatened to ice him unless he told them what they wanted to know. During this time, Mr. Big designated Judy the godmother of his future grandchild, whom Fru Fru was planning on naming Judy in her honor.

Using Weaselton's information, the pair track down a sheep named Doug, who was cultivating and weaponizing night howlers in an abandoned subway car. They eavesdrop on Doug, who mentioned on the phone that he was responsible for Emmett and Manchas going savage by shooting them with a dart gun. As two more sheep arrive, Judy takes the opportunity to steal the subway car, hoping to get the evidence to ZPD. As the rams give chase, they spot an oncoming train about to collide with them, so Judy knocks a sheep onto a track switch, diverting the car onto a different track. Unfortunately, the car was going too fast, forcing the pair to abandon ship, resulting in it crashing and bursting into flames. However, Nick revealed that he stole the case containing the dart gun and the night howler toxin.

As they cut through the Natural History Museum to get to the ZPD, the pair encounter Bellwether, who insists on taking the evidence. Realizing she is the mastermind of the conspiracy, Judy and Nick try to flee, but the former accidentally cuts her leg on tusk display. As Bellwether and her ram henchmen close in, the pair use a stuffed bunny as a decoy as they run for the exit, only to be knocked into a pit by a ram. Bellwether then shoots the dart gun at Nick, causing him to apparently go savage, and frames a call for help to the ZPD. While trying to evade him, Judy asks Bellwether why she was doing this. Bellwether elaborates on her plan to divide predator and prey so the latter could take over Zootopia. When it seemed like Nick was about to maul her, it turns out it was all an act; Nick had secretly swapped the dart gun's ammo with blueberries from Judy's farm. With Bellwether’s monologue recorded on Judy’s carrot pen, the ZPD arrive and arrest her and her accomplices.

Months later, Judy is reinstated into the ZPD and speaks at Nick's police graduation ceremony and later takes him on as her partner. During role call, when Bogo assigned seemingly assigned them to parking duty even after everything that had happened, he admitted he was kidding, and assigned the pair to hunt down a road racer. Judy and Nick do so and discover the road racer was none other than Flash.

During the credits Judy, Nick, and the other Zootopia populace attend a concert performed by Gazelle.

Trivia

 * According to early information released:
 * Judy was originally going to be the deuteragonist, while Nick was originally going to be the protagonist.
 * She was going to be a lieutenant at one point.
 * She was originally the police force's best cop.
 * Her voice actress Ginnifer Goodwin finished recording her voice on September 11, 2015.
 * During renovations of the Walt Disney Animation Studios building, beginning in 2014, Judy was one of the character silhouettes featured on the wall mural.