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source: "Zootopia" 00:38:22 / 01:48:32

transcript: https://zootopia.fandom.com/wiki/Zootopia/Transcript

Judy Hopps: Oh thank you so much, I'd appreciate that more than you can imagine, it'd be such an - [Judy sees Yax's rear end, showing that he's completely naked; she covers her eyes] OHHHH, you are naked!

Yax: Huh? [he sways his hips] Oh, for sure, we're a naturalist club! [chuckles]

Nick Wilde: Yeah, in Zootopia, anyone can be anything. And these guys? They be naked. [Judy seems disturbed by it, Yax opens the doors.]

Is this some kind of subjunctive mood?

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  • 6
    It should be naturist (for nudists), not naturalist (for people interested in nature).
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Jul 17 at 12:34
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    @KateBunting Should be, but sometimes people do refer to nudists as naturalist (as in people being interested in being natural.)
    – Loren Pechtel
    Commented Jul 17 at 18:58
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    @LorenPechtel: If you say so. But that is a clear error. A naturalist is somebody who studies plants or animals.
    – TonyK
    Commented Jul 17 at 20:33
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    @KateBunting: That's the joke, Yax is meant to come across as not all there (to kids) or a stoner (to adults). The writers put that malapropism there very intentionally.
    – Kevin
    Commented Jul 18 at 2:08
  • One might argue that in Zootopia, the naturists do study animals.
    – Schism
    Commented Jul 19 at 22:13

3 Answers 3

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It's not proper English, it's (admittedly weak) wordplay. "Anything" sometimes means any thing, or noun, which is how it's intended in "Anyone can be anything." But it can also be a wildcard for any conceivable idea, which is why "You can be anything"—"Alright, I'll be naked" is a valid, but humorously unexpected, interpretation.

Nick needs to repeat be for the joke to work. There are plenty of other constructions that would contain be naturally ("They decided to be naked."). But he knowingly chose one that sounds clumsy, maybe to call more attention to it.

There is a similar-looking device in African American Vernacular English, the habitual be: they're not just naked right now, they always be naked. There's no equivalent to this in standard English. But Nick is not an AAVE speaker and isn't using it that way.

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    Don't people who 'aren't AAVE speakers' use expressions from that dialect in a humorous or informal way?
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Jul 17 at 9:43
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    My first thought was AAVE, because both the question title and the highlighting in the cite called attention to just They be naked in isolation. But seeing the full context, I realise you're exactly right with "Nick is not an AAVE speaker and isn't using it that way". It's wordplay that depends entirely on preceding anyone can be anything.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Jul 17 at 10:40
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    Not my downvote either, but I don't think the AAVE angle can be eliminated here merely on the grounds that Nick is not an AAVE speaker. It's 21st century Disney, after all.
    – TimR
    Commented Jul 17 at 11:39
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    @the-baby-is-you What I'm saying is that even if Nick is just engaging in some lame wordplay, he's playing in two ways, and one of them smacks of AAVE (which is not unusual for contemporary Disney). You only address, convincingly, the first, the "wildcard" of anything, and his substituting "naked" in place of the normal role or occupation. But he is also substituting "be" for "are" or "are being", and that is ungrammatical in standard English. The lame wordplay didn't require the choice of a non-standard form of the verb.
    – TimR
    Commented Jul 17 at 13:06
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    @ishtar AAVE isn't "standard English" but it is "proper English" if the speaker is observing the relevant conventions to communicate clearly. The quote is "improper" because the speaker is willfully saying something he intends as poor standard English for humorous effect. I don't believe its validity in AAVE has any bearing on why he phrased it that way.
    – the-baby-is-you
    Commented Jul 17 at 20:38
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The verb be has some "lexical" uses (where it's more like a regular word, compared to the usual "grammatical" be). The most common is to convey a sense of intention:

X: Don't be silly!
Y: I'm not being silly!

(By contrast, the grammatical be never uses do this way: we say "It wasn't a problem", not *"It didn't be a problem.")

Lexical be is usually only found in the forms be and being, and only when grammatical be would use those same forms; so lexical be is a regular verb, except with very restricted use.

In the rare cases that someone wants to use lexical be in a context where be or being doesn't work, they can't just use the corresponding form of grammatical be, so they have to either find another way to say it, or they're stuck using be in a weird way.

In your example, "They are naked" wouldn't work — Judy has already mentioned that they're currently naked, that's not the point that Nick is making — so Nick could either rephrase as something like "They choose to be naked", or he can say "They be naked", as in fact he did. This isn't something you'd see in formal English — it's a somewhat playful or rule-bending use of the language — but it's not unheard-of.

Another example that comes to mind is the movie Bratz:

Yasmin: […] We can be friends with each other and do our own thing, right?
Sasha: Okay. How?
Yasmin: We be ourselves, just like we used to be.

Here as well, it wouldn't make sense to say "We are ourselves"; rather, Yasmin is proposing that they choose to be themselves (in the sense of "be yourself").

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  • I see that several people have downvoted this answer. Would anyone care to explain why?
    – ruakh
    Commented Jul 18 at 7:02
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    This is a different usage. Another word is implied/elided in your example, like "will" or "can". Whereas the usage in the question is either wordplay or borrowed from African-American Vernacular English (or most likely, both).
    – piojo
    Commented Jul 18 at 10:36
  • This answer seems correct to me. Nick first says "anyone can be anything," which definitely conveys a sense of intention, and is ambiguous between this lexical be and the grammatical be, and then says "they be naked," which echoes the previous use of "be," conveys the same sense of intention, and is now unambiguously this lexical be.
    – Sophie Swett
    Commented Jul 18 at 12:40
  • I don't agree either with the comparison to "We be ourselves...", or with the analysis of "They be naked" as containing "lexical be". Per Payne 2010, "lexical be" can be identified by allowing do-support, as in "My dear, do be quiet" or "Do be careful, love...". It doesn't sound natural to say "Do be naked."
    – sumelic
    Commented Jul 18 at 16:11
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    Also, the analysis seems semantically questionable to me: what evidence is there that Nick means something like "They're acting naked" (with an "active" sense, which Payne identifies as a defining quality of "lexical be") rather than a stative sense ("They are naked")? I would generally interpret "anyone can be anything" as referring to states, not actions. And while nudism involves actions, being nudist as a general practice is arguably a state
    – sumelic
    Commented Jul 18 at 16:16
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I can't find a reference online, but I associate the construction "I be " with certain English (UK) dialects - Cornish springs to mind, but I can't guarantee that's correct. I speak British English, and if I heard someone say "they be naked" who wasn't actually a dialect speaker I'd interpret it as a humorous attempt to mimic a country bumpkin. I don't know if there's an equivalent in American English.

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  • It could also be pirate speak. But then the stereotype movie pirate accent is based on West country English.
    – Simon B
    Commented Jul 18 at 11:54

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