What's the work?[]
Fantastic Mr. Fox is a children's book written by Roald Dahl and adapted into a 2009 stop-motion film directed by Wes Anderson. The plot features a fox stealing poultry from a trio of nasty farmers to provide for his family. In response to these thefts, the farmers decide to retaliate against Mr. Fox, forcing the fox family and the entire animal community to flee their wrath.
Who is he?[]
Foxy F. Fox is an anthropomorphic fox who is the husband of Felicity Fox and is a father of four children (one in the film). Formerly a poultry thief, he is forced to become a newspaper columnist at his wife's request until he relapses into his thieving ways twelve years later.
What makes him admirable?[]
- When he accidentally gets himself and his wife, Felicity trapped during a raid at a squab farm, he manages to save themselves from death by digging underground as a means to protect their unborn child.
- In the book, he provides food for his family by stealing chickens, ducks, geese and turkeys from the three wealthy farmers named Boggis, Bunce and Bean.
- He expresses admiration for Felicity's artwork and refers to her as the best landscape painter.
- He manages to save his family and his opossum assistant named Kylie from being killed by the three farmers by digging underground.
- With the help of the animal community, he digs a series of tunnels leading to the three farms to provide food for the starving animals.
- He decides to surrender himself to the three farmers as a means to save his family and community after the farmers trapped them in the sewers via a flood of cider.
- He makes up to Ash about his relationship with him by stating that he was grateful to have him as his child before stating that Kristofferson Silverfox's capture was his fault.
- He rescues Ash from being kidnapped by Bean's security guard, Rat.
- Upon arriving at Bean Annex to rescue Kristofferson, Mr. Fox orders Kylie and Ash to head to the attic, while he distracts a rabid guard dog named Spitz.
- He manages to help rescue Kristofferson from the farmers.
- During his brief encounter with a mystical wolf, he comes to terms with the fact that he will never truly be a wild animal and decides from that point to provide food for his family solely for survival, rather than to humiliate the farmers.
What makes him inconsistent?[]
- In the film, he mainly stole poultry for the thrill of it as well as to humiliate farmers, rather than to provide food.
- He is shown to not pay much attention to Ash and favors Kristofferson for his superior talent over Ash. He also rejects Ash when he requests his father to help him raid Bean's farm, calling him "too little and uncoordinated" and invites Kristofferson instead. This leads to Ash suffering from insecurities and taking his frustrations out on Kristofferson.
- When he inquires his lawyer, Clive Badger to purchase a tree, he disregards Badger's advice about the ruthless nature of the three farmers before engaging in a heated argument with him and pressuring him to buy it anyway.
- He breaks his wife's promise to never raid farms for the sake of the safety of their family and decides to raid the three farms to resolve his own insecurities.
- He lies to Felicity about his thieving ways, claiming that he bought the poultry he stole and that he was heading off to a book party with Kylie.
- After robbing the three farms clean with the help of the animal refugees to save themselves from starvation, Mr. Fox arrogantly boasts about supposedly defeating the farmers, despite the fact that he endangered his family and friends by raiding the farms in the first place. He also interrupted Badger's speech and toast before arrogantly informing his friends about "being aware of each other", initially completely oblivious to the fact that Ash and Kristofferson snuck off to retrieve his severed tail from the farmers.
- When Kylie asks Mr. Fox about his supposed fear of wolves and clarifies his astraphobia, Mr. Fox rudely rebuffs this as "stupid".
- He is overall shown to be somewhat egotistical, as he stated that the reasons for his raids were to be praised as "fantastic" and felt insecure about this lack of praise. This is also evident in him boasting about his supposed victory against the farmers.
Verdict[]
I think this anti-hero absolutely qualifies.