Environmental Ethics and Film by Brereton Pat;

Author:Brereton, Pat;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 4015568
Publisher: Taylor and Francis

FIGURE 5.2 Avatar, 2009, written and directed by James Cameron

Fantastic Mr Fox: DIY anthropomorphism

In an insightful SCMS film conference paper, Elisabeth Walden (2013) argued that Fantastic Mr Fox can be read as the ecological inverse of the successful blockbuster Avatar. Many critics read this Wes Anderson film as quirky, yet at the same time evident of an imaginative form of DIY cinema, unlike the showy excess of Avatar, which is more about the legitimation of professionalism and high-end production processes.

Furthermore, as Paula Willoquet-Marcondi (2010) argues, eco-films can and should ‘inspire activism through a rhetoric of optimism and humour that does not sacrifice the seriousness of the message’. Nicole Seymour adds that eco-cinema demands ‘unserious’ affective modes such as irony, self-parody and playfulness (Seymour in Weik von Mossner 2014: 61). As a mode defined by incongruity, irony is well exemplified by this playful use of animation. This comic attribute is best suited to negotiate ‘between the paradoxical desires of eco-cinema audiences: the desire for pleasure as well as information, and the desire to be both entertained and validated as thinkers in their own right’ (ibid. 2014: 63). Such playful self-reflexive and ironic humour, as evident in this film, is a long way from the light environmentalism of, for example, children’s classic animal films such as Bambi or Finding Nemo.11

Both Avatar and Fantastic Mr Fox open with depleted nature; while in the former, wild nature is visually created as a moral tale for the camera. As spectators we are often explicitly positioned to enjoy wild nature, while Fantastic Mr Fox with its aerial opening shots display cultivated land, rather than a so-called wilderness. Most of the plot of Fantastic Mr Fox involves a conflict with big farmers who seek to control the land, rather than recognising it as a commons for the benefit of all its inhabitants, including animals. The farmers’ energy is focused totally on simply maximising productivity.

The film incidentally also alludes to the dangers of local pollution and its effects on food production. At the same time, the narrative does not embrace the pleasure of innocent identification, as suggested in early Disney fare, with its explicit form of animal anthropomorphism. For instance, from the start the main protagonist Mr Fox is represented as a very ‘modern’ sophisticated protagonist, with his music headset playing a song about Davy Crockett, who in his time supported the rights of squatters, as highlighted in Walden’s reading; while other critics, like Peberdy, have emphasised his deadpan performance. As a very astute and aesthetic fox, most significantly voiced by the star actor George Clooney, he listens to well-chosen and evocative music on his Walkman, while otherwise commenting on his situation and his world. One certainly wonders what diegetic or anthropomorphic world of animals we are entering and what ethical and environmental lesson audiences are being set up to engage with.

Several critics effectively explain the deep semiosis and complex intertextual allusions, which usually only art/smart cinema affords. One could for instance assert that Avatar with its big

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