Mr. Fox faces the object of his phobia with a black power fist.

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Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach’s adaptation of Roald Dahl’s anti-fable is just as delightful as the critics say. Save for one part in which Wes Anderson’s oft-criticized “mishandling” of race peaks through. Mr. Fox, voiced by George Clooney, is an upper middle class fox, pretty much anthropomorphized as a white baby boomer liberal (at one point, the villain insinuates Mrs. Fox was a slut in her day and Mr. Fox launches into a very Abbie Hoffman-esque defense of the free love decade.) Throughout the movie, Mr. Fox’s opossum sidekick won’t let up on Mr. Fox’s admitted phobia of wolves. The phobia of course makes perfect sense strictly in the animal world. Wolves are predators, foxes their prey. But it takes on a blatantly racial tone when Mr. Fox actually confronts a wholly black-furred wolf on his victorious drive home.

He pulls the motorcar over and yells to the wolf: “Do you speak English?” The wolf doesn’t. Mr. Fox tries French. That doesn’t work either. The wolf looks on blankly, big and majestic at the top of a wooded hill. Then Mr. Fox raises his hand into the black power sign—arm straight, fist closed-- and the wolf is finally responsive, raising his black arm into the black power sign in return. Then he runs off into the forest a wild creature, while a clothed Mr. Fox resumes his drive back to his furnished home euphoric after confronting his phobia. Hooray! The wolves Mr. Fox has been so afraid of his entire life aren’t so scary after all—they’re just language-less beasts that can easily be outfoxed with a little black power arm raise.

Tags: fantastic mr. fox, racism, Wes Anderson

Lauren Bans is a Brooklyn-based writer and Internet addict.

Comments

Embarrassingly typical feminist?

By: rjzimmerman | Wed, 12/16/2009 - 15:11

I certainly hope not, but it *is* quite common for feminists to read every twitch and word of a movie or book for some sort of feminist/racist/classist bias. Like others, I created an account on double X just to laugh at the ludicrous nature of this little "observation."

This sort of political correctness that leads someone to compare foxes and wolves in a Roald Dahl story to an allegory for racial friction is barely worth the electrons it took to bring it to the web, but then again, it did get a few of us to create user names. Perhaps that was the real point?

Not the first time this was used...

By: annamorphos | Thu, 12/03/2009 - 18:22

Okay, who else knows that this "black power" fist has been used a million times BEFORE the Black Panthers ever existed? Even the KKK are known to use it..so...what does it mean now?

You know what I think it means? Nothing! I think that they thought it would be funny...kind of like a power to the people thing. This is the fantastic mr. fox, we're not exactly dealing with Animal Farm here.

Yeah, but

By: claireific | Thu, 12/03/2009 - 12:10

I might be with you commenters more if Wes Anderson didn't have a grand and storied history of vague, uncomfortable levels of racism in his movies. Usually seen in characters surrounding one or more white, educated, liberal, and/or wealthy main characters. I don't think it's the fist raise that's as bothersome as the fact that the bad and scary characters that frustrate good Mr. Fox's agenda are both black, and in one case a languageless savage (which is a fairly longstanding view of Africans) and in the other, a stupid, disloyal alcoholic with an unrefined and probably Southern accent. Not only is it a little uncomfortable in its racial subtext, but it's also easy.

I created an account on XX...

By: sudoandfake | Tue, 12/01/2009 - 13:09

...just to comment on how stupid this post is. I mean, it's like a parody of all the worst impulses of Slate/XX/Root writers. These sites exist to amuse bored office workers, I know, and their articles aren't meant to be taken seriously or even to reflect the true opinions of their authors.

So I probably should have known better than to click when a friend sent me this link. But I did, and now I have to suffer the knowledge that this author is sucking up the salary that could be funding a reporter or essayist or blogger who doesn't write by Slateomatic.

Racist?

By: Mark | Mon, 11/30/2009 - 12:30

I suppose this would be racist if you were ignorant of the raised fist as being a symbol of many, many other things beyond the American black power movement. In a global context, the symbol is associated with socialist/communist movements... the "red salute", so to speak.

are you kidding me?

By: poobita | Mon, 11/30/2009 - 12:17

If you think that scene was racist you are on overly sensitive dingbat. The "little black power arm raise" you refer to was nothing of the sort, if anything it was a way for Mr Fox to show comradery with a fellow wild animal. You won't get very far in this world looking for racial undertones in everything you see.

At least add a question mark to the post title...

By: infinitedetox | Mon, 11/30/2009 - 07:26

If I were an editor here there's no way I'd let that headline stand. I'm with the commenter who suggested doing some wikipedia research and then rethinking this post. There was absolutely zero racial subtext at this point in the film, and the raised fist was a gently humorous show of solidarity between fox and wolf, not a parody of black power. Even if you want to claim that Anderson was appropriating a symbol of black power (and this is patently not the case, as raised fists have been used in recent years by everyone from tea baggers to peace activists), you still couldn't charge him with anything more than racial cluelessness. But racism? Absolutely not. This post is about as accurate as Glenn Beck's claim that Obama is a racist, and about as intelligent, too. I expected better from you guys.

Too quick to judge!

By: bebop | Mon, 11/30/2009 - 01:58

On a more basic level, Bans simply misremembers the plot of the film. It's not Mr. Fox who's afraid of wolves - it's his paranoid rodent sidekick, who reminds Mr. Fox of his fear every time they go out, & who presumably thinks he'll get eaten. They both encounter the wolf together in the scene Bans describes. So Mr. Fox isn't overcoming any personal fear of an uncivilized other - instead he's trying to share in the beauty of the wolf with his friend, despite his friend's fear. He's awed by the wolf, but it's a moment, as others have said, in which a gesture and "wildness" triumphs speech and domestication, and (I don't think) anything deeper than that.

That said, I think that Anderson's portrayal of anthropomorphic animals sometimes throws into unflattering relief just how "white" his sensibility is, through the clothing and accoutrements of even foxes and badgers.

Yet Another Risible Attempt

By: Human Jai Alaig... | Sun, 11/29/2009 - 01:46

So is Lauren Bans the official Annoying White Liberal Who Finds Racism Everywhere for XX Factor? After her ridiculous post on the racially-charged Wal-Mart line-jumping story, and now this hilariously sanctimonious gem, I don't see anybody knocking her off the throne any time soon.

Carnivores unite (and he's a RAT!)!

By: sds_eotw | Sat, 11/28/2009 - 22:03

Having seen the movie (and read the book) this article is insane. (The movie was great.) The "Black Power" salute was "solidarity" amongst carnivores, or wild animals... not the black panthers invading the movie or it's pastoral territory. Good grief. Same for the commentator on Rat. If the commenter sees race in the behavior of the rat, necessarily a traitor in siding with humans, but giving up and passing information upon his death... that's because, HE'S A RAT!!!! As in you dirty rat. Is that racial? (I think Edward G. Robinson was referring to a white guy!)

A Racist Moment In Fantastic Mr. Fox