Fantastic Mr. Fox (2005)

https://granta.com/fantastic-mr-fox/

by how-about-this • 7 years ago

96 23 7 years ago

granta.com

ngmc• 7 years ago

https://youtu.be/Jjbu0kSEuQQ

I did this the moment I read the article's title.

jpatokal• 7 years ago

Oscar Wilde summed fox hunting up best: "The unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable."

spyckie23• 7 years ago

Wow - this is old journalism at its best. A few things really stand out:

- a 36(!!) minute masterpiece, and difficult to cut anything out to make it shorter without losing something

- the journalist covered both sides of the story, and did so beautifully, allowing us to enter into his shoes and feel like we were in the action, talking to the people on both sides

- both sides were given more than fair treatment to voice, not just their political stance, but their passion and feelings about the issue

- added supplementary information about foxes, the history of hunting, animal rights, English dissenting tradition, even his personal experience with foxes - all to add color to the issue and make it come alive within its historical and humanistic context

- the opinion on whether or not fox hunting is right is not the main point of the article - the issue isn't front and center, the people are

- does not write his opinion into the article, remains the unbiased third party throughout while still allowing the reader to get into the heads of both sides and form their own perspectives and views

- an absolutely amazing conclusion (i want to avoid spoiling it) that manages to tie everything mentioned in the article together and turning fox hunting into commentary about the entire British society

2004, huh? Would love to see this kind of journalism make a comeback.

azeotropic3• 7 years ago

I disagree. This shows some of the worst flaws of modern journalism: The smarmy tone, writing the story about personalities rather than facts, the narcissistic urge of the journalist to insert himself into the story.

It's a travesty.

pjc504• 7 years ago

So, what's the alternative? And would it be as interesting to read? People generally like the human interest aspect. Especially as this isn't "news" but more a form of anthropology, a visit to two secretive warring tribes of rural Britain.

smackay2• 7 years ago

I think it caught the spirit of the conflict, which is inherently political and cultural, rather well. It also appears well researched. The conversation with Tony Banks and his references to Peter Freeman give a lot of historical perspective and how society and the role of the state/establishment is changing, albeit slowly. So there are plenty of facts, just not simplistic ones.

A review of the situation in 2019 would be interesting to see. What did the saboteurs achieve, was it long term and what lessons could be applied to stop the continuing cruelty being meted out to wildlife on a daily basis which is still legal - the poisoning and shooting of protected birds of prey to satisfy the demand for driven grouse shooting being a good example.

khalilravanna• 7 years ago

I think if this was masquerading as journalism I'd agree with you but it's even categorized under "Essays and Memoir" which I think is pretty accurate. It's not objective news reporting as much as weaving a tale from a subjective viewpoint, conveying an interesting series of anecdotes.

dabernathy89• 7 years ago

I think long-form pieces like this are interesting, but I would hardly say it'd be "difficult to cut anything out". There is a ton of fluff here. I certainly don't have time to read the whole thing.

test1235• 7 years ago

He was going to attempt the Three Peaks Challenge, running up Snowdon and Sea Fell and Ben Nevis, the highest mountains in Wales and England and Scotland, in one day.

Sea Fell? Scafell Pike?

smackay2• 7 years ago

Yes, Scafell Pike. Another, sad example of a townie knowing nothing about the countryside.

https://www.threepeakschallenge.uk/national-three-peaks-chal...

ChrisArchitect• 7 years ago

What the cuss, expected this to be about the Wes Anderson stopmotion film or Roald Dahl book

uberman2• 7 years ago

Are you cussing with me?

gcb0• 7 years ago

shout ‘Free Tibet’ into the startled [chinese] premier’s car. When the pictures of his solo protest appeared on Channel 4 News, he lost his job at London Underground.

what a pathetic society.

bbrian• 7 years ago

Yeah, that wasn’t very clear. He hardly lost his job because of the politician action outside work, is that legal? Maybe it caused him to miss too many days of work and that was used to fire him, maybe by management who wanted to appear faithful to the establishment.

uberman2• 7 years ago

Interesting article. I have two bits to offer.

Firstly, when I was young, my dad used to judge fox hunting. The trials he judged were almost never to the "death" though. He once told me that he only saw a hound actually catch a fox once when the fox ran though a culvert while the hound ran over it and got to the end first. There is a clear opportunity to separate the hunt from the kill.

The second is that I now live on a rather large piece of property. Some fields and some woodland. We allow a local group of "fox hunters" use our property as part of their hunt. While they show up with a dozen horses and twice as many hounds on a semi-regular basis, they don't actually hunt or chase fox. Prior to the hunt the hound master comes to our property and uses a scent rag of some kind to scent a trail for the hounds to follow.

In fact, there is a fox den within 50m of my home office and the hounds show no interest in the den. Fox tend to raise their kits "closer" to people as coyotes (the main local threat to fox) are reluctant to come as close to people as fox are. Not great news for my chickens as we loose one or two a month to the fox, but that is the price I pay for living where I do.

The gist of it is this. It is unfortunate that the various players can't typically reach a compromise. There seems to be ample opportunity to do so. I live in a world where the "fox" hunting tradition thrives and yet no fox are actually chased let alone killed.

Fantastic Mr. Fox (2005)

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