
Fantastic Mr. Fox (2005) - how-about-this
https://granta.com/fantastic-mr-fox/
======
spyckie2
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.

~~~
azeotropic
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.

~~~
pjc50
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.

~~~
azeotropic
I think the fact that the journalist is pushing the warring tribes narrative
is part of the problem. I should have listed that among its flaws.

The journalist here is egging the two sides on, deliberately setting up
confrontations, and rooting for blood. It's interesting read because it
stimulates your lizard brain, but it's not good journalism.

~~~
pjc50
The confrontations were always there - the two sides were engaged in regular
confrontations for _years_. If anything the journalist tries to defuse it at
one point by pulling the "I'm with the press" card, and eventually sets up a
non-confrontation reminisce between the two old men of the old sides.

~~~
azeotropic
I don't see how bringing the activist into a bar full of hunters and then
announcing that you're his protector is anything like trying to diffuse
conflict. Acting like a macho tough guy and flippantly giving a library card
as a press credential when you get called out is a pretty cheeky thing to do.

~~~
pjc50
Farmyard, rather than bar: "we drove into a farmyard full of farmhands and
hunt supporters."

> Acting like a macho tough guy and flippantly giving a library card as a
> press credential when you get called out is a pretty cheeky thing to do.

Flippant, yes, macho .. not exactly. It is however _extremely_ English, this
kind of whimsicality in the face of interpersonal violence. Reminds me of
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digby_Tatham-
Warter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digby_Tatham-Warter) carrying an
umbrella about the Battle of Arnhem and leading a bayonet charge wearing a
bowler hat.

The British Library membership card is fantastic for this. It's almost
literally saying "Don't punch me, I'm upper middle class". Given the
importance of class signifiers in the whole affray, that moves him perfectly
to bystander status. Probably worked better than an actual press card. Or
warrant card.

But as he points out, this is an extremely routine conflict, almost as if this
is what these people do at the weekends rather than have fights at football
matches:

> "Then, I had the sense, it was all just like old times. The saboteur women
> screamed murderous abuse at the terrier-men while the terrier-men tried to
> knock video cameras from the women’s hands, there were scuffles and a good
> deal of debate about who started what, and vicious, well-rehearsed arguments
> about the bloody business of killing foxes. I wandered around asking if
> anyone happened to have seen my car keys."

(There is probably a whole other article to be written about the dark whimsy
of violence that pervades this article!)

------
uberman
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.

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

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

~~~
uberman
Are you cussing with me?

------
gcb0
> 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
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.

------
test1235
>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?

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

[https://www.threepeakschallenge.uk/national-three-peaks-
chal...](https://www.threepeakschallenge.uk/national-three-peaks-challenge/)

------
ngmc
[https://youtu.be/Jjbu0kSEuQQ](https://youtu.be/Jjbu0kSEuQQ)

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

