File puptcrit/puptcrit.0911, message 203


From: Simon Palmer <simon-AT-illustrated-history.net>
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 2009 06:00:46 +0000
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] FANTASTIC MR. FOX


On 14 Nov 2009, at 12:23, serendipitypuppets-AT-googlemail.com wrote:

> One of his pet gripes was how,'the bloody yanks' had won every war  
> since Cromwell but were never in any of em!!

Seems like your grandfather forgot that small post-Cromwellian  
skirmish, the American War of Independence. I'm pretty sure they had  
a hand in winning that...

But I think Michael's post referred to Fantastic Mr. Fox rather than  
War Horse. My understanding is that the farmers are British (Michael  
Gambon, Robin Hurlstone, Hugo Guinness) and the animals are American,  
and why not? I'm not sure a badger has to have a British accent. It's  
a provocative point of differentiation to create an American  
underground beneath the British landscape; Wes Anderson is being half  
naive and half arch, not untypically. How much of what we call  
"quintessential Britishness" is really just a conventional overlay,  
an irritable skin, a little too tight and a little too thin. Perhaps  
there are alternative systems, rhizomatic developments, intensities  
and freedoms underneath our precious culture, one can certainly hope  
so... Poultry theft notwithstanding maybe we are being presented with  
an Animal War of Independence.

I don't think Roald Dahl would necessarily have disapproved.

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