The Fantastic Mr. Fox is a Parasite

You really didn't think Tony chose to show the Fantastic Mr. Fox to class just because he loves the movie, right? Sure, that might be the reason why he chose it over other movies that well could have been viable options. Or maybe I'm just paranoid with any decisions Tony makes regarding all content of the course. I've learned not to underestimate the potential for ulterior motives.

Regardless, Mr. Fox is not only a parasite, but he has been infect by some rather nasty ones.

On a basic level, and here I refer to my readings with Serres' Parasites, Mr. Fox is a parasite. The whole movie is about his ability to steal from and feed off of the human farmers: Boggis, Bunce and Beans.

We want him to win because he's cute and witty and fun whereas they're cold and mean, but like Serres relays, Mr. Fox is the rat at the tax-collector's table, "a guest at an interrupted banquet."

The noise that sends the fox away is the rather extreme of his tree home being bulldozed into oblivion.

http://www.plurk.com/p/3lakp1

Look at the second image @vladislavxodasevic posted on this plurk. Now, tell me, how does that compare to this image of Mr. Fox:

Mr. Fox is infected with us, our thoughts, our anthropomorphic ideals. Like our good friend The Tomcat Murr, he is become human and this sets him and his furry compatriots apart from the rest of the world.

It repeatedly comes up in the dialogue of the movie that Mr. Fox has what he calls a phobia of wolves. They terrify him for reasons that are never completely spoken. However, when we see the wolf at the end of the movie, Mr. Fox does not react with what we would imagine to be phobic fear, but rather a kind of logical interest.

He greets it in English, Latin and French and receives no answers. As foils, Mr. Fox and the Wolf represent opposites of the animal spectrum. Where Mr. Fox is completely anthropomorphized and infected with human thought, the Wolf is wild. Mr. Fox wears clothes and walks upright. The Wolf runs on all fours.

It could be said then that Mr. Fox has a phobia not of wolves, but of the wild nature that the wolves represent. He is the epitome of the anthropomorphized, he is essentially human and the wolf then is everything he is not in that sense.