You know, I’ve been on a bit of a Robin Hood kick lately, so
I thought it was about time to tackle the Reynard
the Fox stories. And if you think
that doesn’t make sense, then hold on a minute and I’ll explain.
The thing about being a pop culture buff on the internet is
you sometimes find out what movies were going to be before they became what
they are. Now, we all know the Disney Robin Hood movie with anthropomorphic
animals. However, what few know is that
Disney’s Robin Hood started out as
many failed attempts at making movies based on popular European animal
characters like Chanticleer the Rooster and Reynard the Fox. You see, one of the early animation projects
Walt and company considered doing was an adaptation of the French play Chanticleer, which is about a rooster
named Chanticleer who is so vain that he actually thinks that his crowing
causes the sun to come up. The writers
found it hard to make the character sympathetic, so Walt suggested they combine
it with another project they had been having trouble with: Reynard the Fox. The idea
being Reynard would be the villain (notably, the book Reynard the Fox also has a rooster named Chanticleer in it, but
that could be just a coincidence).
Despite this move, they still had a hard time getting the whole thing to
work. The proposed film never did get
made or see the light of day. The Chanticleer concept was eventually
nicked by Don Bluth and reworked into a film called Rock-a-Doodle. However, bits
of design and character eventually leaked their way into the film version of
Robin Hood.
It’s easy to tell who became who as well. Reynard became Robin Hood. Noble the Lion became Prince John. Isengrim the Wolf became the Sherriff of
Nottingham. Grimbart the Badger became
Friar Tuck. And Chanticleer the Rooster
became Allan a Dale.
And it was probably a good idea to scuttle plans for a Reynard the Fox animated film. Because if they thought it was hard to make
Chanticleer likable because he was cocky and vain, they would have had a hell
of a time with Reynard himself.
I’ve read Reynard the
Fox in a translation by James Simpson.
And this book is really something else.
The story is extremely violent and aunt-authority and the main character
is an unrepentant liar who will do anything to get what he wants.
The character of Reynard has been around a long time. Many of the stories were first created by
multiple different authors during the Middle Ages. The character himself was thought to have
risen out of Alsatian folklore. The
Reynard stories were extremely popular and rather influential. They spread throughout Dutch, French, German
and English lands.
The Reynard stories are, first and foremost, satire. Satire of courtly politics in
particular. The stories center to a
large degree on various animals and their attempts to bring Reynard to the
court of King Noble the Lion. And Noble
the Lion and his court are largely depicted as selfish, cowardly, foolish,
brutish and insincere. The animals who
serve the Lion and who similarly act reverent to the bigger animals like the
Wolf and Bear are treated as if they are foolish rubes. So, you’d think if these were the so-called
villains of our story then the hero would be better and more moral than that,
right?
In most stories, maybe.
But remember how I said Reynard was an unrepentant liar. We should probably add thief and killer to
that list too. So many of his
adversaries end up killed or maimes (because of Reynard, Cuwaert the Hare gets
eaten, Bruin the Bear loses a big chunk of his scalp and Tybert the Cat loses
an eye).
So, what makes Reynard the hero of this tale other than the
fact that he uses brains instead of brawn to solve his problems? Well, it largely seems to be the fact that
he’s unambitious. No, really. Most of his primary antagonists are in some
way affiliated with King Noble’s court.
They have positions of power and authority. Reynard doesn’t have or want those
things. His primary motivations are to
fill his belly, save his own skin and feed his family.
The Introduction to my copy of the book by translator James
Simpson describes Reynard the Fox as
a sort of reverse of Niccolo Macchiavelli’s The
Prince and it’s hard to argue with him.
While The Prince was supposed
to teach monarchs and leaders how to survive their enemies and subjects “by any
means necessary”, Reynard the Fox seems
intent on teaching the people how to survive their rulers “by any means
necessary”. Even as satire, it’s a
decidedly dark outlook.
Still, while this may be too dark for many people’s modern
tastes. There is something to be learned
from the story of Reynard in terms of how to make darkly comedic stories and
possibly unlikable characters work. And
I can do it with some handy comparisons to popular cartoons. For example, why is all the courtly
maneuvering, trickery and death seen as darkly comic rather than the stuff of
Shakespearean tragedy? Well, have you
noticed how violent old Tom & Jerry and
Looney Tunes can be? For some reason, when casting characters as
anthropomorphic animals rather than humans, it creates a sort of distance
between the reader or viewer and the material.
The characters aren’t quite like real animals or like actual humans. They become a sort of stand-in or parody of
humanity. Thus we feel a certain freedom
to laugh at their misfortunes. This is
something we can see in other trickster and animal traditions as well. Some of the Anansi and Brer Rabbit stories
can be pretty brutal too, but because all the characters are animals they come
across as funny trickster stories instead.
(Note: this approach probably wouldn’t have worked with Disney, because
they try too hard to make you care about their characters despite the fact they are sometimes anthropomorphic animals). Now, let’s circle back to the idea of making
the unlikeable likeable. You may think
this is a rare occurrence, but it’s not.
For example, let’s use another character that we really shouldn’t like
all that much: Homer Simpson. Kind of
the opposite end of the spectrum, really.
Whereas Reynard is clever, Homer’s possibly the dumbest sitcom dad in
history. He’s also gluttonous, lazy,
selfish and prone to getting into hare-brained schemes that seem to have no
possibility of working. But to make this
oaf likable, you do the same two things that were done with Reynard: 1) You
double-down on whatever likable trait he might have, and 2) You make those who
complicate his life much worse than him.
In Homer’s case, what you double down on his love for and devotion to
his wife Marge. As for the other trait,
we must never forget that he works for the single most evil man in town C.
Montgomery Burns. So, Reynard is much
the same in that way. He’s awful in so
many ways but root for him because of his unambitious aims of making it through
the day and feeding his family (mind you, he’s not completely devoted by modern
standards, Reynard does cheat on his wife Ermilyn at least once. But he does still bring home food for the
pups). And at least he’s not one of the
fawning phonies in Noble’s court.
So, there we have it.
Reynard the Fox explained in cartoon language. He might have been too dark for Disney, but
he was probably just the kind of bitter tonic people needed back during the
Middle Ages.
