BabelAlexandria Review of The Fox and the Hound

The Fox and the Hound (1981)

A Narnian Reading of The Fox and The Hound

[7/10 · 16 June 2023]

This was the last of the post-WW II Disney Animated Feature canon we watched, and it took us a while to finish it. My daughter lost interest about 10 minutes in; my son and I saw the whole thing about two years later. The animation is beautiful, but overall the film is not one of its better efforts. But we had fun talking about the talking animals! Although the film itself is not anti-hunting, the plot revolves around a tense détente among predator/prey: the fox ("Tod") and the young hound ("Copper") in particular, but also Big Mama Owl, who saves the abandoned Tod, and the woodpecker and the grub, who avoids getting eaten long enough to turn into a butterfly. All of the animals who participate in this carnivalesque suspension of natural predation talk; they are somehow ennobled, like the talking animals (as opposed to the mute animals) of Narnia. The enraged bear, however, who tries to devour not only Tod but Copper, Chief, and their human owner, in violation of the hunting détente, does not speak, it simply growls savagely. Even though our reading has a few holes in it, but we're sticking to it!