Bernard Hermant | Unsplash
“Are you cussing with me?!” The circumvention of swearwords in ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’
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Wes Anderson is a writer-director whose work, as aptly noted by the late Rogert Ebert, is characterised by “its ability to make me go zooinng!” Written by Anderson and Noah Baumbach, based on the 1970s children’s book of the same name by Roald Dahl, Fantastic Mr. Fox is a stop-motion film.
The story involves a valley somewhere (representing the world) that is ruled by “Boggis, Bunce, and Bean / One fat, one short, one lean / These horrible crooks / So different in looks / Were nonetheless equally mean” (Dahl). The three farmers are also extremely rich.
The creatures in the film aren’t all saints, either; they’re animals, after all. And they face the relentless advance of humans into their territory. Mr. Fox (also known as Foxy) was (is?) a flourishing chicken thief until he became a father; he then segued into journalism. He says: “I’m a wild animal and a husband and father”; also: “And how can a fox be happy without, you’ll forgive the expression, a chicken in its teeth?” Working with an old partner in crime, Kylie the opossum, Mr. Fox plans that archetypal one last job that will set him up for life.
Like fairy tales, Dahl’s work has ominous undertones – evil can appear at any moment. Similarly, the creatures in the film
seem to know more than they’re letting on; perhaps even secrets we don’t much want to know. Children, especially, will find things they don’t understand, and things that scare them. Excellent. A good story for children should suggest a hidden dimension, and that dimension of course is the lifetime still ahead of them. Six is a little early for a movie to suggest to kids that the case is closed. Oh, what if the kids start crying about words they don’t know? -- Mommy, Mommy! What’s creme brulee?” Show them, for goodness sake. They’ll thank you for it. Take my word on this. (Ebert)
One running gag throughout the film is the swearwords replaced by ‘cuss’. Clearly, one can’t use – for instance – the f-word in a film primarily made for children, unless you’re prepared to get a more stringent rating by the U.S. Motion Picture Association (MPA).
Swearing holds a certain power of self-expression. Cuss is a slang form of curse – words that are considered offensive that are used to express anger, annoyance, frustration, shock, disgust, surprise, offense, astonishment, and so on. Replacing explicit words or parts thereof with a bleep sound or cuss both avoids potential offense and invites the viewer or listener to fill in the blanks. One could say it’s a best-of-both-worlds solution. Here, cuss allows both adults and children to extrapolate meaning from their own store of cusswords.
Fantastic Mr. Fox has given us some gems:
FOX: You’re exaggerating, Badger.
BADGER (YELLING): Bull-cuss! I’m sugar-coating it, man! This is Boggis, Bunce, and Bean! Three of the meanest, nastiest, ugliest farmers in the history of this valley!
BADGER (V.O.): … He’s as skinny as a pencil, as smart as a whip — and easily the biggest cusshole I’ve ever met in my life.
BADGER: … This is a total cluster-cuss for everybody!
BADGER: In summation, I think you just got to not do it, man. That’s all.
FOX: I understand what you’re saying, and your comments are valuable, but I’m going to ignore your advice.
Badger leaps out of his chair and slams the office door. He points his finger at Fox and screams:
BADGER: The cuss you are!
FOX (IN DISBELIEF): The cuss am I?
Fox jumps up and points back at Badger, screaming:
FOX: Don’t cussing point at me!
BADGER (SCREAMING): Are you cussing with me?!
FOX (SCREAMING): Do I look like I’m cussing with you?!
Fox and Badger begin to snarl and snap savagely, knocking into the furniture as they circle around the room pointing in each other’s faces. Suddenly, they calm down all at once, sighing deeply.
Fox and Badger erupt at each other, screaming simultaneously:
FOX: You scared the cuss out of us!
BADGER: I told you not to buy at nine and a cussing half!
FOX: You don’t just bang into somebody’s cussing tunnel!
BADGER: Are you cussing yelling at me!
FOX: You’re cussing right I’m cussing yelling!
BADGER: We’re all cussing starving to death because of you, you mangy, cussing little cuss!
Fox and Badger snarl and scratch at each other, circling around the hole. They calm down slightly.
The tractors grabbing huge chunks of earth and tossing them into the meadow. Boggis, Bunce, and Bean, drunk with digging, laugh manically at the controls of their tractors.
BEAN: Let’s kick some fox cuss!
BUNCE: I’m cussing loving this!
BOGGIS: Who’s hyper-cussing-active now?
FOX: I guess we do have those three ugly, cusshole farmers to thank for one thing: reminding us to be thankful and aware of each other. I’m going to say it again. (GESTURING EXPANSIVELY) Aware.
The film’s colour palette is autumnal; remarkably, green was not used at all. The film involved practical effects, stop-motion animation and puppetry. CGI was used only once. For Mr. Fox alone, there were more than 100 puppets with real hair, giving rise to textures – especially faces – one wishes you could touch.
A blend of period and modern, Mr. Fox’s quaint outfits are based on those of Wes Anderson – the costume designers reportedly consulted with his tailor.
The film was voiced by among others George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe, Owen Wilson, Michael Gambon, Brian Cox, Adrien Brody and Wes Anderson.
In 2018, Anderson made his second stop-motion animation, the gorgeous Isle of Dogs.
Sources
The Script Lab: Fantastic Mr. Fox. [Screenplay].
Roger Ebert: Review: I feel a strange compulsion to pet that fuzzy fox fur. 24 November 2009.
GreatestMovies Wiki: Fantastic Mr. Fox.
Kenneth Turan: In ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox,’ the dazzle is in the details. 13 November 2009.
Sam Hutchinson: Fantastic Mr. Fox: 10 behind-the-scenes facts about Wes Anderson’s movie. 8 October 2020.
Movies & TV Stackexchange: What is the significance of the word “cuss” in Fantastic Mr. Fox?
IMDb: Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) – Full Cast & Crew.
Quotes from the screenplay were from The Script Lab, with corrections of typographical errors.