29 On the Portrayal of Fox Spirits in “Good Hunting”

“Good Hunting,” the eighth episode of Tim Miller’s Love, Death, + Robots, offers a unique portrayal of huli jing 狐狸精, also known as fox spirits. These spirits are generally known for being able to shapeshift between fox and human forms, where the latter usually constituted taking the form of either a beautiful young girl or a male scholar. However, ideas behind the creature’s actions and deeper psychological concepts (desires, motivations, etc) have changed and evolved throughout history, as explicated in Rania Huntington’s “Foxes and Sex” paper. These differing concepts can be seen in “Good Hunting” through the various characterizations of Yan, a young female fox spirit who has to navigate surviving in an increasingly oppressive world following the murder of her mother. The start of the episode aligns closely with the older views that paint the creatures as dangerous or demonic beasts rather than benevolent spirits. However, this relationship between foxes and humans is quickly subverted, where foxes are shown to be victims of humans, thereby challenging the classical depictions that Huntington draws upon.

The first conception the viewers are offered of fox spirits is witnessed through the opening conversation between Liang and his spirit-hunting father. As Liang watches his father lead the hunt against Yan’s mother, he describes him to be “one of the brave men who protected humanity against spirits that would harm it.”^[1] This line serves as exposition that establishes what the relationship between fox spirits and humans was like in the unfamiliar dystopian world the episode is situated in. In this world, fox spirits like Yan and her mother are generalized to be a sort of brutal and ruthless creatures that need to be eradicated for the better of mankind. And, more importantly, humans are shown to be superior to the foxes, both in terms of morality and character, where the people who fight against the demonic foxes are thought to be heroes deserving of praise. This is furthered through the introduction of fox spirits as bewitchers when the father warns Liang: “Don’t stare at her, she’ll entrance you.”^[2] Additionally, once the spirit does entrance the man, she continues to haunt him, as “a huli jing cannot resist the cries of the man she’s bewitched.”^[3] So, not only do fox spirits deliberately use their magic against men, but they are believed to continuously harass them after the initial act, therefore supporting their portrayal as harmful. Plus, the use of the word “cries” here denotes that the victim is left waiting in some sort of pain, be it emotional or physical. Moreover, the foxes that allegedly bewitch men are said to hide out in a den, which usually is constructed from liminal places like abandoned temples or ruined buildings. Through their distance from civilization, they are further viewed as beasts or monsters as they are portrayed as separate or distinct from humanity despite being able to shift into human forms. These ideas are reaffirmed one final time when Liang confronts Yan, saying that her mother “lures men and feeds on them for her evil magic.”^[4] Being that Liang is a young child while saying this, this statement reflects his father’s, and more broadly society’s, general beliefs on fox spirits as a sort of sinister being that preys upon innocent men. Combined with the aforementioned sentiments, the beginning of the episode asserts that foxes are bewitchers that take advantage of humans, though more specifically men.

This depiction aligns closely with a couple of the earlier associations of fox spirits that Rania Huntington describes in Foxes and Sex. The very first line of the text states that “the fox is a lustful creature, and it seduces people with its lustfulness.”^[5] This is exactly how Yan and her mother are introduced to the audience; physically they take the form of irresistible, beautiful women, and they use that advantage to drain men of their lifeforce, setting up a kind of predatory relationship towards humans. And, more than that, the opening passage of the work “implies that the most lustful among animals are female,”^[6] which only supports the story more, as there are no male or even androgynous foxes present. There are only female fox spirits, who go after male mortals. In addition, from the Tang dynasty on, the term mei 媚 was used to describe how fox spirits interact sexually with humans. This translates to either “to seduce” or “to bewitch,” which is the crime that Liang’s father persecuted Yan’s mother for and generalized all fox spirits to be culpable of in the story. Huntington later explains that in the earlier fox stories, there are two kinds of mei: enchantment and illness, the first referring to victims that “surrender one’s will to a visible, external seducer/seductress,” and the latter refers to victims that come down with some sort of mental or physical ailment and seem to “be possessed by a disembodied spirit.”^[7] In either case, the victim experiences a “loss of judgment and control” that is demonstrated in “Good Hunting,” as the mother’s victim is tied to a bed, screaming and thrashing around as he calls her name. Now, even in the unlikely circumstance where Liang and his father didn’t inform the man of the kind of creature the mother was, this overwhelming physical and mental desperation clearly shows some loss of control as a result of the fox’s bewitchment. So, overall, the beginning of the episode seems to lean on and promote a lot of the earlier beliefs or stereotypes about fox spirits.

Interestingly enough, these ideas are quickly challenged once the mother flees to her den and Yan enters the story. Upon her confrontation with Liang, she corrects his misconceptions regarding fox spirits, suggesting that rather than being brutal creatures who attack men, fox spirits are actually the victims of the relationship. Firstly, she is seen hiding under a rock as Liang begins to investigate the back of the den. In this scene, Liang is still a fairly small child and doesn’t have any weapon on him, indicating he doesn’t necessarily pose an immediate threat to Yan. And, when he begins digging around in the rocks, Yan, still in her fox form, sprints over his shoulder, trying to run away from him rather than attacking him. In fact, it is only when Yan grabs her that she begins to exhibit any violence toward him, transforming into a blend of her human and fox form.^[8] Here, prior to any actual conversation occurring between the two characters, the viewers get the sense that the fox spirits being hunted are perhaps not as violent or dangerous as previously believed, as their first instinct is to avoid humans. This is only reaffirmed by the actual discussion Liang and Yan have, where she questions “Why are you hunting us? We did nothing to you?”^[9] suggesting that the fox spirits have no reason to be killed, which is a direct contradiction to one of the first lines of the episode discussed previously about how foxes are harmful to humans. Instead, it makes humans seem like the ones in the wrong in the situation. Yan even disputes Liang’s claim that the mother bewitched the man, instead stating that “he’s the one who wouldn’t leave her alone,”^[10] directly pointing out that the fox spirits have no responsibility for humans acting irrationally or injuriously. Furthermore, she clarifies that “once a man has his heart set on a huli jing, she can hear him, no matter how far apart they are—all that moaning and crying, she has to go to him every night just to keep him quiet.”^[11] Here, fox spirits are completely robbed of any agency to help themselves against humans. In a way, they are forced to comply with the wishes of men in order to just survive peacefully. The impression that the viewer gets from this conversation and the remote den away from civilization is that the fox spirits would actually prefer to not interact with men altogether. This is also noticed when the mother sees Yan talking to Liang and exclaims “Do not speak to that human! You know how dangerous they are.”^[12] The warning shows the inversion of the traditional relationship between fox spirits and humans, where the foxes consider humans as the dangerous ones despite inherently being more powerful than them. Additionally, the father’s act of killing Yan’s mother just as she tries to warn her daughter against humans builds on this, as he steps out of his hiding place in the shadows and ruthlessly cuts off the mother’s head from behind, right in front of both of the children. In this shot, the camera slowly follows as the decapitated head bounces down each step and lands right in front of blood-covered Liang, emphasizing the impact and sheer brutality of the killing. And, as if that wasn’t enough to indicate humans are the monsters in this situation, the father then immediately asks “Liang, have you seen any sign of pups?”^[13] meaning that he is willing to kill any young offspring of the mother, independent of whether they had committed a crime or act of bewitchment or not; the fact that the father, like most humans, is okay with killing an entire population including innocent children solely based on them being a spirit, just hammers in this inversion.

Regarding alignment with historical characterizations, this inversion introduces Huntington’s distinction of foxes as lustful creatures both in a sexual and nonsexual context, and of foxes as objects of desire. The victim depiction that is presented here and that dominates the rest of the episode falls under the latter category, defining the role of fox spirits in relation to men’s desires. For her argument, Huntington draws heavily on a scholar from the Qing Dynasty named Ji Yun, who, in most of his works, “insisted that it is humans, not foxes, who feel lust.”^[14] This directly subverts the opening statement that foxes are the most lustful animals. And, by this point in the story, this categorization is pretty apparent. Firstly, the complete reason the fox spirits are introduced to the audience is due to men’s desire. This is true in the sense of the male “victim” who is screaming and crying for the mother’s attention, but also in that the father is hunting the mother in order to get a cash bounty reward. Right off the bat, humans are shown to go after foxes due to their greed and lust for sexual pleasure and monetary gain. Secondly, in looking at the relationship between the classical and vernacular depictions of foxes, Huntington identifies how “vernacular fiction often describes the thoughts and feelings of supernatural beings, even villains, whereas the most sympathetic vixen in the classical tale is seen from the outside.”^[15] Of these two descriptions, “Good Hunting” leans into the more modern approach, as seen by the conversation discussed above, where Yan challenges the classical “outsider” approach held primarily by Liang’s father. The father, imparting his beliefs onto his young and impressionable child, just blindly assumes that the fox spirit functions under the older stereotypes of foxes, without taking time to consider the deeper psychological aspects of the mother’s decisions or actions, let alone whether she actually committed the crime she is being accused of. Comparatively, Liang serves as an outlet for these motivations and desires to come to light, as he actually listens to and understands Yan rather than relying on biases and violence, therefore allowing for the vernacular fiction influence to come to light in the episode. More than that, Liang serves purely as a platonic character toward Yan. Now, originally he does seem to be somewhat enamored with her upon the pair’s meeting, with Yan revealing “I saw how you looked at me,”^[16] in regards to how human infatuation with foxes can be just the same as with other humans, which only adds to the foxes as an object of desire portrayal. But, even then, he immediately seems shy or embarrassed about it, and there is no attempt between either of the characters to pursue a relationship. In fact, the pair end up separating for nearly five years when Liang moves to Hong Kong without Yan, and they only meet again by chance. In all, this lack of a romantic relationship that would usually have occurred had this been a traditional story just elevates the view that fox spirits aren’t lustful creatures, whether it be in terms of a relationship/sensual pleasure or in terms of advancement; the mother denies the claims of draining men’s energy, and overall the spirits appear to avoid contact with humanity as much as possible, showing that they don’t want romantic or sexual relationships with men and are really only victims to the relationships.

This becomes even more clear to the audience in the final half of the episode, starting with the two characters meeting again in Hong Kong. The scene begins with Yan being surrounded on all sides by four British men. In terms of the cinematic techniques in the shot, Yan is centered in the middle, and the men take up nearly two-thirds of the screen. Every one of the men, including the ones who are farther away from the camera than Yan, stands taller and takes up more room vertically than Yan, despite her wearing heels. This positioning, along with the camera slowly panning from her feet up her entire body just goes to accentuate the looming threat that the men pose, both to Yan and in a wider sense to Hong Kong, being that it was colonized and possessed by British men like those four. Moreover, upon Yan expressing that she is no longer on shift, the men continue to push her, saying “How can you be done for the day when there’s good money to be earned?”^[17] completely ignoring Yan’s wishes and placing their own desire above hers. They even remark that “You Chinese are goers, everyone knows that,”^[18] invoking harmful stereotypes of Chinese women, prostitutes, and indirectly of the “lustful” fox spirits as a way to rationalize or excuse their corrupt actions. This is furthered as Yan gets abducted and turned into what is essentially a living sex doll by the governor, who “had been a client, but he seemed a gentleman,”^[19] as he would never have sex with Yan despite paying her. After a few months of this, Yan reveals “One night, he put something in [her] drink”^[20] that knocked her unconscious. When she woke up, he had replaced all her body parts with machine parts in order to build “the ultimate machine to serve a twisted desire,” referring to how the governor “could only get hard for machines.”^[21] There are a couple of things here that are particularly important: firstly, the governor didn’t immediately attack her—he purposely waited until they had built up a relationship or rapport. Secondly, he is the governor of Hong Kong, meaning there is a power imbalance between them that he is purposely exploiting. He is also physically much larger than her in any shot, so there is an imbalance in that sense as well. In all of these cases, the crime is made even worse by his using the trust they had built up and his physical/political power against Yan. Following this initial crime, he continued to exploit her by locking her up and forcing her to have sex with him, until she had “finally had enough” and “told him no.”^[22] But, being the vile man that he was, Yan admits that “the word [“no”] coming from me had sent him into a rage,” causing him to start violently beating her.^[23] Just as in the run-in with the four men, this represents the sheer entitlement men feel towards women and especially sex workers, along with the lengths they are willing to go to fulfill their sexual urges. Altogether, this is the most striking example in the entire episode of brutal acts of violence being done by men, showing exactly how monstrous humans can be, and how even supernatural creatures like fox spirits can be helpless against them.

In “Foxes and Sex,” Huntington denotes an entire subgroup of her categorization of fox depictions towards prostitutes. This is one of the places where Huntington draws on Ji Yun pretty heavily, saying how “Ji’s primary basis for comparing prostitutes with foxes was parasitism: money is made the equivalent of a man’s vital essence, and prostitutes drain both.”^[24] This aligns with what Yan, who worked as a prostitute following her move to Hong Kong, had said about her own occupation. She tells Liang: “Now I live by the very thing you accused my mother of—I bewitch men for money.”^[25] While this would normally suggest in earlier traditions that fox spirits are lustful and deceptive, the tone that Yan delivers this line with indicates that she is not proud of her actions and would not be doing it if it wasn’t out of sheer necessity. So, even though she is using the beauty derived from her fox powers as a way to exploit men, there is a lack of choice presented that challenges the view of foxes as lustful. And, the nature of prostitution as a job just inherently matches closely with the fox spirits as objects of desire, as women sex workers rely on man’s desires and sexual impulses to make a living. In having Yan work as a prostitute, albeit out of necessity, the stereotypes discussed earlier are just subverted, showing that humans are more lustful and consequently more dangerous than supernatural creatures. This is really the whole theme behind Ji Yun’s view of prostitutes, where “In Ji’s world, foxes are more purely wicked as metaphors than they are in themselves; rather than discarding the disreputable aspects of the fox tradition, Ji transferred them to humans,” which means that in a lot of stories coming from or taking place in the Qing dynasty such as this one, “the human rather than the fox bore most of the blame for the seduction.”^[26] This tracks with everything detailed thus far, as it is always the men in the episode who initiate any kind of sexual interaction with Yan. Plus, in a lot of these situations, such as the four men or the governor, they are committing these acts completely independently of what Yan wants, with her being assaulted and raped countless times throughout the episode, thus adding to the portrayal of fox spirits as victims to humans.

This victimization is the direct cause of the final characterization of Yan we see, as she slowly shifts into becoming a vigilante that sets out to save women from going through the same atrocities she had. Though it is clear that Yan has a disdain for men throughout the episode, this is first explicitly witnessed following the encounter with those four British men. In reflecting on her inability to change into a fox to defend herself against them, she remarks “I imagine my true form, leaping from beam to ledge to terrace roof until I am at the top of this island. . . Until I can growl in the faces of the men who believe they can own me.”^[27] Yan reveals two related fantasies here: one where she is able to use her fox agility to distance herself from society and the awful men that have wronged her. In wanting to be “at the top,” Yan demonstrates a desire to both literally and figuratively rise above the oppressive forces that plagued Hong Kong. Moreover, Yan seems to want to get revenge or payback on men, though her use of the word “growl” suggests that this confrontation isn’t necessarily going to be violent. This is the first time in the entire episode that fox spirits can be seen as lustful for things like power and strength, but the context of the situation justifies and even excuses the desires being expressed. This is reaffirmed following her transformation into a cyborg, where she expands on this statement, changing it to “hunt the men who think they can own us. . . the men who perpetrate evil, but call it progress.”^[28] Now, there are a couple of key differences. This new statement is blatantly more violent than the last, using “hunt” rather than “growl,” indicating that she plans on killing her victims rather than just giving them a warning or scare. This reflects her increasing frustrations with the lack of justice in their town as she begins to take matters into her own hands. Additionally, she changes the subject, going from “own me” to “own us.” Instead of containing her revenge to specific men from her past, Yan decides that she will use her new machine body and its advantages in order to defend any women who are wronged by or can’t necessarily defend themselves against men. As for the “who perpetrate progress” statement, Yan is referring to the men in power who think their political position excuses their immoral actions, such as the four British colonizers who assaulted her or the governor. This portrayal of fox spirits as moral agents or vigilante figures is quite unique, as it inverts the widely accepted belief that fox spirits are evil and act only for their own gain.

This final depiction parallels a discussion Huntington has in her work regarding sexual parasitism and morality throughout different fox stories. In these, “it is a human being who is the supreme sexual parasite,” rather than the fox, which the older versions “may be called on as the ‘usual suspect’ when a symbol of lust is required.”^[29] In a broader context, this more modern approach underlines one of the themes that Huntington emphasizes throughout her work, that “the true source of evil is male lust.”^[30] The most exemplary case of this from “Good Hunting” is the governor, who uses his attraction to robots/cyborgs to completely refigure Yan’s body and identity, completely extorting her just for his own sexual gain. And, interestingly enough, this egregious act results in Yan’s first “victim” in the episode. Following Yan telling the governor “no” and consequently getting beat by him, she seductively gets on top of him, pretending that she is going to have sex with him, however, while his guard let down, she kills him by literally tearing apart his face. She uses her new body as a way to reclaim her body and sexuality against men and says “a terrible thing had been done to me, but I could also be terrible.”^[31] More than that, technology throughout this episode has been a force used by colonizers to exploit Chinese society. In a broader sense, using this robotic technology that was given to her as a form of control, and reworked by Liang as a way of resistance, also resembles the reclaiming of political power against oppressors. The episode closes in a similar way, where Yan is seen bounding from rooftops, searching for women in need. Ultimately, she finds a woman in a dark alley, surrounded by men trying to rape her. In the last seconds of the episode, she is seen lunging at him. This ending just solidifies the argument that fox spirits have the capacity to transcend the traditional views that “the fox is a lustful creature,” turning the relationship between fox spirits and humans on its head.

Thomas and the other contributors of Love, Death, + Robots paint men and humankind as lustful and evil, both to other humans and to supernatural creatures such as fox spirits, who are victims rather than perpetrators. This is done by manipulating how the audience views Yan throughout the episode. In the opening scene, Liang’s father imparts his beliefs to the audience, asserting that fox spirits are a threat to mankind and deserve to be hunted. This follows the typical beliefs underlined in a lot of the classical or earlier stories about fox spirits, where foxes are lustful and dangerous bewitchers. This view is quickly challenged by Yan’s interactions with Liang, where Yan reverses the stereotype and explains that fox spirits are misunderstood by society; rather than being the ones to pursue men, men pursue them (often to the detriment of the fox spirits), aligning spirits like Yan with the more modern approaches of foxes as objects of desire, as explained by Rania Huntington. This view dominates the rest of the episode, where Yan is continuously victimized by men against her will, though specifically by British colonizers who almost rape her, and by the governor of Hong Kong, who turns her into a cyborg for his own to fulfill his own sexual desires. This parallels the idea of foxes as prostitutes that Huntington, using the work of Qing scholar Ji Yun lays out, As a result, Yan assumes the role of a vigilante by the end of the episode, which only furthers the inversion of traditional stereotypes, as fox spirits are portrayed to uphold a moral order that humans break.

Bibliography

Thomas, Oliver, director. Love, Death, + Robots. Season 1, episode 8, “Good Hunting.” Written by Philip Gelatt. Aired March 15th, 2019, https://www.netflix.com/watch/81424941?trackId=255824129.

Huntington, Rania. “Foxes and Sex.” In Alien Kind: Foxes and Late Imperial Chinese Narrative, 171-223. Harvard East Asian Monographs, 2004.

SUBSLIKESCRIPTS. “LOVE, DEATH & ROBOTS (2019–…): SEASON 1, EPISODE 8 – GOOD HUNTING – FULL TRANSCRIPT.” https://subslikescript.com/series/Love_Death__Robots-9561862/season-1/episode-8-Good_Hunting.