What A Crack Fox Can Show Us About Ourselves & Society

Yes: a Crack Fox

It's coming to the end of 2024. Please, do not let the year slip away without acknowledging that this was the year that saw...

(the hastening collapse of the AMOC / worsening pan-global human rights violations / disintegrating health of life-sustaining systems / the unravelling of practically everything —)

...the 20th anniversary of the first broadcast of the surrealist TV masterpiece: The Mighty Boosh^^.

^^Note: You don't need to have seen tThe Mighty Boosh to get anything from this piece, but, for some resonance, you would need to have lived or still be living in a highly unequal, extractivist society that appears bewildering, sly and and crack-addled.

The first time I watched The Mighty Boosh I was 37 (a grown-up!) —about 19 years later than most people in my peer group.

This surreal UK comedy show (airing for free, at the time of writing, on TVNZ in Aotearoa/New Zealand, where I live ) would certainly have been on many a TV in a grotty student flat when I was (briefly) at university in England, probably watched delightedly through a haze of bong smoke.

A short, semi-relevant tangent about me

Back then, I was very busy stoking a desire to be thin. This was encouraged by messages from media, advertising, societal norms, and cultural pressures telling me that thinness was absolutely essential for being liked, respected, successful, or even for just having the audacity to be born. There was no time to sit around watching TV, laughing and enjoying myself, hence my lateness in watching The Mighty Boosh.

The pursuit of thinness was pretty much a full time job and involved a complex arrangement of eating disorders, drugs, alcohol, deep despair and detachment. It would be a long, long time before I would start working through all that, but eventually life would be very different and I'd be making a living by helping with other people in the realm of their own insecurities, anxieties and behaviours. Yay.

Tangent over, back to the point

Anyway back to the point of today which is the Crack Fox. The Crack Fox is a chaotic and absurd character from an episode of the Mighty Boosh. He reeks of filth, desperation and vinegar. He lives in a rubbish heap and scavenges for what he can, but his schemes go far beyond mere survival. The Crack Fox shows us the dark, frenzied side of addiction. He's driven to increasingly desperate and bizarre lengths to sustain his habit.

Watching this for the first time as a sober, well-nourished person who had worked in the realm of mental health for many years by this point, I realised something that I most certainly would have missed as a perennially drunk, half-starved 19-year-old who just wanted boys to like her: we are Crack Fox.

WE ARE CRACK FOX

We: society, that is (which includes me, whether I like it or not). We live in a world that is acting unhinged and desperate in its pursuit of a 'high'. That 'high' is, simply: 'more'. We are consumed by a craving for more, more, more...more of everything...more growth, expansion, consumption, power and one-upmanship in an ever more bewildering and murderous game of geopolitical fuckery and planetary degradation.

The pursuit by us, the Crack Foxes, of another hit of 'more' requires increasing levels of destructive and devious behaviour. To get our fix, we must exploit, manipulate, and consume anything and everything—no exceptions.

This means ravaging the ecosystems and lands and beings of the earth, skinning, shredding and torching the earth herself, and anything in between: corrupting the flow of information, eroding democratic institutions, enacting policies that widen inequality, silencing dissent, criminalising activism, and chasing short-term gains while torching the future of the planet and society.

In the Mighty Boosh episode, The Crack Fox thrust himself into Vince's (Noel Fielding—swoon? Not sure) back yard without invitation and turned it into a literal rubbish heap. Doesn't this sound a lot like the colonisation of other countries by Western, er, 'powers'?

Ludicrous, desperate, chaotic crack-addled foxes

In the show, Crack Fox's behaviour becomes increasingly ludicrous, desperate and chaotic as the addiction tightens its grip.

This is mirrored in the ridiculous, self-destructive, irrational choices of our 'leaders' who continue to make choices that exacerbate the crises they are supposed to address, driven by short-term economic interests, fossil fuel dependence, and military spending, all while ignoring the urgent demands of climate action, biodiversity preservation, and social welfare.

This absolute absurdity looks like pouring billions into fossil fuel subsidies while declaring a commitment to net zero, legislating for growth on a finite planet as ecosystems collapse, or increasing military budgets (that means BOMBS to KILL PEOPLE) to never-before-seen sums while the people of the same nation they are 'defending' cannot afford to feed themselves.

Institutionalised addiction

We are Crack Fox and our addiction is institutionalised. Our frantic pursuit of more, whether it’s more profit, more power, or more people or more planet to consume is driving us to utter destruction.

So what now? Am I just going to call us all Crack Foxes, announce our inevitable demise and then slink off?

I was going to, because I don't have the answer. But perhaps the Mighty Boosh can help us out?

At the end of the Crack Fox episode, the Crack Fox is ultimately defeated by Howard, who traps him in a bin bag and throws him out.

Throwing the Crack Fox out

Huh. Is this a metaphor for our times?

We don’t have to be the Crack Fox. Can we be Howard? Can we throw the Crack Fox out?

This is not some inspirational way of ending. Howard is a dork. He is not an enlightened saviour of humankind or a hero in a classic way. He is sometimes quite irritating. He is by far not my favourite character in the show. He sucks a bit, actually.

But I wanna be him rather than Crack Fox.

What might it mean for us to be Howard, rather than Crack Fox?

Maybe first admitting that we don't know the answers and that we are a bit afraid? Maybe not liking that the choice seems to be Howard or Crack Fox and not something easy, cool or fun? Taking wobbly, imperfect steps in a direction which feels uncertain and destabilising? Not try and fix everything? Know that whatever we do will never feel enough but do it anyway?

And what about helping the Crack Foxes where possible, by showing them a kindness, understanding or compassion that is unfamiliar to an addict?

If you have an idea or suggestion about being Howard, or about the fate of Crack Fox, I'd love to hear it. You can email me here.

Being Howard a bit?

I am trying to be Howard rather than Crack Fox in my work - I am trying to help people untangle their personal struggles while also looking up and out at the larger, often invisible systems shaping them. If you want help with this, head here. All my work is by donation or gift.