History Main / BeastFable

* Music/JoannaNewsom's song "Monkey & Bear" from [[Music/Ys2006 ''Ys'']], fitting for Newsom's love of FracturedFairyTale tropes is a version of this, being a loose retelling of the story of the Ursa Major constellation.

%%* The Bre'r Rabbit stories

* Creator/BrianKVaughan and Niko Henrichon's ''ComicBook/PrideOfBaghdad'' is about the horrors of war, and the nature of freedom and captivity. Written by

[[Literature/AesopsFables Aesop]] himself was famous for these. It is particularly common in children's stories in an attempt to make [[AnAesop moralistic messages]] much more entertaining and understandable for the little tykes.

** Music/PinkFloyd's ''Music/{{Animals}}'' does the same for capitalism: the dogs are the business executives/social climbers, the pigs are those who "rule on high", and the sheep are the everyday proletariat.

%%* The Bre'r Rabbit stories.

* The Bre'r Rabbit stories.

[[folder:Web Original]]
* ''WebOriginal/{{Tasakeru}}'', more or less.

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/ThunderCats2011'' critiques the racism and classism of the privileged by portraying the {{Catfolk}}-populated kingdom of Thundera as practitioners of AnimalJingoism by way of FantasticRacism, mistreating [[{{Dogfaces}} Dogs]] and [[LizardFolk Lizards]] based around their CulturalPosturing that CatsAreSuperior. They pay for their hubris by seeing their kingdom destroyed by their enemies the Lizards.
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* A classic example is ''Literature/ReynardTheFox'', a series of medieval folk stories satirizing the feudal system with Reynard as the hero to the downtrodden peasants. His most favorite antagonist was Isengrim\Ysengrin the wolf who represented the CorruptChurch of the time. Disney was originally going to film the story but it ended up becoming a telling of ''WesternAnimation/RobinHood'' with Robin as an anthropomorphic fox.

* The [[Literature/KalilaAndDimna Kalila and Dimna]] stories are essentially the Middle Eastern version of Reynard the Fox. They're about [[GuileHero two wily jackals]] who sometimes work as viziers to the king ([[KingOfBeasts a lion, of course]]).
** As is true in [[OlderThanTheyThink their original source]], the ''Literature/{{Panchatantra}}''.

* The Kalila and Dimna stories are essentially the Middle Eastern version of Reynard the Fox. They're about [[GuileHero two wily jackals]] who sometimes work as viziers to the king ([[KingOfBeasts a lion, of course]]).

* Jean De La Fontaine retold Aesop's fables and created some of his own.

* The classic example is ''Literature/ReynardTheFox'', a series of medieval folk stories satirizing the feudal system with Reynard as the hero to the downtrodden peasants. His most favorite antagonist was Isengrim\Ysengrin the wolf who represented the CorruptChurch of the time. Disney was originally going to film the story but it ended up becoming a telling of ''WesternAnimation/RobinHood'' with Robin as an anthropomorphic fox.

%% Image moved to {{Satire}} per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1604024594089708100
%% Please start a new thread if you'd like to discuss a new image.

[[quoteright:300:[[Literature/ReynardTheFox https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/reynard_preaching.png]]]]

* Creator/IsaacAsimov's "Literature/TheMayors": Mayor Hardin tells Prince Regent Wienis of a story about a man, a horse, and a wolf. The horse was frightened of the wolf, and sought an ally against it. It approached a man who readily agreed, but to cooperate, the man asks if he can place a bridle and saddle on the horse. The horse agrees, and the two hunt down and slay the wolf. Now the horse asks the man to remove the bridle and saddle, but the man refuses. In this analogy, the Kingdom of Anacreon is represented by the horse and the Foundation is represented by the man. The ScamReligion concocted by Mayor Hardin is the [[TitleDrop bridle and saddle]] of the Four Kingdoms.

{{Beast Fable}}s feature [[SlidingScaleOfAnthropomorphism a range]] between {{Intellectual Animal}}s and {{Funny Animal}}s. These are OlderThanDirt (going back to Mesopotamia and AncientEgypt), which means, in the oldest stories, it's hard to tell if the original teller saw actual animals as equal to people, or saw them as humanoid versions of animals; a character may behave as a human one minute and a talking animal the next.

* ''VideoGame/ToothAndTail'' is an animal satire about class conflict and resource scarcity. In a nutshell, it's about a revolution over which social class gets to decide who eats who [[WorldOfFunnyAnimals in a world]] where [[SapientEatSapient every animal is sentient and everyone wants to eat meat]]. The different animal species represent different subpopulations in the society (and units in the gameplay), with the protagonists all being rats.

* ''VideoGame/ToothAndTail'' is an animal satire about class conflict and resource scarcity. In a nutshell, it's about a revolution over which social class gets to decide who eats who [[WorldOfFunnyAnimals in a world]] where [[SentientEatSentient every animal is sentient and everyone wants to eat meat]]. The different animal species represent different subpopulations in the society (and units in the gameplay), with the protagonists all being rats.

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]

* ''Disney/{{Zootopia}}'' explores implicit bias by depicting a world in which predators and prey live in relative harmony, but have a historic tension between them. The main characters are a rabbit battling misconceptions about her species (ie a dumb bunny) as she tries to make her way in the police force; and a fox who has embraced the prejudices associated with his species (ie sly fox) as a matter of survival. The story involves a conspiracy that causes predators to revert to a savage state to generate fear in the prey species.

* The classic example is ''Literature/ReynardTheFox'', a series of medieval folk stories satirizing the feudal system with Reynard as the hero to the downtrodden peasants. His most favorite antagonist was Isengrim\Ysengrin the wolf who represented the CorruptChurch of the time. Disney was originally going to film the story but it ended up becoming a telling of ''Disney/RobinHood'' with Robin as an anthropomorphic fox.

* A number of underground and alternative comics use this device:
** Creator/RobertCrumb's underground comic ''ComicBook/FritzTheCat'', portrayed African-Americans as crows. The [[WesternAnimation/FritzTheCat 1972 film]] adaptation, directed by Creator/RalphBakshi, specifically portrayed police officers as pigs, whereas Crumb's comics did not make this distinction. Creator/ArtSpiegelman credits ''Fritz the Cat'' as paving the way for all [[MatureAnimalStory adult-oriented comics featuring anthropomorphic characters]].
** The graphic novel ''ComicBook/{{Maus}}'' took place in WWII Poland, with the Germans depicted as [[CatsAreMean cats]], the Jews as mice, Poles as pigs, the French as frogs, and American soldiers as dogs. It also played with the trope by showing a half-Jewish, half-German as a mouse with tabby stripes. Also, at one point, Creator/ArtSpiegelman discusses with his wife whether he should try to symbolize her conversion by making a frog turn into a mouse. When visiting his psychiatrist, he notices he has dogs and wonders [[FurryConfusion whether depicting them will ruin the metaphor]].
** The underground comic ''ComicBook/{{Horndog}}'' portrays African-Americans as black cats, and police officers as pigs.

* ''WesternAnimation/AnAmericanTail'' uses the metaphor of mice as the oppressed races of the world, and the cats as their oppressors.
* The penguins, and emperor penguins in particular, in ''WesternAnimation/{{Happy Feet}}'' have been interpreted as both critiques upon religious conformity and, by some, as Christianity by itself, among other things. The director has also talked about the film as an allegorical straight "first contact" story, from the perspective of an undiscovered tribe, and how this relates to the penguins, as one of the layers. Looking at it like this, several astonishing thematic and visual similarities to ''Film/{{The Abyss}}'' are revealed.