Cats: A Cautionary Tail

No matter how much society tries to deny it, this is the movie we wanted, and this is the movie we deserve.

In searching for a lens to write through for Tom Hooper’s Cats, I simply could not for the life of me land on one. The idea and symbolism of the cat throughout history, from Ancient Egyptians to Millennial bloggers, is too daunting of a task. I just won’t do it. To talk about the cat as meme is a death sentence with an expedited track to the chair, and I refuse to undercut the existing scholarship of cats as symbol, as fantasy, as representation, or any other classification. There is simply too much, and I don’t care about felines enough to add something to that conversation. Perhaps the specifics of the film in particular hold something that I can latch onto. I had several ideas, from an analysis of the box office projections and performance, to the use of CGI in musicals, to (and this was a very close contender) a character breakdown of the Mr. Mistoffelees archetype (because I do actually think his character has something to say/sing). I started writing about these things, only to find two problems. Firstly, the notoriety of Cats had SATURATED the film criticism/writing market with this type of content, and I couldn’t find a new way in— something that I try and attempt when I can. Secondly, writing about Cats content specific to the movie ended up containing too many spoilers, and I try to stay away from those as well. Plus, the names of the cats in Cats got very long and tedious, that I couldn’t keep track of who was who. Rest in peace, my Mistoffelees essay (pinned for another time maybe). Where does that leave me for the rest of this piece?

I’m not really sure. Cats has lured me into a conundrum not due to its bastardization of the movie musical genre, its ability to be both unpredictable and boring simultaneously, or the fact that Jennifer Hudson’s face wanted to fly off her little cat body, but due to my inability to find a way into the film that hasn’t been memed or ridiculed already. I cannot find a way in, and it bothers and annoys me in my very core. But maybe thats the ugly truth of Cats. It doesn’t care about you or what you think about it. It exists on its own, doing what it wants, never pretending that it likes you or it care about your sanity. At the films funniest, it’s not meant to be funny. At the film’s most disturbing, it believes everything to be normal. It is a film that could not care less about whether or not viewers feed into its hijinks. For those who have seen Cats, you will believe me when I say, the movie seems to act on its own. You can meme it, you can embrace it, you can try to predict its every move, but much like film’s felines characters, its monstrosities, it will do as it pleases. There it is. A way in. And right on time too. I was starting to get worried that the film had bested me. But, metaphor has always been a friend to me in times of need, so I’m not too surprised. The movie Cats is like a cat. Brilliant.

However, something inside me still does not feel quite right. It’s a grasp at straws (though an interesting grasp at straws, i have to say). Rhetorically, the idea is sound. There is enough in there to make sense, but to hinge a whole review off of the idea that a movie is acting like a cat does not provide a lot of meat. There has to be more, yet I’m having a very difficult time finding how in the world to approach the material. But, again, perhaps it is the point. Approaching is retracting. The infamous trailer for the film came out and humanity asked, “Why?” But must there be a why? Can’t we just leave Cats alone? There are plenty of other things to worry about. I’m serious. Cats will not be remembered as a good movie. it won’t be remembered as a bad movie. It will be remembered as a drop in a pool of memes that come and go. Sure, there are people who despise the film, those who adore the film, those who applaud others who walk out of screenings. But, from the reaction on Twitter, Rotten Tomatoes, and other social media/criticism outlets, people don’t really take it seriously on either fronts. Which is a perfectly fine thing to do. I would just like to bring it up.

I’m not really in the mood to make fun of Cats. It’s something that other people are probably going to be better at. I wanted to go into the film, as I do with every film, to find some semblance of humanity, a way in. Because of the formal decisions made in crafting the film, it make it difficult to wade through its bizarreness to find something to hold on to. The musical does a better job of this because as you watch these dancer on stage, you realize that they are meant to imitate cats. We project humanity onto the characters, their archetypes, and their desires. In the film, it is clear that we are not watching humans as cats. We are supposed to be watching actual cats. And because these cats neither looks fully human or enough like cats in order to project ourselves into them, what we end up watching is something we don’t recognize. This is why I am having a hard time committing to an idea, something, anything philosophically, cinematically, or metaphorically noteworthy that is relevant to the life I am living. I am too preoccupied with figuring out just exactly what I am watching.

I cannot condone Cats for trying something new with the material, yet I cannot commend it for its efforts. The only thing I could possibly land on is this: My hunt for meaning in this film is the same hunt that these Jellicle cats experience. It is a theme that resonates through cinema, art, mathematics, science, as well as the film. These felines all have their individual songs, competing for a higher knowledge, a second chance, because they all think they are special, that they deserve it. We don’t deserve answers, though. We deserve Cats. And if the film’s resolution is a mirror of what happens in the outside world, the ones who are not looking will find meaning, will get that second chance. So maybe what I’ll do is stop thinking about it for a while. Stop caring about the memes, stop with the trying, the grasping at straws. And maybe years down the road, when all the jokes subside, when the memage is over, when its all said and done, and the world has moved on, the universe will open up…

…and I’ll ascend into the sky in a hot air balloon with a cat version of Jennifer Hudson.