Seeing as there has been an influx of cats here lately, I decided to share something that has been bothering me for a while. This is really long, more like an article than a post, but I hope you find it interesting.
We all know that dogs are worshipped in today’s society, and there are many good reasons for that. They are loyal, loving, friendly, playful, a man’s best friend. People’s love for dogs translates to the medium of films and television too: if a dog dies onscreen, that is usually the biggest tearjerker moment in the entire film. If the dog dies, some will purposefully avoid watching the film. There is an entire site dedicated to the one big question: doesthedogdie.com.
At times, this kind of dog worship gets a bit concerning: I remember reading discussions about horror movies and seeing comments such as “at least the dog survived”. Sometimes I read these same comments, word for word, under articles about real murders of real people (usually women, but we’ll get to that).
Bottom line is, people REALLY care whether a dog lives or dies. Unfortunately, this is very much not the case when it comes to cats.
As a cat lover, I couldn’t help but notice a double standard in how cats and dogs are treated in society and, by extension, in movies. It started early: watching Tom and Jerry as a kid, I was always a bit uncomfortable with how much physical and mental anguish Tom was put through just to get a few laughs. Why is a cat, who is by nature a carnivore, treated as a villain for chasing a mouse?
A good example of an evil cartoon cat is, of course, Lucifer from Cinderella – mean, cunning and, worst of all, mouse-exclusionary. By the way, what’s up with the trope of dogs and mice befriending each other to fight the evil cat?
Those are just two examples off the top of my head – there are many more films and TV series where cat behavior is vilified. But while portraying cats this way is unfair, what I really wanted to talk about is violence against cats onscreen and how it is dismissed by both characters and audiences. In particular, I will be talking about two movies and one series:
The Grand Budapest Hotel,
The Shape of Water and
Stranger Things. There will be spoilers, so proceed at your own risk.
Every screenwriter knows: when you need to kill an animal for plot advancement, your best bet is to kill a cat. Need to terrify a girl in a horror movie? Kill her cat and put it in her locker. Need to start somewhere before building up to killing human characters? The cat it is.
The Shape of Water is a 2017 film that received 13 Oscar nominations and won four of them, including Best Director and Best Picture. It’s a film that I was really enjoying up until a certain moment. Here is some context: American military get hold of a strange creature, a humanoid amphibian, and keep him imprisoned in a government facility to study/torture him. A woman, Elisa, falls in love with him and manages to get him out, hiding him in her neighbor Giles’s apartment. At one point the creature escapes the bathtub where he is kept and starts exploring his surroundings. He sees a cat, the cat hisses, and in the next scene Giles walks in to the sight of the Amphibian eating his cat. And in case you thought the cat’s death is only implied, it is not: we get to see the cat’s body with its head bitten off. It’s horrific.
Here is the scene for those who want to see it for themselves, although I heartily do not recommend:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GUCtYm5YJA
Some try to justify this scene. They say the Amphibian had never met a cat before and doesn’t know if it’s dangerous to him or not. He was startled by the cat’s hissing and attacked without thinking. He doesn’t know cats are not for food. But all I have to say to that is, imagine if this was a dog. Imagine if it was a dog’s headless body: do you think the film would win Best Picture then? You think it would even be nominated, amid all the backlash and boycotts?
But there is more. After the cat is killed, the whole thing is treated as a minor inconvenience. The cat’s owner shakes his head: whatcha gonna do? These things happen, right? And the woman, Elisa, pays it no mind at all and goes on to pursue a romantic relationship with the cat killer. When you think about it, it’s almost as if that gruesome scene was meant to be slightly humorous: oh my god, can you believe it, he ate the cat! And judging by the comments online, many people (men?) do find it funny.
Let’s move on to an episode of
Stranger Things that features a cat’s death. One of the main characters, Dustin, brings home an unknown creature and keeps it as a pet. This thing, first kept in a fish tank, keeps growing at an abnormal rate, and one day Dustin comes home to a broken tank and his “pet” missing. After a brief search, he finds it in the corner eating the house cat. Again, the camera doesn’t shy away from the scene: for about ten seconds, we see a cat being eaten by a monster. Here is the scene:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiAWZSoRjAo
Sounds similar to The Shape of Water, doesn’t it? Except this time, luckily, we are not supposed to root for the cat killer. But here’s the interesting thing: even though Dustin’s friends react to the news with shock (which is already a huge improvement on how the characters reacted in The Shape of Water), there is still an element of humor added to this situation. Dustin’s mom is portrayed as a stereotypical cat lady; she runs around the neighborhood calling “Mews! Mewsy!”, and the entire search for the “missing” cat reads like a comedy sequence. The viewers are meant to chuckle at her cat-lady antics, while her son is lying to her face pretending that the cat ran away. Would this scene be written the same way if it was about a dog? Would a devastated woman looking for her lost dog be used as a comic relief?
Finally, let’s take a look at
The Grand Budapest Hotel. Coincidentally, this one is another critically acclaimed film (9 Oscar nominations, 4 wins). Here is what happens: a rich old lady is murdered, which brings about an inheritance dispute among her many relatives and friends. Children of the deceased push Vilmos Kovacs, an attorney handling affairs of the estate, to finalize the inheritance as soon as possible. When he fails to comply, they throw his Persian cat out of the window. The owner runs to the window only to see his cat lying on the ground, unmistakably dead, with all four paws spreading in different directions. In case you were wondering, the scene is supposed to be disturbing, but hilarious.
You can see it here, although it is incomplete:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9b0DAkc-ys
Later that day, the owner collects a bag containing his cat’s body from the coat check. The card reads: “Contents: Persian Cat (DECEASED)”. It is all very, very funny.
Writing all this, I realize it might seem silly to some people that I am dedicating so much time and effort to such a minor issue. Why am I so preoccupied with the fate of cats in films? The thing is, I believe that the abuse of cats in media is closely intertwined with the mistreatment of another group. I am talking, of course, about women.
All three examples that I have listed above have certain things in common. The death of a cat is not taken seriously. It is not the central plot point, like it would be if a dog died. It is described with elements of humor, which completely neutralizes the act of violence. Most importantly, it is unfathomable to imagine the same scenarios applied to dogs, and a person who merely suggests such a plot point would be viewed as a complete psychopath. Because who would want to hurt a man’s best friend?
This is what it ultimately boils down to: dogs are men’s best friends. Owning a dog gives men what they crave the most: utter adoration and complete submission. They don’t have to work for a dog’s love – unlike the love of a woman, or a cat. To some men, this makes dog ownership preferable to having a family: dogs won’t expect anything in return, they will accept breadcrumbs, they will never disagree or complain or leave.
Men tend to associate themselves with their dogs; some go further than that and equate all men with all dogs. “Dogs are boys, cats are girls”. So, with their identities so closely connected, it is no surprise that men have great empathy for dogs, just like they have great empathy for other men.
Cats, on the other hand, are trickier animals. In order to win a cat over, you need to show them respect, give them space and be ready to wait for a long time until a cat decides he or she enjoys your company. Cats are not always available when you want to play or cuddle with them. They teach us consent. Most importantly, they don’t submit. To some men, especially the ones that are narcissists, this sort of thing is infuriating.
While men’s close relationships with their dogs are glorified, women get laughed at if they own and love cats. Men coined the term “men’s best friend”, but what about cats who have been living alongside women for centuries? Do we refer to them as “women’s best friends”? We should, but we don’t. Instead, our bonds with cats are either branded as laughable (crazy cat lady) or evil (witch). Either way, under this set of rules women and cats don’t get any sympathy or compassion from men. There are only two acceptable ways for men to react: laugh at us or hate us.
This is why I don’t laugh when a cat is killed onscreen. I never forget that, at the end of the day, men have as much empathy for women as they do for cats.
P.S. Thank you for reading my Magnum Opus. As you can see, I have REALLY given this a lot of thought, perhaps too much! Would love it if someone wanted to discuss it.
Whatever. 
