- I would say that in being faithful to the original
simulacra of the Cats musical,
the movie is actually building on this canon
of human cat juxtaposition.
- Totally.
I just wanted them to look like cats.
(funky music)
- Cats perfectly embodies what T.S. Eliot set out
to write about in his book of poetry
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats.
(funky music)
- What we the viewers wanted from a 2019 Cats
was big Hollywood budget movie musical
with costumes and makeup design, a big set.
But what we got were humanoid cats with alopecia.
(funky music)
I just think after we've been teased for months
and months with these amazing performances
by dozens and dozens of the greatest actors
of our generation we were excited to see them
look like cats. (gentle music)
(growls)
And instead we got these like super sexualized breasts.
Slinky dancing cats.
And it was creepy.
And I refuse to believe that Dame Judi Dench wanted this.
- When you saw the Broadway musical did you see like
actual cats like meowing on stage or was it people
ballet dancing, singing English songs,
like with their full human bodies
in primitive fur technology? - Yes we want them.
We can suspend disbelief if these are human people
playing these characters.
We just want them to look like cats.
For example I thought that they would have cat noses okay.
Okay I think a nose is an important feature on a cat.
And every character in the new Cats has a human nose.
They also have human eyes.
They have human facial features, human lips, no whiskers.
They just have a little fur.
And some ears.
And to me that's not a cat.
They're sexualized and it's creepy
and I have a point on this okay?
A Knox College professor, Francis McAndrew,
with a PhD I'll add, co-author of a 2016 paper on the
nature of creepiness said as things become more human
looking usually we find them to be cuter.
And we like them more.
However when something becomes almost exactly like
a human but not quite we find it creepy.
And that's exactly what happened with cats.
They're creepy.
- It's.
- Uh uh uh, cat got your tongue?
(crickets chirping)
I'm sorry I had to. (laughing)
- You really thought that this was gonna be good?
You really thought that this was gonna be like Les Mis?
- You really think that it's good now?
- I think it's redeemed.
The fact that they are literally cats with boobs,
with human forms, I think that adds to the campiness.
To quote my mother Susan Sontag,
the inventor of camp she writes in Notes On Camp, 1964,
indeed the essence of camp is it's love of the unnatural,
of artifice and exaggeration.
I am strongly drawn to camp and almost as strongly
offended by it.
- I love camp too.
But just to your mom, who I'm sure is lovely's point,
there was no disbelief.
They just looked like humans.
Camp is a little bit funny and playful
and there's not really anything playful about the way
that they look.
And what I really think from like the behind the scenes
and all the interviews with the cast is that
they didn't think this was camp.
They don't think it's playful.
They think they're gonna win an Oscar like Anne Hathaway.
Like this is a very serious, meta, acting,
part for them when really we just wanted them to dance
around as cats.
- To quote Sontag again.
Excuse me. (upbeat music)
When something is just bad rather than camp
it's often because it's too mediocre in its ambition.
Cats was meant to be this giant Hollywood spectacle.
This magical melange of artifice and reality.
And I think that's what redeems it,
because in its failure it becomes camp.
(record scratching)
- I think that we're at a cross hairs in society.
How much can CGI participate in camp?
The advanced fur technology was recently already put
into test this year with the premiere of
Sonic the Hedgehog trailer.
Sonic was also human-like.
He had really wrangle-y hair like the current cats.
And Twitter erupted so much so that Sony halted
the production of Sonic the Hedgehog
in order to go back and refix his appearance.
There was a really good quote from the Guardian that says
Sonic looked like a cheap knockoff Sonic toy
that your kid might win at a fairground
and then be terrified of.
And that's exactly how I feel about these cats.
- I personally would just rather watch a live action movie.
I'd rather watch someone like sit down
with a camcorder at a Cats musical and just like watch that.
Whatever.
But whether or not this movie will have a place
in the American canon, I think it will.
And I, even though I do not think it will be
commercially successful because America is just not ready,
this is going to be the movie of the holiday season.
- No, America was not ready for Cats
and I'm upset that anyone who dares see this movie
in theaters will have to watch Jennifer Hudson
sing a breathtakingly beautiful performance of Memory
to a theater full of laughter.
- Just because something upsets you doesn't mean it's bad.
I think the 2019 Cats movie offers an opportunity
for viewers to really think about why they're
so upset at this idea of cats with boobs
who all compete to die.
I'm sorry, I can't do that right?
Were you expecting Anne Hathaway,
like shaved head, Dreamed a Dream from Memories.
From Jason Derulo as a cat?
- Don't get me started on Memory.
(laughing)
- Comment below, like and subscribe.
We have more videos every week.
(bell dinging)