Cats (the movie) scores "visibility" points

[MotherForkinShirtBalls]

I can't even with the stupid.

www.out.com/film/2019/12/20/judi-dench-says-her-cats-character-trans

Judi Dench may or may not have been joking that her cat character in Cats has been transed, but here's hoping, because "visibility matters". SMH.

🤷🏻‍♀️ I can’t get worked up about this tbh. The decision to cast a woman as Old Deuteronomy is interesting tbh. Have they changed the lyrics to ‘she’?

Trans? Meh! But the furries might be rather keen on it.

Think she was joking

Still not sure who other than furries is meant to want to watch Cats. The CGI is firmly in romp around in the uncanny valley territory.

All panto dames and the ugly sisters are also trans.

The Mail has a review of Cats by Titania McGrath - on fine form. She makes the trans point too

I love the stage version of the musical. Yeah, it is bonkers, it is grown adults singing and dancing dressed as cats, and it is basically ‘two hours of stray cats introducing themselves’ as one review said, there’s bog all storyline. But it works on stage. I’ve even went to see the German touring version when I happened to be there when it was on, and my German is incredibly limited. Still an enjoyable evening.

I’m going to see the film at some point. But it really sounds like it hasn’t translated well.

Anyway, from a gender critical viewpoint I see articles like the one linked as desperate attempts for those adherent to gender ideology to prove that gender is ‘real’. When you’re grasping at a fictional cat in a film based on a musical based on a book of nonsense poetry though....yeah, I feel like there’s really no need for any more comment, it critiques itself.

There is an issue here. The younger lady cats were CGI'd because it was thought they were a tad too visibly female.

(They gave them furry tits.)

I mean, from a bonkers/alarming CGI perspective I suppose we should just be glad they didn't do Starlight Express and give the lady trains boobs.

I went to see this last night, and the only things visible in it were abominations.

I suppose we should just be glad they didn't do Starlight Express and give the lady trains boobs

The standard Starlight Express stage costumes designate the female trains by them having sticky-out skirts..... can’t get away from stereotyping anywhere

Like women Lego minifigures all having lipstick on 🤦🏻‍♀️

I had planned to go to see it because I love the musical, but in all honesty the more I think about it the weirder it is that a film with CGI chose to do cats in human form. it works on stage but I can't put my finger on why I don't think it should work on film?!

I'm not going to see the movie. Saw the stage show when I was 18 and loved it.
I wonder if the Otherkin community are up in arms about appropriation?

It is the CGI that is the problem. They should have just dressed the cats in costumes which indicated they were cats rather than try to create human-feline hybrids. I think it is something about this visualisation of human cross-species hybridisation that is so off. It would only work if the cats weren’t cats but aliens in a sci fi film.

The spectacle of the stage show is in the ability of the performers to invoke the appearance they are cats, with their movements, the costumes/makeup etc. If you’re using CGI then I feel that kinda misses the point. When I saw it as a child (late 80s) the actors were on all fours around the audience during the interval, head rubbing on people’s legs etc. At the time it was magical. Now it just conjures shades of that bizarre George Galloway thing on Big Brother 🤮

The continuity issue of the size of the cat/human monster hybrid things changing size not just from scene to scene but apparently sometimes within the same scene taking place on the same set would drive me nuts, I'd be sitting there going "wait, weren't they almost people sized a minute ago? Why are they mouse sized now?"

The set for the theatre production is a big part of it all as well. You’re on a giant rubbish dump; you feel cat sized as well.

Really guys go and see the stage show

I wonder if any of the celebrities in the film will end up doing turns on Broadway/West End.... although, without meaning to sound insulting I’m not sure all of them could do it on stage without the help of CGI and editing. The dancing requirements for most roles are truly phenomenal.

I also think you are able to suspend disbelief further when watching a stage show, there's just something special about live theatre that is lost on screen.

Given that the CGI and overall uncanny valley look of the trailer freaked people when watching it on their phones out just imagine how freaky it must look at full movie screen size! Every weird detail will be 100 times more obvious.