Do these cats work out?
A new trailer just dropped and we must have a discussion about those feline bodies
The new Cats trailer released earlier this week managed to pack in an impressive number of disturbingly humanlike cats within a very short time frame.
In under two minutes, we see even more feline versions of Taylor Swift, Idris Elba, Jennifer Hudson, Judi Dench and James Corden in the film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s long-running musical. Cats are rolling around in beds and lurking in alleys, tap dancing and asking pithy questions of each other such as “What’s your name? Cat got your tongue?” (The only reasonable response should be, “Why yes, a cat’s got my tongue, and I am that cat.”)
Several of the questions raised by the previous Cats trailer, released in July, remain unanswered, including: Why do some cats have clothes and some cats not have clothes? Why do the cats have human lips? Do the cats work out? And then, as now, we remain intrigued and bothered by the humanoid figures of these cats.
All of these cats have very realistic fur and tails. In a behind the scenes video, director Tom Hooper said the team behind the film used “digital fur technology to create the most perfect covering of fur.”
“These are people, but they’re cats,” Corden helpfully and accurately explains in that video. When Lloyd Webber told Good Morning Britain that Swift wanted to watch the first trailer 10 times, he noted that the technique isn’t CGI but “it turns you into a cat. So it’s Taylor Swift, you know it’s Taylor Swift, but she’s a cat.”
The new trailer especially highlights Elba, who plays Macavity. His weirdly slender cat bod and cowboy hat did not go unnoticed on Twitter.
Why go this route? Well, stage productions of Cats famously feature skin-tight clothing over distinctly human bodies, so this 2019 cinematic version remains pretty true to the look of the musical. Perhaps no one wanted to deviate too much from that esthetic by using cats that had bodies that were slightly less human.
Regardless, when watching the snippets ahead of the film’s December release, we cannot help but concede that Bong Joon Ho may have a point regarding movie costumes. The Parasite writer-director recently revealed why he could never direct a Marvel movie: “I can’t stand people wearing tight-fitting clothes,” he told Variety.
“I’ll never wear something like that, and just seeing someone in tight clothes is mentally difficult. I don’t know where to look, and I feel suffocated,” he said. “Most superheroes wear tight suits, so I can never direct one. I don’t think anyone will offer the project to me either. If there is a superhero who has a very boxy costume, maybe I can try.”
But Bong doesn’t take artistic offence to movies with form-fitting garments. He calls it “a personal problem,” saying “I respect the creativity that goes into superhero films, but in real life and in movies, I can’t stand people wearing tight-fitting clothes.”
In that case, may we suggest he skip Cats?