kontextmaschine:

More Cats thoughts

The movie cleverly sets up the Jellicles as theater people putting on a production - several pieces take place on a stage or in a ballroom or what’s set up to invoke a choreography studio.

As part of that, the movie leans into being not queer as 2019 would understand it but hella gay as 1981 London theater people would, before AIDS showed up - wistful old actors and Falstaffian toffs, Munkustrap the neurotic stage manager and Skimbleshanks the Elton John-level fabulous, the women respected old queens, fallen divas, fat or, um, catty.

Rebel Wilson seems to be playing Jenny Anydots as Hilda - fat, playful and subject to frequent pratfall comedy. Except sometimes she unzips her fur and turns out it was a disguise for… an also-fat warrior girl in pink roller derby spandex? I dunno, man.

Jason Derulo seems to be using some ‘90s black British swagger for Rum Tum Tigger. Too far out of my wheelhouse to place, but I got reminded of Tricky, Goldie, and Cat from Red Dwarf.

And yeah, if someone hadn’t made a thing of it, I’d have no idea that Francesca Hayward, the ballerina who played white-furred perspective character Victoria, was half-Kenyan

For all it goes to present itself as a really London thing, the last entries in the credits thank production incentive programs from Quebec and South Australia, and judging by surnames a lot of post/CG stuff was done in India

Part of the stageyness is it’s very physical - the fur and scenery are cgi but that just replaces makeup and drops, the leaps are clearly done with wires and the sets and props are real built to size

Having said it’s very horny (and gay!), it’s also very sexless. That’s not the worst take on “feline”, and maybe I just don’t count two cat-people nuzzling as as satisfying a resolution as two humans kissing.

Also if they’re being that cat-accurate, spiked penises, so