Why’s it Forgotten? Cats

https://lebeauleblog.com/2019/12/24/whys-it-forgotten-cats/

I am going to go out on a limb and predict that Cats will clean up at the Golden Raspberry Awards this year. Kevthewriter thinks the movie version of the hit Broadway musical is already fading from people’s Memory*.

*Get it. It’s a song from the… oh never mind.

So, unless your a musical theater fan or a snarky person on the internet who loves to make fun of things, you probably have already forgotten there is a film version of Cats. And it’s only been out for a couple days.

Granted there is a little film called Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker that is completely and utterly stealing its thunder. And that very popular, franchise ending movie is 99.99999999999999999999% the reason no one outside of the two groups I mentioned above is talking about this movie.

What also doesn’t help is that the movie looks creepy as hell.

But here’s the thing: Cats was a phenomenon back in its day. And creepy visuals don’t always deter people from seeing a movie if it’s from a brand they love. Just look at Will Smith as the Genie. People thought he looked horrifying when they saw him in the trailers but Aladdin still made a billion dollars.

So considering it’s a well known musical, even if there is a huge Star Wars film out now, why does hardly anyone seem to care about this movie?

Maybe it’s not just Star Wars. Maybe it’s just not the creepy visuals. Maybe, just maybe, it’s because nobody cares about Cats anymore.

If you really think about it, only a couple songs have really had any longstanding pop culture impact. Memory and…Jellicle Cats? If you asked anyone the names of any of these characters, can you really say anyone would be able to tell you? Hell, if I asked YOU what the names of these characters were, would you be able to tell me?

And is Cats really something that’s a popular choice for high school musicals? Before the trailers for this movie came out, can anyone name a time after 2000 Cats was even MENTIONED outside of that one Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt episode?

If anything, Cats is like the Avatar of the Broadway Musical world. It got insanely popular for the spectacle it was but, once it left the theater, people just kinda moved on and hardly talk about it. And, if they do talk about it, it’s more in an “Oh yeah, that was a thing” way.

And it’s probably because, outside of the spectacle, both Cats and Avatar didn’t really have much going for them. Cats has little to no plot while Avatar has a very basic, cliche plot.

It’s really telling that many of the comments I read about the movie seem baffled not just by the direction they took the movie in but by the fact that a Cats movie exists in the first place. And it shouldn’t because, even if Cats doesn’t really lend itself well to a film adaptation, it shouldn’t be surprising filmmakers would try to make a Cats movie.

I mean, filmmakers try to make movies out of stuff that probably shouldn’t be movies all the time. If studios think something sells in one format, they don’t think through whether or not it would make sense in another format, they just see dollar signs and go for it. Remember all those theatrically released episodes of kids cartoons I talked about once?

I’m just surprised it took this long to make a Cats movie at all. Yes, I’m aware there was an attempt back in the 90’s to make an animated Cats film that fell through but, still, it’s been almost 40 years since the movie came out. And almost 20 years since it left Broadway. This feels like it should’ve come out at least in the mid 2000’s.

But I think most of the people who are baffled by the fact that they would dare make a Cats movie are probably teenagers or people in their early 20’s who were probably either born after it left Broadway or were extremely young when it left Broadway. So they wouldn’t know exactly how popular it was because they weren’t there. I was 8 by the time it closed its doors so I was aware of its popularity but for someone who was, like, 2, they may only know it as some musical, if they know it at all.

And that goes back to the main point. I wouldn’t say Cats isn’t forgotten but it’s mostly known by people who were there when it was out. Everyone else, for all we know, may have never heard of it. But because there just wasn’t much of a show outside of the songs, choreography, and set design, there’s just not much to talk about after it left Broadway.

So it’s left the people who had no chance of experiencing the phenomenon it once was to scratch their heads at this weird musical about creepy looking cat people.

Therefore I would say that, no, Cats doesn’t have much cultural impact. Is it forgotten? No. But are most people ambivalent to it now? Yes.