Tuesday, December 20, 2011

CATS

The first movie I remember ever becoming truly obsessed with was the movie version of the musical Cats. It started when I was two or three. For my fourth birthday we got kittens, and I named mine Magical Mister Mistoffellees and my mom's was Rum Tum Tugger. We had it on VHS and it's pretty close to worn out from all the times I've watched it. I can still recite the commercials that came on before the movie: one for Schweppes, one for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and one for the Broadway version of Cats. I spent a lot of weekend and summer days in the basement of our house, watching it and trying to do the dances (with varying success, usually on the low range of the scale). We got it on DVD a couple years ago, and it's probably the one I've watched the most. I even bought the book of poetry it's based off of with birthday money one year in middle school.

Cats was the first musical I ever saw done professionally live. I can't remember how old I was, but it must have been when I was considerably young, because I only remember two things. First, at the very beginning of the musical, the actors came running up the aisle with glowing eyes. My mom was sitting on the end, and I was sitting next to her. One of the cats leaned over her and right into my face. It was the most terrifying event of my young life. Secondly, when I get overheated I get nauseated. When I was younger, I would actually throw up. I did so right before intermission >.< I made it to the bathroom, though! One of the ushers brought me water in one of those little triangle paper cups, and we watched until intermission on this big screen tv they had in the lobby of the theater that showed what was on stage. After intermission, we went back into the theater and I made it through the rest of the show (or so said my mom when I asked her earlier, I honestly can't remember for myself).

My obsession came back with a vengeance in middle school. I started to not just watch it, but to find stories that weren't so obvious. I think that maybe that's why I love this musical so much. I've always adored things that have more than one meaning. You can either look at it from the perspective of "hey, singing and dancing cats!" or it can be "hey, singing and dancing cats that are related this way and that and have this relationships and those and there's this backstory and..." It's also really great for someone with an overactive imagination to think about when she's bored... >.>

Some of my Backstories

  • Munkustrap, Rum Tum Tugger, and Magical Mister Mistoffelees are brothers, and all the sons of Old Deuteronomy. Munkustrap and Tugger are litter mates, and Mistoffelees is younger. Munkustrap is the more responsible one of the older ones, while Tugger is more of a ladies' man, so Munkustrap is their father's right-hand man. Tugger's perfectly fine with this, so the two of them get along great. Mistoffelees, however, doesn't get along with Tugger that well. He wants some of the attention from the female cats, too. He does eventually get it, but he starts off being jealous and irritated by his brother. Tugger approves of Mistoffelees, though. He's proud of him and really supports his magic-ness. 
  • Victoria is the name of the white kitty that has the most demanding dancing parts in the show (I know this because one of my pipe-dreams when I was younger was to play her on Broadway so I did research. When I found this out, I dropped the dream :P ). She's one of the younger cats, the same age as Mistoffelees. She's probably going to be similar to the female version of Tugger when she's older, but for now she's just exploring what it means to be seen as a possible mate. She and Mistoffelees are really close friends. He doesn't approve of her infatuation with Tugger. You can see him keeping her awake in the background during Gus's song ^-^ I'm a total shipper for Victoria and Pouncival
  • Grizabella has plenty of theories flying around about her. Because of this, I didn't come up with my own theory about her, unlike the others (except Demeter), but instead combined bits and pieces of others'. She left the tribe as a young cat because of being vain. She thought she was better than them, and they didn't enable her, so she left. They allowed her to come back when the real world crushed her, but never really accepted her after it. They felt she deserved everything she got, but Old Deuteronomy convinced them to allow her to rejoin the tribe. 
  • Demeter is one of my favorites, but I didn't come up with her backstory on my own. Instead I found it on the interwebs :D Demeter used to be Macavity's mate before he became infamous. Then she realized what a horrible person he was and tried to get out. He made it really difficult for her, which traumatized her. That's why she's so jumpy when she thinks/knows he's around. Bombalurina is either her slightly older sister, or just a very close friend who's slightly older than her. She runs to her a lot when frightened. 


Favorite Songs
  • Macavity
  • Skimbleshanks
  • Of the Awefull Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles Together with Some Account of the Participation of the Pugs and the Poms and the Intervention of the Great Rumpus Cat!!!
  • Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer

Favorite Males
  • Tugger. Dude. The first (out of two) sexual attraction I ever had was to him. I have to give total props to John Partridge for playing the part of a sex idol so well. 
  • Mistoffelees. My second favorite. Forever. He's just... amazing. My perfect guy is him and Tugger put together... in human form. 
  • Old Deuteronomy. He's so cuddly!!!

Favorite Females
  • Victoria. Forever and always my favorite. 
  • Jemima. She's so pretty ^-^ And her voice is gorgeous. 
  • Demeter. I don't really know why I feel so strongly towards her, I just do. 

Real-life connections (where the fan-girl really kicks in)- Jake is the Mistoffelees to my Victoria, and Mary is the Bombalurina to my Demeter. I also have my very own Tugger... but that's not something I'm gonna share here :P

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