My Favourite Fictional Cats

I watched The Mummy trilogy for the first time recently, and that scene in the first movie where they use a cat to scare off the Mummy had me thinking about how Carol did the same thing in Captain Marvel, and that got me thinking about Goose and other great cats from media. So here we are. I love cats and there have been some great ones in movies and TV, so here’s me talking about ones I like because I want to.

• Goose (from Captain Marvel) – Goose makes this list even though he is not technically a cat. He was just a fun addition to the movie. Using him to ward off the Skrull, his relationship with Fury, and the eventual reveal of his species was just plain fun. I had this picture as my phone lock screen for over a year.
  
• Salem (from Sabrina The Teenage Witch) – Salem from the Melissa Joan Hart TV show was great. Sassy, chatty, funny, and just a great character, despite looking very much like a fake cat on a TV show that did not have a budget to do better. They did not do the legacy of this cat justice in the gritty Netflix version.
  
• Hobbes (from Calvin And Hobbes) – I grew up reading these comics before I even had the brain to comprehend most of what I was reading. Hobbes is a genuine ride or die friend, and his adventures with Calvin were and still are always a delight to read. He’s also wonderfully complex, sometimes being wise and thoughtful while also sometimes being just a furry goofball with a one-track mind.
  
• Lord Tubbington (from Glee) – Brittany’s fat cat started as just a funny gag that I adored when it was sprinkled in. I wish the show kept it as just a mild gag rather than leaning into the absurdity of him a little too much in later seasons, but goodness knows there were bigger issues plaguing Glee. Anyway, I think fondly about Lord Tubbington and the Fondue For Two theme plays in my head often.
  
• Cheshire Cat (from Alice In Wonderland) – I never really watch the animated version of the story, but I really liked the live-action movie, and in particular, I really liked Chesh. The animated cat was creepy, but this live-action cat was a perfect mix of cute and creepy and worked so well with the slightly cyberpunk world of the movie.
  
• Mooch (from Mutts) – Mutts is an adorable comic that I enjoy reading in the newspaper. One main character, Mooch, is a cute, adventurous cat with a slight speech impediment that makes him even more adorable. His favourite toy is a pink sock, and I love when that sock appears in the comics.
  
• Puss In Boots (from Shrek 2) – I was a kid when Shrek was in its heyday. I remember when Puss was introduced in the second movie, perfectly appealing to kids and adults watching. Those big, cute cat eyes contrasting the sword and fighting words made for a hilarious character that remains iconic even years later.
  
• Skitty (from Pokemon) – There are many cat Pokemon, and Skitty isn’t even the most known one (that’s Meowth), but look at this thing!!! Adorable!!! I would die for it!!!
  

Lastly, here are some honourable mentions to cats I never really connected with in a meaningful way but I respect: Tigger, Pink Panther, Garfield, the Cowardly Lion, and Sylvester.

I know there are some other great fictional felines out there, so let me know which ones you enjoy!

 

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What If We Suddenly Lost A Part Of The Internet?

Earlier this week, Facebook and its sub platforms Instagram and Whatsapp went down for the majority of the day. It didn’t affect me much at all. In fact, it was probably for the best in my case because I didn’t waste time checking those websites just to see dumb Buzzfeed articles and pictures of places I’ll never visit. But during the down time, when Twitter got a lot busier as a result, there was a rumour going around that Facebook may have been ‘deleted’ or down for good as opposed to just dealing with a minor server issue or whatever usually happens when platforms go down.

I certainly don’t use Facebook or Instagram that much, and when I do use them, it’s certainly not productively, but the thought of losing them forever kind of shook me a little. I’ve only had Facebook for about five years, and Instagram for three, so it’s not like I have years and years of my life cataloged on there, but some people do. Some people have a decade of photos and memories saved there. It’s their cloud storage of sorts. I know I’d miss some pictures at the very least.

We’ve always been told that the Internet is forever, but what if it isn’t? What if we just wake up one day and a part of it is gone? Sites shut down all the time. Data is lost all the time. What would life be like if a tech mammoth like Facebook just bit the dust suddenly? There are a lot of reasons to hate Facebook and Instagram, and we can goof and gaffe about the Facebook Moms not being able to spread misinformation without their precious echo-chamber-enabling platform, but there’s more to them than that, and perhaps we’ve taken it for granted.

Obviously, there’s a huge social aspect to these platforms. They’re social media, after all. Losing them would perhaps mean losing connections to people we value. I have several friends who I almost exclusively communicate with via Facebook Messenger, and to lose that out of nowhere would be detrimental. I also work in marketing. It’s wild to think about how different some aspects of my job and the whole marketing/communications field would be without Facebook or Instagram. Marketing aside, so many businesses use these platforms as their main point of access. Lives could be ruined without them.

But it’s not just Facebook and Insta that hold immense power. What if Discord disappeared tomorrow? What if Wikipedia shut down? Are we too reliant on the internet to just always be there? As someone always online and so connected to the point where my literal job requires it, it’s kind of scary to think about a life that doesn’t have that. But are backup plans even possible? Like, sure I could have copies of every picture I want from Facebook on a physical hard drive, but that’s not enough necessarily. At the end of the day, we’re at the whim of fallible technology or tech giants with power.

When Vine shut down years ago, creators scrambled to save their own content and fans rushed to save their favourite vines, but at least there was a warning and a grace period to get your stuff and get out, and a lot of quality vines are now viewable in YouTube compilations. And now TikTok is here and thriving. As interesting as it would be to see what platforms would rise if others suddenly disappeared, I’d rather not experience it in a way where everyone is disjointed and feeling a loss.

That’s my ramble for the week, but I’d love to know your thoughts. What website/platform (other than this blog, obviously) would ruin your life if it suddenly disappeared?

 

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Monthly Look Ahead: October 2021

Hello and welcome to the 400th post on this blog! This is just a quick note to say thanks to everyone reading and enjoying my blog, even milder posts like these Monthly Look Aheads. Here’s to the next 400!

Well, there’s already one neighbour with inflatable Halloween decorations up, so it must be October! Aside from transitioning from ankle socks to full-length fuzzy socks, here’s what I’ve got going on this month.

• Curling starts back up again! Last year we only managed about a month of play before Covid cases got bad in the area again and we had to shut down, but this year is looking up as everyone has to be double vaxxed and there are still a bunch of safety procedures in place. I’ve really missed playing, so I’m excited to get back out there and see everyone.
• Venom: Let There Be Carnage is out this month, and I already have tickets to see it with friends. The first movie certainly wasn’t a fantastic film but it was just the right amount of fun and action and chaos and violence to make it enjoyable, so I’m looking forward to the sequel.
  
• The HBO TV show Succession is back this month, as are two of the Arrowverse shows that I can’t seem to stop watching.
• Ed Sheeran’s album = is out on the 29th. I’m not a huge fan of the first single from this album, but I loved his last solo album a few years ago, so I’ll definitely check it out.
• Also releasing an album this month is celebrity love of my life Darren Criss on the 8th, and it’s a Christmas album, which I will definitely have overplayed by the time it’s socially acceptable to have Christmas music playing.
• On the 16th, DC comics is doing another DC Fandome, which is an online convention of sorts. I thought it was really well done last year on its main day, so I’m definitely excited to see how it goes this year and get a peek at upcoming content.

Aaaand that’s my October so far. I usually don’t think about Halloween and pumpkin designs until like a week before, but maybe you’re better than me and are already planning stuff out. I’d love to know. Who knows, maybe I’ll go to a pumpkin patch this year instead of buying one at the grocery store…

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Thanks For The Movie Musicals, But I Want Proshots

As you should have read in my Monthly Look Ahead, September brought unto me a lot of musicals, which is wonderful, and honestly, all the other months should step up their game and do the same. Now, I’m not someone who’s great at critiques, but I wanted to talk about some of the content we’ve gotten this month and why some of it hasn’t been as great as I wanted it to be.

Dear Evan Hansen is a good musical. I’ve seen it on stage and I do love it. The music is great, the story is interesting, and I think Ben Platt was great in the role…six years ago. Ben Platt reprised the awkward teenage role at age 27 for the movie version of the musical that came out this month, and it was not stellar. Even from the trailer, it was clear that this movie was not capturing the magic of the Broadway version. One tweet I think about a lot said it looked like a low-budget Christian movie, and that’s very accurate, despite big names in the cast. Maybe it was poor direction or maybe it was just that such a heavy show couldn’t translate to a movie as well, but the movie was lackluster. From cutting out the opening song to Evan’s constant whispering to the slight plot change at the end, I have some qualms. I’d see the show live again in a heartbeat, but I’m certainly not itching to see the movie anytime soon.

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie is a story similar to Dear Evan Hansen in many ways, but its movie was a lot better. I still missed some of the cut songs, but I think the changes they made to adapt it to a film were mostly well done. Why did Jamie succeed when Evan failed? I can’t say for certain, as again, I am not a critic.

What I do know, though, was a proshot of Everybody’s Talking About Jamie already existed. The movie was good and all, but if you want to see the musical in the way it was intended to be seen (without actually seeing it live), go watch that. Proshots are underrated forms of consuming theater, and I’m mad they’re not more available. The Come From Away proshot came out this month and it’s wonderful. The show is wonderful, and seeing it in HD is great because you still see the magic of the production but close up and without losing aspects to a movie format. The stage allows for a big performance, so it can get more dramatic or silly when it needs to be because we expect and enjoy it on stage.

There’s this big argument that’s often thrown around when talking about the b-word (bootlegs) and it’s that the reason why proshots aren’t too common is because of all the licensing fees and contracts and stuff that’d be needed for proshots to exist. And I’m sure that’s all true, but—and people are welcome to correct me here—it seems like a more cost-effective way of getting musicals into the world than making a full movie musical. No expensive actors, no building full sets, no rewrites, just filming/editing a show people already love and want to see in the way people already love and want to see it. And it can still be shown in theaters like Newsies was years ago.

At the end of the day, as much as there are some great movie versions of musicals in existence (I will defend Mamma Mia until the day I die), something is always lost in translation, and it’s unfortunate that in some cases, like Dear Evan Hansen‘s, it will ruin the reputation, no matter how good elements may be. Movie musicals should be for the fans and while I can’t speak for all of them, I feel like most of the fans just want to see the musical, not the artsy, stunt-casted watered-down version that we often get from these things. Case in point: Cats.

Zero people asked for this. Zero.

What are your thoughts? Are you running to theaters to see Dear Evan Hansen? Are you disappointed with the quality of some movie musicals? Do you not care as long as we’re getting some musical content? Comment below your opinions!

 

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On Media Polarizing Fans

I consume a lot of media. I am a fan of a lot of media. I’ve extensively seen fandoms grow, die, explode, and more. It’s fascinating to me. While it’s always a treat to see fans come together for better or for worse the way they did recently on Tumblr during the Supernatural nonsense, one thing that’s been very interesting to me recently is fandom divide.

Personally, I did not love the recent Marvel show Loki. Out of the three Disney+ Marvel shows so far, it is my least favourite without a doubt. I know people who did like it, and that’s great for them, but I did not. And while most people in my life are able to discuss the show and our differing opinions in a reasonable, mature way, it was quite an experience to then go on Twitter and see such anger and hate for aspects of the show, with most of it surrounding Sylvie and the relationship she had with Loki. What’s more, is that it went beyond simply not loving the show or maybe not loving it compared to other shows, but people got so personally angry and passionate about their stance that the fandom was a messy, dramatic, unhappy place. And I didn’t even seek it out. This is just what I saw on my timeline! I can only imagine what it was like in the metaphorical trenches.

I don’t think Marvel purposely set out to make a show that’d rile up fans so much. I think they knew that any love interest for Loki would be a point of interest for better or for worse, but the way people got so heated and analyzed everything so much was probably beyond expectations. At the end of the day, it is just a TV show. I’ve been attached to characters/shows/plots/whatever too, but to let it ruin my mindset so much that I go online and be constantly angry about it is just a tad step too far, I think.

However, similar to the phrase “all publicity is good publicity,” I have to ask: is all fandom good fandom? While I don’t believe the Loki showrunners planned for a large fandom divide, sometimes it clearly is a publicity tactic. Shall we all think back to that year of Team Edward vs Team Jacob? All the merch sales that campaign brought in, all the schoolyard fights that were started…the polarization and the passion did that. Even having Hogwarts Houses that people identify and group into can be an example of this. In an era where hashtags can affect a show’s renewal chances, it would be a smart move from a piece of media to purposely polarize the fandom and start conversations. Because people love thinking they’re right and people love telling others they’re right, so social media and the unhinged culture of fandoms is perfect for that.

In fairness, I can’t think of many other recent shows where there was something that unintendedly divided a fandom for the worse, so it’s certainly not like A Thing that’s overtaking media, but it’s interesting when it does happen.

What are your thoughts on this subject?

 

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