The association of cats with the occult, Halloween and generally anything spooky, has been woven into our culture through centuries’ long entanglements of superstitions, folklore, and anti-cat rhetoric; coupled with the embrace and overall cultural primacy of dogs in many western civilizations. This specious speciesist behavior can be, in part, attributed to the differences in domestication between cats and dogs. Whereas dogs were domesticated first, simultaneously independent in other geographic regions and bred for a variety of purposes that were both practical for the survival of the human species and for social companionship (the dog is “man’s best friend”[1], after all), the domestication of cats, while similarly early and paralleled geographic independence and diversity, their use was far more practical, in the elimination of vermin. Unlike K-9 integration, cats have undergone little genetic or behavioral changes as they have been independently integrated across countries and continents. This independence and lack of evolutionary refinement led to the negative associations many cultures developed around felines, especially black cats. This paper is a brief exploration of those negative associations/superstitions from a sociological perspective, steeping the enmity of cats in the ubiquitous proliferation of the Christian religion and mechanisms of gendered oppression, to the point where these associations eventually get reproduced in our modern mythology of movies.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
The
practiced acrimony toward (black) cats is a byproduct of religious colonialism.
Masculinely coded and just as fragile, the manifest destiny minded,
pre-pubecently lecherous institution of Christianity sought to eradicate any
belief that did not align with their patriarchically hegemonic monotheism; and
black cats were caught in its undertow. Prior to this invasive transformation,
cats were revered as symbols
of the divine in a variety of non-Western cultures,
including Egypt and Greece. Even European folklore had a more amenable
association with cats prior to this invasion; seeing cats as being both
spiritual and familial companions. Yet, as the influence of the church spread, it
wrestled power from the people to loom their manufactured divinity over the
people they were enslaving.
In
1233, Pope Gregory declared that black cats were an incarnation of Satan. This
sparked an inquisition into duplicitous demonology and established literal
“witch hunts” that were designed to eradicate a Luciferian cult that had
developed in the region (Wilde, 2017)[2]. That these practices
pre-date both the decree and the Christian religion itself was of no matter, as
the goal was a complete elimination or emulsification of these traditions;
stripping what they need from them and gaining loyalty and obedience while
amassing power though establishing authority.
This process can be understood through the Sociology of Religion
The
Sociology of Religion
The power of the
oligarchic patriarchal Christianity and its demonization of black cats can be
understood by looking at the Sociology of religion and the work of Emile
Durkheim and Max Weber. Durkheim (2001) discusses the foundational principle of
the sacred, a concept that predates the formation of institutionalized religion.
The sacred is socially constructed through individual and group interactions surrounding
a belief or object, and the restrictions that we place on how that object,
belief or behavior can be expressed. Something becomes sacred through our own
experiences, when other people tell us something is sacred, or when there are
social restrictions and consequences around the mishandling of an object or
behavior. Ironically, “sacredness” does not only include the divine, but also
the diabolical. Therefore, even though black cats and the superstitions around
their behavior consider them to be deplorable, they are still sacred.
The valuation of black
cats as still being sacred hits at the core of the power of religion for Durkheim;
the content of belief is less important than the function and control of that
belief. Social organization determines how people are going to understand and
accept religious belief. But this practice has more to do with social order and
social control rather than anything spiritual. This is what Durkheim called
“collective effervescence” where through emotional contagion and appeal to a
higher authority, feelings of emotional security, comfort and solace get
attributed to a higher power or an exalted entity when those feelings of
elation, fear, hope and sadness are, instead, the product of basic group
dynamics. This, on the surface, seems to promote spiritual plurality as it is
the group, and not the belief that is the most important. However, the culturally relativistic practice
of spiritual plurality does not develop into the acquisition of and exercise of
social power. For that, belief needs to be greatly regulated, creating a
tighter grip on what is considered acceptable, and an elaborate policing of belief
and behaviors that a group does not find to be legitimate. It requires
bureaucratic institutionalization.
Max Weber (2002)
understands the relationship between religious belief and social structures, in
the way it uses belief as a resource and currency to allow that structure to
replicate itself. The cultivation of that “collective effervescence” is done
through legitimation in the form of the social structure that establishes the
social order. Belief Systems (folktales and other indigenous stories) are born
out of traditional levels of authority, which justifies its ascension to power
through tribal leaderships supported by bloodline or birth order.
Unfortunately, this still allows for plurality, thereby minimizing the power of
the system’s ability to create collective effervescence. To control how people
experience belief, and maximize the output of disassociation between the power
of a belief and the recognition of group dynamics, belief systems have to be bureaucratized
by being transformed into a religion.
A
religion is a belief system that has been routinized. There are fixed
jurisdictions of authorities, the organizational chart is structured as a
hierarchy, there is archival communication and correspondence, there is a level
of impersonality and an obligatory drive for the reproduction of the religious
structure itself (Weber 2019). This obligatory reproductive drive of religion
is also comparable to the institutions of masculinity and capitalism of which
they too share a bureaucratic organization and the fatal flaw of fragility
requiring proliferation in lew of perishing. All three institutional mechanisms
have rigid belief structures without acceptance of diversity difference or
deference. Therefore, Capitalism must propagate itself through profit and
monopolization, Masculinity through a toxic hegemonic expression of itself that
every person has to accept, acquiesce, amplify or interrogate, and religion
through monotheistic missionary work and conversion. Each has a drive and focus
to cover the planet, because it is threatened by anything that isn’t itself or complementary
to it. Thus, the vilification of black cats can find its origin in the
eradication of nonwestern beliefs and cultures because they threaten the
fragile supremacist organization of oligarchic Patriarchal Christianity. Since
this proliferation of these uniform institutions continue today, many of these
beliefs and practices are reproduced in our film and popular culture.
SOCIAL ANALYSIS
Film
and popular culture are forms of soft power within society. They influence
public perception and reflect the values that we both live by and aspire to. They
are a mirror and a wish fulfilment fantasy separately or often simultaneously.
Since the historic valuation of dogs as the animal most coveted for human
companionship, cats have been regulated to something other, less than. This is,
at least in part because of the threat that cats pose to the religious social
order throughout history, being associated with beliefs and practices that
needed to be eradicated to strengthen the importance and claim of Oligarchic
Patriarchal Christianity. Furthering
this aim, is that one of the most consistent
representations of cats, particularly black
cats,
is within the Horror
genre. This is using the language of cinema as another tool
to reinforce the erroneous claim that cats have a sacredly diabolical “nature”.
Granted it is unclear if these
depictions have the same lofty purpose as the religious decrees of the past; or
that the “spooky” nature of [black] cats has seeped into our culture for so
long that it has poisoned our attitudes toward these feline familiars by being
part of the horror zeitgeist. To interrogate this further, there is an
interesting juxtaposition of two representations of black cats in horror films,
one from within the hegemonically Christian United States of the 1940’s in Cat
People and the 1960’s Japanese Feminist Horror film
Kuroneko.
Black
Cat Comparisons in Film: Cat People and Kuroneko
The 1942 film Cat People is one of the
first horror films by producer Val Lewen for RKO pictures. The film follows the
budding romance between Serbian Immigrant Irena (Simone Simon) and her bespoken
beau Oliver Reed (Kent Smith). As their courtship turns to marriage, Irena
confides in Oliver that she is descendant of a group of witches, cursed to
transform into violent cat-like beasts whenever they feel either love or passion;
pursued to almost eradication by King John. The majority of the film’s economic
runtime (of 77 minutes) is spent in denial or trying to cure Irena of this so-called
delusion through Psychoanalysis, until the fears are realized, and the
transformations begin.
Cat People has a lot of socially
relevant and seemingly progressive themes for the time (divorce, the struggles
of immigration, the ease of white male privilege, the importance of mental
health, the validity of working women and platonic cisgendered heterosexual
friendships). Part of this progressiveness is due to it being a genre picture in
Horror. Much like Noir of the 1930’s, more progressive ideas and attitudes were
allowed because it was in a genre that was perceived as a fantasy, as outside the
realm of reality. Also, in typical
Hollywood fashion of the time, the film ultimately forgoes these progressive
themes, labeling them as dangerous (vilifying female sexuality) and/or in need
of correcting. Then, doubles down on the reproduction of the “traditional
family” through the construction of typical romantic traditions and the
elimination of “the other”, in this case, the “immigrant other” of Irena. The image
and representation of cats are used as an allegorical cautionary tale against these
progressive ideas. The cat is the other, so “the other” is represented by a cat;
thereby sealing their fate for their perceived transgressions. The wildness and
violence that Irena displays as a shape shifted feline beast, speaks volumes
about the fear of female sexuality as something that needs to be contained,
controlled or destroyed. At the same time, this solidifies the feminization of
cats and masculinization of dogs, that linguistically is still hard to shake.
Colloquially, we often use the pronouns of she/her for cats and he/him for dogs
regardless of the sex of the actual animal.[3]
This cautionary tale of
female sexuality becomes even more crystalized when viewed through a queer
lens.
The struggle that Irena has with understanding a secret side of herself that
she’s had since she was born, can be an easy stand in for the Queer communities
coming out process. From this perspective, the stalking of Oliver’s co-worker, Alice,
takes on a new dimension. Gone is the simplistically traditional reverberation
of the scorned wife, in its place is a delectably juicy subversion of Irena trying
to contain her animalistic lust for another woman. Unfortunately, the film
still centers itself in the reproduction of the traditionally Christian ideas
that results in an early example of the “bury
your gays” trope.
Years later, Japanese
filmmaker Kaneto Shindo reappropriated the perceived diabolical nature of [black]
cats into a horror revenge fantasy with Kuroneko. The film is part of
the kaibyo “Demon
Cat/Ghost Cat subgenre of Japanese horror films that originated from Kabuki
theater; but gained popularity prior to WWII and again in the 1960’s. Kuroneko
is unique among its contemporaries as that the demon death dealt by the cat, has
a vengefully noble purpose. In the film, a mother and her daughter-in-law are
raped and murdered by a troop of Samurai before their house is burned down. After
they are brought back by a demon cat as vengeful spirits, they seduce and
murder Samurai that wander in the woods, tearing their throats out. This
becomes such a problem that, in a twist of fateful irony, the mother/
daughter-in-law’s son/husband is sent to destroy them. With each unable to destroy
the other, one of the ghosts becomes damned and the Samurai, realizing what he’s
done, wastes away to nothing.
The subversion of western
tropes in Kuroneko is notable both in its storytelling and its depiction
of cats. The Japanese onryo (feminine vengeful spirit) has become an easy
allegory for feminist respite and revolution in modern and postmodern
filmmaking[4]. The anger and desire for
retribution is compellingly understood due to the ubiquity of misogynistic
western Patriarchal rule that has become so
conventional that it is
actually a trope. Additionally, Japanese folklore does not
see the cat as demonic, or the spawn of Satan as Pope Gregory did. Instead, cats
in Japan can have an interesting duality. They can either be seen as benevolent
creatures of good fortune (manekineko)[5] or they can be precocious shape
shifting tricksters (bakeneko) which garner them a more malevolent moniker and
reputation. In Kuroneko, the black cat spirit could be seen as balancing
the scales towards justice; for the pain and rage felt by the two women deserves
rectifying retribution.
Unfortunately, there is
also a debilitating gender double standard that goes on within these
narratives. As often happens within these stories, when men seek retributive
violence for the death and loss of a loved one, their orgiastic orgasm of violence
is a tempestuous tapestry of glorifyingly gory images to the point that it is
considered artful. Think of the work of Eric Draven in The Crow (the
good version) or the titular John Wick. Yet, when women seek retribution,
arguably for something more devastating, and sadly commonplace, their vengeance
usually comes at the cost of their own life.
This is a part of The
Rape Culture that is rarely discussed: when women are
allowed to be saviors or vengeance demons, they must also be punished for it. Too
much feminine independence threatens the masculine structures of the oligarchic
patriarchy. Women in these stories are always being “rained in”, they have
“gone too far”, or are shown to have remorse for their actions. Meanwhile, men
will carve whole bloody paths through entire civilizations with little
introspection, consequence or comeuppance. They are singularly focused and when
they have had their fill, they often die because there was nothing left inside
them but rage. When that is gone, there is nothing left. Men are often depicted
as an instrument through which that rage worked through.
The impact of myths and
superstitions on the Real life of Cats
The
overall impact of the religious persecution of cats by Christianity and the overwhelming
durability of cat themed superstitions that are reproduced in popular culture,
specifically in film, have an indelibly direct impact into the lives of actual cats.
Even though cats are the second largest animal to be adopted in the United
States with 26% of household owning at least one cat, this
pales in comparison to the number of households that own dogs
(45%). The entire pet industry produced a revenue of 157
billion dollars in 2023. This
includes nutrition, supplies/medicines, veterinarian care, live animal
purchases, and other services. Of that,
it is a 60/40
split between dogs and cats. Fewer cats are housed as pets when
compared to dogs, and people spend less on their cats than their dogs. Part of
this statistic can be attributed to the simple fact that cats are (typically)
smaller animals requiring less maintenance and care.[6] Yet, this does not account
for the infrastructure of boarding companies, grooming salons, specialty shops and
segregated parks that revolve around dogs. This creates a culture that is
consistently more welcoming and understanding to the dog parent, than to the
cat parent. There is a level of cultural capital to dog ownership that cat
owners have yet to experience (Bourdieu 1984). Dogs have been commodified by
our culture as secondary children in ways that cats still are ostracized. This
can partially be explained by the subservience
that dogs feel when living with a family. Most aim to please and have
fierce loyalty. Whereas, while cats are very much social creatures, and enjoy being
part of a family, they perceive themselves as being the most important creature
in the house, or more generously, see everyone on equal footing with
themselves. This is misinterpreted by many pet parents as independence or
aloofness. It is neither. Cats aren’t immediately intimidated and subjugated by
humans just by our size. In fact, they tend to see us as gangly stupid, big
bipedal cats. Thus, unlike dogs in which their service and loyalty was bred
into them through generations of domestication from wolves to dogs, cat’s
affection, admiration and respect, must be earned by their humans. Any good cat
parent will confirm, it is worth it[7]
Additionally, cats have
been blamed for a variety of social ills throughout history either as a direct
cause or an adjacent accessory. Cats were blamed for the spread of the black
plague. Ironically however, it was their annihilation due to this false belief
that contributed to the proliferation of the disease since the cats were
killing and eating the true carriers…the rats. These negative myths and
superstitions also impact cat adoption and euthanasia rates. Black cats are only
being adopted at about 10 % of
all cats adopted, while they make up 74 % of cat euthanasia. This causes
many black cats to live out their lives in shelters. In correlation, many
shelters do not adopt out black cats in an around Halloween because of an unsubstantiated
sense threat of violence against them, or (more commonly) the likelihood of
the cat being returned when the holiday is over.
CONCLUSION
The continuation of these
myths and superstitions about black cats that were originally used to reinforce
a religiously oligarchic patriarchy which eventually spanned cultures, and infiltrated
our popular culture has left an ineradicable effect on the lives of cats. This
unfortunately obfuscates the health benefits of cat ownership. In addition to
the common factors of pet ownership with its increase in overall health, reducing
stress and increasing serotonin and dopamine; purring
cat frequencies have been shown to help heal injuries and reduce inflammation.
With more accurate testimonials from good cat parents, and a more accurate
depiction of Cats in popular media, hopefully these myths and superstitions
about black cats can soon be dispelled.
Author’s Note:
This article was written during the processing of my grief from the loss of my
cat Poncho. He is now with his sister
Mia. I love you. My floofy little fascist.
REFERENCES
Bourdieu
Pierre 1987. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Massachusetts:
Harvard University Press
Durkheim,
Emile 2001. The Elementary Forms of Religious
Life New York: Oxxford University Press
Weber
Max 2002. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism and other
Writings New York: penguin Publishing
__________2019.
Economy and Society: A New Translation Massachusetts Harvard University
Press.
Wilde,
Layla Morgan 2017. Black Cats Tell All: True Stories and Inspiring Images New
York: Cat Wisdom 101
[1]
This leans into the obvious ongoing misgendering of dogs and cats to be only
associated with cisgendered masculine and feminine traits respectively
[3] Since
we typically mislabel the sex assigned category of cats, is it any wonder we
are having a difficult time understanding the realities of trans-folk and the
importance of their representation?
[4]
One of the more recent examples of this is Mizu, the protagonist of the Blue
Eye Samurai series
[5] Think of the “Hello Kitty”esque
prosperity figurines that you see in small shops in Japan.
[6]
Though these numbers are rising
[7]
Most Cat Owners should not have cats
