I digress...
Oh, you'll love it
Not that anybody cares, (and that’s okay), but I have been consumed with work (yay!), personal growth (yes, ma’am) and health-centred activities and tasks, which have altogether kept me away from this. Writing personal essays (the sort I write here) tend to demand significant reflection, articulation and a host of similar existential tasks, and so at times I find myself shying away from getting started, knowing how much it will cost. A well-timed line of dialogue from a movie that I love for a variety for reasons goes —
‘Cost and worth are two very different things.’
— Hugh Dancy as Luke Brandon in ‘Confessions of a Shopaholic’ (2009)
So, at times, I must decide between the cost of writing something (to me) and what it’s worth (also to me, and perhaps, to a reader or two) and if the scale sways in favour of the latter.
While I have been unable to go further into the inquiry on mental health and surrounding issues, it is solely because I have indeed been working on my own. The therapist I have found has been vital in making me understand triggers, patterns, behaviours and emotions that lead to thoughts that lead to actions. It is going well and that is all I am willing to say on that. For now. Let me gather more data.
To sum up, I am not writing about mental health for now. I can literally hear some of you heave a sigh of relief. Well, to be honest, I will be writing more about it because 1. I want to and 2. it might be helping some silent reader realise their own issues and giving them hope to go on.
But given that my interests do tend to range from the ridiculous to the mundane, it is only fitting that I look away from my brain function and towards my hands (they’re usually occupied with some or other DIY) for some novel content. This here is a compilation of some ideas I keep on the tip of my tongue but never say out loud, mostly because I am unsure of whether this crosses the minds of others.
Just because you don’t understand…
In this section, I will be highlighting some tropes in the media which put cats in a particularly bad light. I have been noticing this for years and years, and aside from SNL being clearly pro-cats, I am hard-pressed to think of a single film or TV series doing the same. Even The Office, which showed Angela’s love for her own cat, ends in Dwight killing it. And of course we have the deeply sad event of losing a cat to a fall while being pet-sitted in HIMYM, a dark sub-plot that somehow ends in Marshall singing ‘Cat-sitting for Lily’s mom’ and just matter-of-fact mentioning that he let her fall to her death. It makes me sick to my stomach and I want to hurl something at the TV.
Here are some more regularly occurring cat-cruelty/misrepresentation tropes:
The screaming sound that they play when they show a cat simply existing. A cat jumps from a height, a cat leaps to a counter, a cat looks at someone for longer than three seconds - yowling. It is a well-established fact that felines are not vocal with each other and use sounds only to communicate with humans. They also have a wide range of vocalisations to convey different messages. Showing a scream-y, yowling cat every time there is a cat that is not actively purring sends a message that cats are generally angry, aggressive or violent. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Cats dying. Cats being killed. Cats being hit or used as a weapon in a comedy scene. Why the death of cats is such a comic or humorous event is beyond me. All I have known in this life is grief, loss and endless suffering that comes with losing a cat. Even as a rescuer and foster caregiver, every single cat and kitten that I have lost has left an imprint on my heart to the extent that I can visualise and paint a vivid picture of the day that I lost them. By using a cat’s death - accidental, homicidal or otherwise - as a source of comedy, they tell us that it is funny to watch a cat or kitten die, it is okay to do so and it is also a funny thing when someone loses their cat.
3.a The crazy cat lady trope - two big things wrong here - cats are wonderful and calming companions, very unlike dogs. If a responsible person (and I have to say responsible because I know of many people personally who keep cats for extremely wrong reasons and I do not approve) has a cat, it is very likely that they are indulging in their own instinct to be solitary, peaceful and undisturbed. So if a woman (I am yet to come across a crazy cat dad trope that bites down so hard on the gender and the animal all at once) is seen with many cats, the reality is that she just loves them and they all co-exist together healthily. By the way, if you do want to read some choice non-fiction from a real life cat dad, get yourself the Tom Cox series (the first 3 are about his cats), and enjoy.
3.b And the second issue is that of showing like, fifteen cats in a dirty, dingy and rotten apartment which can barely contain the human. This incorrectly establishes the image of mental unfit and/or irresponsible people letting cats breed and multiply whereas that would either not happen that easily (the cats will start to leave) or it would be a situation of illegal breeding. If someone has a manageable number of cats as companions, that is nothing to laugh at or ridicule. It’s just like having many dogs or many birds. It’s a companionable relationship thriving on co-existence.
I will leave you with this — read the three points above and replace each ‘cat’ with ‘dog’. It will just stop making sense. Because dogs are doled out a hero-like presence in our world, where people go up in arms about a dog possibly being hurt or dying in a film/series, and the entire world seems to collectively agree that no harm should ever come to a dog. Listen, I agree. NO HARM should ever befall a dog. They’re the kindest, most amazing companions. Heck, I would get two Pitties, a German Shepherd and a gaggle of beautiful desis tomorrow if I could, but I know that I am not made as a good dog parent (See: ‘Responsible pet parent’ above) and would never be able to do justice to this wholly beautiful species. BUT, my point is, just because cats were not bred into submission and dependence by us - the root of all evil on this planet - does not mean they don’t deserve kindness, empathy, sympathy and the whole lot of good emotions and consideration from us. It is baffling and unfair and I will continue to call this out till it gets better.
Psst, not to put too fine a point on this, but the reason I resonate with cats so utterly deeply is because I find that cats are misunderstood in precisely the same ways that I am. (This sounds very conceited, I know). Thought of as aloof because they like solitude; given the wrong treatment because they don’t demand a specific one; not social but considerably sociable if given the right atmosphere; prone to being mishandled by ignoramuses; always needing to prove themselves to be accepted. It’s like reading from my journals. :)
Cinema therapy
I’ve been a fan of Adam Sandler’s for decades. Then, when I discovered the joy-inducing marvel that is Saturday Night Live, I realised just how many great comedians had come from the show and why I loved their specific brand of comedy. However, it is easy for us to love someone when they make us laugh. It becomes a more demanding relationship when the same person can make us cry and feel other, harder emotions (not to reduce happiness to a lesser one, either).
So, when comedians such as Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Josh Gad, Bobby Moynihan, Jason Sudeikis and the ilk do serious stuff, it hits different.
Recently, I have been re-watching ‘Ted Lasso’ for the sole reason that I know it won’t shatter me emotionally and leave me there [I’m looking at you ‘Severance’!]. The YouTube channel ‘The Take’ did a brilliant analysis between the two seasons of the show and I watched it after I finished season 2 because I really wanted to cross-check what they were saying. And they’re right. No spoilers for those saving it for a rainy day (a highly recommended move), but the keenness with which Lasso’s character arc has been manoeuvred from a shining ray of endless light to the darker sources where the light draws its energy from is riveting, ground-breaking in male comedy tropes, and so, so beautifully portrayed by a 40+ Sudeikis, whom, might I add, I had had the immense pleasure of watching in such oddly-in-touch-with-real-feelings SNL sketches as this, setting the perfect precedent for the perfection that is Ted Lasso.
You see how much of themselves they hide behind the comic relief they bring to the world. You also see the depths of emotions that live a full life inside them as they’re able to muster up such moving performances, as if they’d just been bubbling under the surface, lightly shadowed by comedy and humour.
Coming to Sandler, see, I just like the guy. He’s been a fantastic all-round guy since I’ve known about him. He loves his wife, never crosses the line from comedy to misogyny, truly does some of his best work with children and has really complex performances scattered across his filmography that is humbling and that only makes me love him more. Also, aside from his funny, entertaining (and very good) music and his character play, his comedic genius also comes across in sketches where he just sort of talks to you — at times with his congenial, harmless demeanour and an almost self-deprecatingly heartfelt appeal to maybe think twice before going to Italy. I don’t know if it’s his oversized cashew-coloured suit or the fact that he is so hurt from the negative reviews by customers who didn’t address their personal issues before taking a Romano Tours package, but it brings me to laughing tears every time.
Useless fact: In Grown Ups, the boys dad-dance back up to their vacation cottages with ‘The Piña Colada song’ by Rupert Holmes blasting on their boombox; a song that has the line ‘if you’re not into Yoga, if you have half a brain’. Sandler, as Joe Romano (See: ‘going to Italy' above), still clearly does not get the point of yoga, and this little detail that stretches over, what, 9 years? kills me. XD
Following is an unedited note from when I was starting to draft for this essay, and I’m leaving it as such because I think I might ruin it with too much analysis.
‘Funny People’ was definitely interesting but ‘The Cobbler’ and of course ‘Uncut Gems’ were revelatory for Sandler, just like the recent Peacock series ‘Wolf Like Me’ is proving to be for Josh Gad. Seth Rogen brings new facets to his trademark lopsided grin and that oddly soothing rattle he uses for a voice in ‘An American Pickle’. I think Sandler and Chris Rock brought out the best in each other in what they pulled out in ‘The Night Of’, because there was never a question on their undeniable chemistry. That’s been strong since ‘Grown Ups’ and this is the hill I am choosing to die on when it comes to Sandler. Don’t even get me started on Sandler and Ben Stiller’s unnervingly intimate and realistic performances in Noah Baumbach’s ‘The Meyerowitz Stories’. Each of the scenes is so personal and raw it makes you uncomfortable. The film is lovely though, and I recommend at least a double watch to start with. Or just watch it for the treat that is its intricate dialogue.
I haven’t yet done this deep a dive into female comedians but I will say that the same does not entirely apply to them for some reason. I am yet to articulate this reason or the lack thereof and would not want to do a reductive, slapdash job of this — the closer of the two angles to my own heart. Expect to soon read some high praise for
Tina fey
Kristen Wiig
Amy Poehler
Hannah Gadsby
Amy Schumer
Iliza Schlezinger
Whitney Cummings
Rachel Feinstein
Taylor Tomlinson…
…and so many, many other brilliant female comedians — they have all been quite raw and honest with us from the start. Their humour is rooted in reality - women’s reality, and how overflowing it is with bullshit. Here’s just one aspect of that pointed out hilariously by Chelsea Peretti.
Did you like reading this side of my brain activity? If yes, talk to me. I might do more talking in return.