Cat+Owners

Samantha Hart  The Cat Owner Archetype and the Crazy Cat Lady Cats can be wonderful, loving pets, and cat owners know this, but there are many harsh, negative perceptions connected to cat lovers. The archetypal cat owner is a cat lover and owner who never tries to hide his or her love. However, popular culture has depicted cat lovers in hateful ways, characterizing them all as mentally-ill, unsanitary single people obsessed with their felines, creating the stereotypical “Crazy Cat Lady.” The little known and more accurate description of a cat owner is a loving person who is, in most ways, just like everybody else, and the media has ignored this truth. Unfortunately, negative ideas of cat owners have become common place and seem permanently tied to cat ownership. These ideas, however, are wrong and the truth about cat owners is beginning to seep through the cruel, harmful views that have dominated society and the media in the past.

 Cat owners love their cats and are proud of it, often talking about their beloved felines and showing them off. Whether they own one catmedia type="youtube" key="7BT00WU7Iss" width="296" height="245" align="right" or ten, cat owners adore each cat they own. The home of a cat lover will often reflect their passion. While it may not be obvious, there will always be a litter box, food and water bowl, and, of course, the cat hair on the couch. There are traces of cat all through the life of a cat owner, prominent or not. There may be cat hair stuck to his or her outfit, or maybe there’s a picture of a cat on his or her cell phone or computer wallpaper. Either way, cat lovers will often find their love for cats following them throughout their life. The villain from the James Bond movie __You Only Live Twice__, Blofeld, was characterized by his obsession with his white cat. He took his beloved feline everywhere with him, and the viewer could always recognize him due to his trademark Persian cat. Blofeld was an archetypal cat owner because he deeply loved his feline and made no attempts to hide it. Like Blofeld, there are many other characters and portrayals of cat owners that emphasize the negative ideas and stereotypes of cat owners. Blofeld’s character helped develop the connection between insane super villains and pampered felines.

Cat lovers are often thought of as lonely, depressed singles. This idea has been aided by television shows, movies, books, and almost any other form of media known to man. This is also one of the primary components of the Crazy Cat Lady stereotype, often presented as a lonely single woman. Two episodes of __The Big Bang Theory__ reference this popular negative idea of cat lovers. In the episode “The Fuzzyboots Corollary,” Leonard becomes depressed after seeing his dream girl dating media type="youtube" key="VMhsyrGrFIA" width="425" height="350" align="left"another man, and immediately begins preparations for adopting a cat. Leonard buys scratching posts and food, even searching for hypoallergenic cats to accommodate Sheldon’s allergies. Sheldon expresses his concerns with Leonard’s plan, eventually talking him out of adopting a feline. Because of Leonard’s desperation and Sheldon’s concern, Leonard’s plan to adopt a cat seems ridiculous to the audience. Due to the negative ideas about cat owners and relationships, Leonard’s desire to adopt a cat simply emphasizes the idea that all feline lovers are forever alone, depressed people. Reinforcing the label, “The Zazzy Substitution” demonstrates the same stereotype on Sheldon. When Sheldon and Amy break up, Sheldon is visibly upset and decides, on a whim, to adopt a cat. Not only does Sheldon adopt a cat, he also takes the cat everywhere, even to work. This kind of obsession is often seen in negative depictions of cat lovers, as they are commonly viewed as mentally unstable. Considering Sheldon’s sanity is always in question on the show, when he begins taking in cats, his crazy behavior seems almost inevitable to the audience. Sheldon continues to adopt cats until his room is overflowing and has adopted a horrid smell, only snapping out of his obsession when he and Amy get back together. Proving that he has lost all connection to the cats once he resumed his relationship, Sheldon paid people to take his cats off his hands. Both episodes demonstrate the idea that cat owners are all single people filling a void in their lives with cats.

Many people believe, due to popular negative stereotypes, that all cat owners do not take care of their house, life, or health. Most depictions of cat lovers include this trait, a general messy, often unsanitary, life. The children’s television series __The Suite Life on Deck__ has a character who exhibits not only the general sloppiness most people think cat owners possess, but also the depressed singles stereotype. The episode “The Silent Treatment” explains the teacher’s (Emma Tutweiller’s) obsession with cats. She has adopted a cat after each break-up she has suffered, and her house is truly a mess. The cookies she tries to serve her guests are covered with cat hair, and she allows her cats to eat ice cream with her. She does not notice that her guests are uncomfortable with the state of her home, nor does she realize the severity of her obsession. The filthiness of Emma Tutweiller’s home is what most people think of when they imagine the home of a cat owner, as this is the idea reinforced by the media about cat owners. Similarly, the cartoon “Cat Lady at Work” depicts a woman who is supposed to be working, but instead is staring at pictures of her cats. The pictures cover the office, leaving no room for anything work related. Her hair, clothing, and tissues scattered over the floor reveal that she does not care about her appearance or her health. She appears to only care about her cats, and it is suggested that her passion is affecting her health as well. While there is nothing wrong with people loving their cats, this woman takes love to the extreme. She is clearly not liked by the other employees, and due to her craziness and obsession, she will likely lose her job. This cartoon shows how the ideas of cat owners being lazy and unhygienic do not stop at the home, but they follow cat owners in all aspects of their lives.

The above views of cat lovers often work in conjunction with the last major perception that cat owners are mentally-ill animal hoarders. The show __Animal Hoarding__ perfectly expresses this idea. One episode featured a woman who owned 65 cats. Her home was extremely unsanitary and very unhealthy. The terrifying conditions in which this woman was living in were made media type="youtube" key="BLVWeye57cE" width="331" height="272" align="left"even worse because her cats were living in them too. Animal hoarding is not only dangerous to the humans, but also to the felines or other animals. Virtually none of the cats had been neutered or spayed, resulting in even more cats in this terrible situation. Unfortunately, many cats in shelters are euthanized due to an overabundance of felines, and animal hoarders simply make the problem worse. The woman knew that her house was unsanitary but did nothing to fix it or help her cats, amplifying her cruelty. This woman is what many people think of when they picture cat lovers, and it is truly unfair that all cat owners are compared to this embodiment of the Crazy Cat Lady. There are two other characters in the __Harry Potter__ book series who demonstrate insane love for cats, bordering on animal hoarding. The first is the character Argus Filch. Filch loves his cat, Mrs. Norris, and his sanity is called into question in the book __Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets__. In this book, Harry finds Mrs. Norris after she has been petrified, and Filch assumes that Harry has killed her. Filch madly threatened Harry, promising to kill him for the murder of his beloved cat. The reader finds this rather humorous because of the utilization of the stereotype that cat lovers are mentally-ill; however, this character only encourages this harmful view of feline owners. Dolores Umbridge, a second cat owner in the Harry Potter series, is the avatar of Crazy Cat Ladies. She was introduced in the book __Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix __. Umbridge decorated her office with magical plates featuring cats, displaying an unhealthy obsession with felines. She was proved to be slightly insane by her repetition of the phrase “I will have order” and more than slightly deranged with her forms of punishment. Cat owners are often forces to battle these stereotypes that are deeply engrained in our culture, especially the idea of the Crazy Cat Lady. These negative perceptions of cat lovers are so difficult to fight because of how often they present themselves in everyday media.

Despite the hurtful views of the cat owner archetype that are almost omnipresent in social media, there are occasionally examples that represent the true nature of cat owners. Cat lovers are usually loving people just like everyone else. Cat owners can often use their love for good rather than for a cruel hobby like animal hoarding, as shown by an episode of the television show __Must Love Cats__. There was a segment on an animal center called Kitty City. This rescue shelter is run by a family just media type="custom" key="18473282" width="143" height="131" align="right"trying to keep cats out of the kill shelters around the city. Kitty City works hard to adopt out all the cats they find, euthanizing none. This amazing saving of cats’ lives is what most cat owners would love to do, and truly captures the good intentions of cat lovers around the world. Similarly, Prim from __The Hunger Games__ demonstrates a general love of animals, caring for them even when they seem to be beyond her help. She rescued a goat and nursed it back to health, but more importantly, she adopted a cat, Buttercup, and loved him even when Katniss could not find anything to love about the feline. It is Prim’s unconditional love for all animals that makes the reader view Prim positively rather than as a stereotypical Crazy Cat Lady. Because Katniss loves her sister’s caring nature to all animals, the reader understands that Prim is not crazily adopting animals, but that she loves them and rescues them because she is a good person. Most cat owners, however, are simply everyday people, working hard at their jobs and simultaneously caring for their cats. The cartoon entitled “Cat Lady” demonstrates this common reality. A woman is clearly fighting all of the negative stereotypes associated with her feline ownership, and there are many different views. Some see her as a woman completely enamored with felines, while others view her as a hopeless single, forced to do nothing but clean liter boxes. However, it is revealed that she is completely normal, works hard at her job, and lives life just like everyone else. Although the mass majority of the cat owner stereotypes circulating in today’s society are negative, there is a growing number of positive, more accurate examples of cat lovers, hopefully showing the general population the error in their ways.

The archetypal cat owner is often depicted by the media as a depressed, unclean, mentally-ill single person, creating the hateful Crazy Cat Lady stereotype. There terrible negative ideas are, in some ways, giving way to the more accurate vision of cat owners as animal loving people who are, in many ways, just like everyone else. With effort, the lies behind these popular negative views will soon be revealed, and people will understand that cat owners are truly just like everyone else, except with a cat.

Works Cited:

"Animal Hoarding." YouTube. YouTube, 01 Sept. 2010. Web. 19 Apr. 2012. <@http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLVWeye57cE>. Apollomovieguy. "Bond Villian Blofeld." YouTube. YouTube, 22 Mar. 2009. Web. 19 Apr. 2012. <@http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BT00WU7Iss>. BazingaVideos. "Sheldon and His Cats." YouTube. YouTube, 26 Jan. 2011. Web. 11 Apr. 2012. <@http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mzmhANLaF4>. "Cat Lady at Work." Laughing Squid. 10 Jan. 2012. Web. 22 Apr. 2012. <@http://laughingsquid.com/cat-lady-at-work/>. "Cat Lady." Catlady. Web. 01 May 2012. <@http://www.designersplayground.com/pr/internet-meme-list/catlady-2/>. Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games. New York: Scholastic, 2008. Print. Gmichalo. "TBBT - Getting a Cat." YouTube. YouTube, 24 July 2009. Web. 19 Apr. 2012. <@http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMhsyrGrFIA>. "Must Love Cats: Kitty City." Animal Planet. 11 Mar. 2011. Web. 22 Apr. 2012. <@http://animal.discovery.com/videos/must-love-cats-kitty-city.html>. Rowling, Joanne Kathleen. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. London: Bloomsbury, 1999. Print. Rowling, Joanne Kathleen. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. London: Bloomsbury, 2003. Print. TSLonDecktvChannel. "The Suite Life on Deck: Ep. #50 Silent Treatment Part 2." YouTube. YouTube, 03 July 2010. Web. 11 Apr. 2012. <@http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBYyBoKVkDA>.