I suppose it was inevitable. Now that Christmas shopping officially begins on Green Tuesday (the first Tuesday after October 12), it should not have surprised me to learn that Spooky Season begins September 1, which this year was less than a week after pumpkin spice officially returned to our latte. This being the case, it is time to shift our perception of cats, who spend most of the rest of the year being cute.
Come Spooky Season (a less specific term than “Halloween”: using that might provoke those grouches who snarl that “Christmas is supposed to be a day, not a quarter of the year”) we have no more kitties. There are only cats: aloof, self-possessed, and so superior to the mere bipeds they watch over with disapproval. And a deeply suspicious alien force occupying our houses.
Postcard artists understood the dual nature of cats. Dogs were domesticated early on, and remain eager to show how loyal and faithful and GOOD they are, but cats still seem feral, unwilling to compromise with their human servants. (A legendary cat litter company, in fact, claims that cats never really became house pets until their product was available. I dislike it when marketers make massive social claims. I don’t necessarily disagree—maybe Coca Cola IS responsible for Santa Claus always wearing that red suit—I just don’t like it. It makes me feel inferior to cats. THERE’S a new conspiracy theory, if you want one. Cats ae running our ad agencies, which may be the real reason Spuds M…where were we?)
Black cats, of course, get a lot of the Spooky Season business nowadays, but in the golden age of postcards, any cat could ne sinister. For one thing, it was still a major belief in parts of the customer base that black cats were GOOD luck. Just think: if we hadn’t swung the other way, we might all be buying chocolate cats at the corner store.
The menacing cat was well-represented, though, and sometimes that fierce creature happened to be black because black cats were dramatic from a graphic point of view. A dark, shadowy menace left you in no doubt about the situation. We are expected to sympathize here with the outmuscled mouse.
Adding to the sinister side of cat adventures was their readiness to make themselves look big, hissing and spitting. This is alarming at the best of times and downright threatening all the rest of the time. No good old-fashioned mystery movie or Gothic romance is complete without a hissing cat. Those of us who, as children, wondered if we couldn’t negotiate with a hissing cat have that memory engraved on our brains (and possibly hands and face.)
Postcard artists were also familiar with the propensity of those wild alley cats out back to get into a spat at the slightest excuse…or none at all.
While other Rembrandts of the postcard took issue with the way cats sometimes just sit and stare at you. What ARE they thinking?
However, we modern folk, free of superstition (if we do have these, we call ‘em conspiracies) can relax once the ghost’s high noon has passed. Our cats become kitties again just in time for a big family holiday. There’s nothing like a big old roast turkey to remind our feline friends that we ARE useful, and don’t need to be murdered in our beds. (For now.)
Blogsy Babbles 