Review: The Aristocats (DMC #47)
“Everybody! Everybody wants to be a cat!” Last night we watched The Aristocats, the 47th film in our Disnerd Movie Challenge. In case it’s been a while, we’ve included our synopsis below, but if you watched with us last night feel free to skip ahead to our review.
Synopsis
In Paris 1910, mother cat Duchess and her three kittens, Toulouse, Marie, and Berlioz, live with retired opera singer Madame Adelaide Bonfamille and her butler, Edgar. Duchess is a loving mother who trains her kittens to be proper “aristocats” by teaching them manners and discouraging play-fighting. One day, after arriving home, Madame Adelaide informs Edgar that her attorney, Georges Hautecourt, will be arriving. Georges soon pulls up to the manor to help Madame Adelaide write her will. She declares that her fortune will be left to her cats until their deaths, and then revert to Edgar. Edgar overhears the conversation and is distraught. He plots to eliminate the cats so that the fortune goes straight to him. While Toulouse is painting and Marie and Berlioz practice their music lessons, Edgar prepares a bowl of milk mixture for the cats. He dumps several sleeping tablets into the mixture. The cats invite their mouse friend Roquefort to enjoy some of the milk with them. However, shortly after drinking, the cats and Roquefort all quickly fall asleep. That night, Edgar sneaks out of the house with Duchess and her kittens in their basket, and drives to the countryside to abandon them. He is ambushed by two hounds named Napoleon and Lafayette and loses his hat, umbrella, and sidecar in the process. The cat basket is dropped during the ambush as Edgar retreats. The cats wake up and realize they’re not at home. Duchess tries to comfort her kittens, but then a thunderstorm begins and they take refuge in the basket again. Back at the manor, Madame Adelaide discovers to her anguish that the cats are gone. She runs through the manor calling for them, alerting Roquefort. Roquefort runs out into the storm to look for them.
The storm subsides the next morning, and Duchess is awoken by a singing male alley cat named Abraham de Lacy Giuseppe Casey Thomas O’Malley (simply O’Malley for short). The two are mutually charmed, and the kittens are also fascinated by O’Malley. Duchess persuades O’Malley to take her and her kittens back to Paris on a “magic carpet” which turns out to be a milk truck. O’Malley distracts the driver long enough to allow Duchess and the kittens to sneak onto the truck. Marie falls off the truck while bidding O’Malley goodbye, prompting O’Malley to rescue her and join them on the truck to Paris. At the manor, Madame Adelaide is beside herself with grief and unable to sleep. Roquefort meets with the family horse, Frou-Frou, in the barn as they lament over the loss. Edgar joyfully enters the barn and shows Frou-Frou that morning’s headline about the abduction, proudly admitting his crime and angering Frou-Frou and Roquefort. Edgar suddenly remembers his lost hat and decides to return to the countryside to retrieve his missing items in order to remove any evidence. Meanwhile, the milk truck discovers the hidden cats and chases them away. The cats continue the journey along a train track, but Marie accidentally falls into the river below as the group narrowly avoids an oncoming train. O’Malley dives in after Marie and gets her to safety, but he drifts downstream. He is rescued by two well-meaning but clueless twin geese named Amelia and Abigail Gabble. The sisters are also going to Paris and join the cats on the journey. Eventually they all arrive in Paris, and Amelia and Abigail spot their Uncle Waldo, an elderly drunken goose. Amelia and Abigail leave with Uncle Waldo as the cats look on. That night, Edgar leaves on his motorcycle. Roquefort attempts to hide aboard to follow Edgar, but is knocked off the bike. Edgar is able to retrieve his possessions from Napoleon and Lafayette.
Along the rooftops of Paris, the cats meet O’Malley’s friend Scat Cat and his musician friends, who perform “Ev’rybody Wants to Be a Cat.” Duchess and the kittens join in on the fun, letting go of their aristocratic behaviors for the night. Later, Duchess and O’Malley talk on a nearby rooftop, where O’Malley attempts to convince Duchess to stay with him. While she feels affection for O’Malley, Duchess is loyal to Madame Adelaide and declines O’Malley’s proposal. The kittens listen to the conversation and are sad to know they “almost had a father.” The following morning, the cats finally return to the manor to Duchess and the kitten’s delight. The kittens run towards the house, but Edgar hears their meows. Roquefort desperately tries to warn the cats, but as soon as Edgar lets them into the house he snatches them up in a bag. He hides them from Madame Adelaide, who also heard the meows. She is distraught when she can’t find them, thinking she must have been imagining it in her grief. The cats tell Roquefort to get O’Malley, who then tells Roquefort to find Scat Cat and his friends while he rushes back to the manor. Roquefort convinces Scat Cat that O’Malley sent him and that Duchess and the kittens need help. All the alley cats run off to join O’Malley. Edgar prepares to send the cats to Timbuktu, but Frou-Frou and O’Malley attack him and shut the barn door on him. As Edgar fights back and tries to escape, he is ambushed by the alley cats. During the skirmish, Roquefort gets the lock off the trunk and almost frees the cats until Edgar slams the trunk again. The alley cats manage to bind Edgar’s arms and pull him off the trunk so the cats can escape. Frou-Frou kicks Edgar into the vacant trunk, which slams shut and slides out the barn door just as the mailing truck arrives to take the trunk to Timbuktu. Some time later, O’Malley has been adopted by Madame Adelaide, becoming Duchess’ mate and the kittens’ new father. Georges scratches Edgar off the list of beneficiaries from Madame Adelaide’s will. Music starts playing and Georges asks about it. Madame Adelaide happily exclaims that it’s the start of her new foundation home for all the alley cats of Paris. The alley cats play “Ev’rybody Wants to Be a Cat” one more time, and the notes reach the far countryside where Napoleon and Lafayette argue over whether it’s the end or not.
Thoughts Before Watching
Kevin: What a perfect movie for a couple of cat owners like us! It’s been a few years since I saw this, and even more years than that since I truly “watched” it, but I’ve always laughed when seeing it! Truthfully, this is a perfect example of how fun the films from the so-called “Dark Age” of Disney animation really were. I think my first experience with this film might have been the songs “Scales and Arpeggios” and “Ev’rybody Wants to Be a Cat” after seeing them on one of the Disney Sing Along Songs movies (most likely this one and this one). With that said, I understand that it has a lot of outdated, negative depictions that would not fly in today’s world.
Megan: I love this movie and its catchy songs! But most of all I love Marie—she has some of the best lines, like “Ladies don’t start fights, but they can finish them.” My siblings and I used to quote so many lines from this film, like the geese’s “Bottom’s up! Deeper!” and Roquefort’s “Delicious! Double delicious!” in their fun accents. Also, how badass is the wealthy old lady who leaves her entire fortune to her cats? (More on that later.) I’m looking forward to re-watching this one—it’s been such a long time since I last saw it.
Thoughts After Watching
Is Disney looking to do better to recognize negative depictions?
Kevin: Disney has had its fair share of criticism over the years, particularly towards how it has treated different cultures and people from those cultures. A subset of that criticism, and one I’ve agreed with, is that Disney has often failed to truly address the issues and acknowledge the problem, but instead has historically tried to sweep it all under the rug and pretend nothing happened. A few years ago, I was watching some old Looney Tunes cartoons on YouTube, and several of them had a warning at the beginning that acknowledged the cartoon containing negative stereotypes and stating that it was wrong then and wrong now. This message further went on to say that Warner Bros. intended to preserve the program as it was originally shown in hopes of encouraging positive conversations about diversity, and that to otherwise alter the program to remove the offensive parts would indeed be the same as pretending it never happened. Since seeing that message, I had hoped that Disney, too, would follow the same course, but they didn’t appear to—at least, not any time I would see an old movie pop up on TV or watch something on Amazon Prime. Even when Disney+ launched, the most it seemed the company was willing to do was have simple blurbs like “this content is presented as originally shown” and “it may contain outdated depictions.” So, I was very surprised when we started watching The Aristocats and saw the below message appear on screen:
This program includes negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures. These stereotypes were wrong then and are wrong now. Rather than remove this content, we want to acknowledge its harmful impact, learn from it and spark conversation to create a more inclusive future together. Disney is committed to creating stories with inspirational and aspirational themes that reflect the rich diversity of the human experience around the globe. To learn more about how stories have impacted society visit: www.Disney.com/StoriesMatter
Kevin: Obviously words are not enough to combat racial injustice. The conversations are just the starting point until we all act. In this moment, though, it is just nice to see that Disney appears to be stating things point-blank, rather than skirting around the issue. This movie has a very ugly mark in the way it treats different cultures, particularly with the gang of street cats. Each cat is a stereotypical depiction of a particular culture. While the cats are the “good guys” and thus the representations are most likely intended to be seen positively, the intentions don’t justify the outcome.
Megan: While these cats are the “good guys” in that they aid Duchess and her kittens, they are nevertheless referred to as a “gang,” which further problematizes them. As we see when the mouse Roquefort goes to the cats to seek help, these cats might be kind to O’Malley and his companions, but they aren’t nice to everyone. What’s more, these cats are the only ones that seem to be given racial markers. Duchess and Marie may be white, and Berlioz may be black, but these are their cat colorings, not necessarily a mark of race. With Scat Cat, however, his black fur seems to have less to do with his cat coloring and more to do with the animators’ attempt to racially identify him as black. Same goes with the other cats in the gang. The Siamese cat here is not just Siamese in breed, but animated with culturally offensive markers to declare this cat is Chinese: slanted eyes, the cymbal he wears like a traditional Chinese hat, and the chopsticks he uses. His way of speaking is similarly dumbed down to further stereotype him. There’s also the Italian cat, animated to have sideburns, curled “moustache” whiskers, a red and white polka-dot bandana, and an accordion. His few lines are also stereotypically altered to signal the audience that he’s Italian. The hippie cat may not be making a statement on race, but it does seem to negatively comment on the hippie lifestyle of the time. While it makes sense for characters in this film to have a French accent because the story takes place in France, several characters speak with an American accent (it being an American-made film), which makes it painfully obvious when a character is given a forced Italian or Chinese accent (though I hesitate to even call what they give the Siamese cat an “accent”).
Kevin: In addition, the hound dogs Napoleon and Lafayette are negatively stereotyped. In spite of living in France and having French names, the two dogs are depicted as lousy and inefficient North American hillbillies, a very common trait not just from Disney but from many other studios. This only furthers the idea that anyone supposedly matching that background is dumb and inept. And unlike the cats, Napoleon and Lafayette are more like neutral third parties than either good or bad, so their depiction doesn’t come off as well intended, but rather an attempt at comedy. Disney has been raked over the coals for this kind of thing, and so time will tell whether Disney continues to move in a positive direction. The above warning message is only a small part of the larger conversation and action. There is always more that can, and must, be done. What I’m really curious about is if this message has been added to any of the older films we’ve seen. I’ll have to go back and check.
Megan: I can do you one better—this is the article from Deadline that identifies which Disney+ films (so far) have been given the warning message: Peter Pan, The Jungle Book, Lady and the Tramp, The Aristocats, Dumbo, and Swiss Family Robinson. The article also pulls in further information from Disney’s Stories Matter website which explains why each film has been flagged. In our reviews of these previous titles I think we identify and discuss all of these, with the exception of King Louie, which I didn’t realize could be a culturally offensive stereotype until I read the Deadline article.
Kevin: This is a great find! I can think or more films that could use this message, so I wonder if it will be added to more films down the road.
Madame Adelaide is #RetirementGoals
Megan: I have to take a moment here to appreciate Madame Adelaide. Here is a woman who is not just wealthy, but according to Edgar, has millions in wealth. If we assume her wealth is in French francs in the year 1910, one million francs at that time would be the equivalent of approximately 192,700 US dollars. That may not seem like much compared to today’s billionaires, but considering one could still buy items in the US for a single penny in 1910, that’s quite a lot of money! Especially when you consider that she has millions, plural. What’s more, it would seem Madame Adelaide came upon that money from her own opera singing career, not from a deceased husband (from what clues we get in the story, it would seem she never married). Perhaps some of her fortune was inherited from her parents, as tends to happen, but there is no mention of this, so with what few clues we’re given, Madame Adelaide is a self-made multi-millionaire who made smart money moves throughout her life, including investing her fortune (Georges names stocks and bonds among her assets). That’s not something most women in 1910 would’ve done with their money, if they even had money in their own name. She also owns a gorgeous home, the latest fashions and jewels, a horse and carriage, and even a butler. Having no children or other relatives to leave her fortune to, she chooses to make sure her cats are cared for, which makes sense. After all, as Duchess tells O’Malley, Madame Adelaide considers her cats her greatest treasure. And when her cats return with O’Malley in tow, Madame Adelaide goes a step further and decides to use her fortune to create a foundation that will care for all the alley cats of Paris. She’s basically the 1910 version of Kitten Lady.
Duchess is not your typical Disney mom (and thank goodness)!
Megan: Think about the animated Disney moms we’ve seen so far. Most of them are already dead (Snow White, Cinderella, The Sword in the Stone, The Jungle Book), die during the story (Bambi), or are otherwise absent and/or silent for most of the film (Dumbo, Sleeping Beauty, Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland). The few mothers we do see are completely devoted to their role as mother (One Hundred and One Dalmatians), or the characters become mothers themselves (Lady and the Tramp). Duchess in The Aristocats subtly breaks with this tradition. For one thing, the story is very much about her—a single mom—and her kittens. One Hundred and One Dalmatians comes close, but it’s still mostly told through Pongo’s perspective, whereas The Aristocats is largely through Duchess and her kittens’ point of view. While we have seen single moms before (Dumbo, and even Bambi to a degree), they’ve been very firmly rooted in their role as mother, with no real desires beyond that role. Duchess is the first animated Disney mom we’ve seen who expresses desires beyond being a mother, as seen through her flirtation with O’Malley. This leads me to suspect that Duchess is far more worldly than she’s given credit for. “Aristocat” she may be, but she knows what a frog is when Berlioz does not, and, need I remind you, she somehow gave birth to three kittens, so she’s definitely been outside the walls of Madame Adelaide’s mansion before. In Lady and the Tramp, Lady rebuffs Tramp before eventually falling for him, but Duchess welcomes O’Malley’s flirtations and seems enamored with his way of life. She’s not the one who’s quick to correct the geese when they mistake O’Malley for her husband—it’s O’Malley who corrects them. And were you paying attention to the lyrics Duchess sings during “Everybody Wants to Be a Cat”?
DUCHESS: If you want to turn me on,
Play your horn, don't spare the tone,
And blow a little soul into the tune.
Megan: When was the last time you heard a Disney mom sing “if you want to turn me on”? Um, yeah, never. I hadn’t noticed it before this viewing, but this movie is actually kinda radical in saying that yeah, Duchess is a single mom, and sure she just recently had a litter of kittens, but that doesn’t mean she no longer has romantic or sexual desires. Even Madame Adelaide seems to understand this, for at the end of the film she advises Georges that they must be sure to provide for her cats’ “future little ones.” She knows exactly why Duchess brought O’Malley home. I also love that this film shows the kids wanting a father figure. Granted, it seems these kittens never knew their biological father, so it’s perhaps easier for them to want their mother to find someone who could be a father to them, whereas other films that tackle parents remarrying tend to address the children’s hesitation to welcome someone new who might take the place of the parent they loved and lost. On the whole, I really enjoyed seeing Disney give more dimension to an animated mother, and it makes me wonder exactly how long it will be until we see such a thing in a Disney film again.
Wins and losses for feminism
Megan: The film pretty easily passes the Bechdel test, what with Madame Adelaide, Duchess, and Marie starting things off with several conversations that don’t involve men. (Yes, I’m counting Duchess’s meows in response to Madame Adelaide as a conversation here. It still passes without that, though.) However, much of the film still has female characters talking to each other about men, like Abigail and Amelia first discussing O’Malley’s failed attempts at swimming and his questionable reputation, then later talking about their Uncle Albert. Even Duchess and Marie end up talking about Toulouse and Berlioz, while Frou-Frou never has occasion to speak to another female character. When you consider that the film has far more male speaking roles than female speaking roles, it makes sense why quality conversations between female characters are hard to come by. Beyond the conversations, however, there are still a lot of sexist tropes. Most obnoxious of these: Marie is constantly the damsel in distress. It is Marie who falls off the truck, requiring rescue by O’Malley who then joins their expedition to Paris. When the cats cross the train bridge, it is Marie who falls into the river, again requiring rescue by O’Malley. Taking a step back to look at the entire film, it is the woman (Duchess) and children (Marie, Toulouse, and Berlioz) who need constant rescuing by the man (O’Malley). O’Malley finds them abandoned and helps them get back to Paris, and he’s the one Duchess tells Roquefort to summon for help when Edgar hides the cats in the oven. This puts a lot of pressure on men to always be the hero and the one with all the answers, and perpetuates the idea that women and children are helpless and unable to fend for themselves. I would have much preferred to see Duchess break from her “aristocat” ways to defend her kittens, the way any real-life cat mom would protect her kittens. (Also, think if she had pulled out her claws—Toulouse would have been so in awe of his mom!)
Classism and the corrupting power of money
Kevin: Something we didn’t really address in our review of Lady and the Tramp was how that film depicted class relationships. There was an obvious difference between Lady and Tramp’s backgrounds and how that affected their views, and the same goes here for Duchess and Thomas O’Malley. It’s interesting to point out how the genders are the same in each role: Duchess and Lady are the prim, proper, and pampered females, and O’Malley and Tramp are the wild, untamed, and street-smart males who eventually join the upper class family (side note: O’Malley is more than likely feral and, in the real world, would not adapt very well to life with humans at all). These traits are not negative in and of themselves, but there is definitely some classism (and sexism) going on here. Duchess is adamant that “aristocats” must hold themselves to higher standards of behavior. Fighting is only for lower class cats. Duchess has to rein in her kittens, all of whom do a bit of play-fighting on their own. Even Marie, who tries to take after her mother, is not afraid to throw down either with or against her brothers. The issue here is that Duchess believes what her children are doing is fighting. However, the film clearly depicts it as playing. Kittens and adult cats do this all the time, and it’s as natural to them as hunting and eating. By telling her kittens that such behavior is not appropriate given their status, Duchess is inadvertently asking them to suppress their very nature as cats. Toulouse is the one kitten who really idolizes alley cat behavior and seeks to embrace his more predatory instincts. This is ironic given that Toulouse is apparently the oldest, and thus would typically be expected to act the most responsibly. But perhaps he is acting responsibly by not suppressing his nature.
Kevin: By contrast, O’Malley embodies the life of the alley cat, living life the way he wants and even encouraging Duchess and the kittens that this is how life really should be for cats. He believes that Duchess is just simply Madame’s house pet and nothing more. Duchess disagrees, and while she is of course correct the movie shows that Duchess and O’Malley are both right about their viewpoints. Duchess, Toulouse, Marie, and Berlioz have a loving home with Madame Adelaide and it is only right that they should want to return to her, but O’Malley makes a good point that their lifestyle doesn’t need to keep the cats from behaving, well, like cats. The movie seems to show that the upper class, while wealthy and by all means have everything they want, are not content because they don’t have what they need. O’Malley and other alley cats, on the other hand, have all that they need being outside and roaming around. This is a very common trope in media; those with too much more than they need are unhappy, and those with too little yet have their needs met are the happiest. Of course we know that real life isn’t that black and white, but it works as a simple message in an animated film.
Classism, in the form of wealth and its power, also affects the movie’s villain, Edgar. At the beginning of the movie, Edgar appears by all counts to be a rather loving butler. He is attentive, gentle, and hard-working, but his role as villain is revealed when he learns that Madame intends to have her cats inherit her fortune first, while Edgar will receive the rest after the cats pass on. Edgar’s greed gets the better of him and so he concocts his plan to get rid of the cats. The funny thing is that Edgar completely miscounts how long he’ll have to wait until he receives the fortune by thinking each cat has nine literal lives. I presume Edgar was paid well enough to live comfortably, but it still isn’t enough for him. He wants more, and the only way for him to get it is to remove his competition.
Megan: Also, can I just point out how bad Edgar is at being a villain? If he was so concerned about the cats inheriting first, all he had to do was wait until Madame died, then get rid of any cats in his way so he could inherit. By doing away with the cats while Madame is still alive, he runs the risk of Madame not only discovering his plot, but adopting more cats before the end of her life, leaving Edgar back where he started. Of course I’m glad that Edgar fails in his plot (after all, we’re not rooting for the villain here), but this clearly must be his first time being a criminal.
The start of Disney’s next era of animation
Kevin: The Aristocats marks the first animated film in Disney’s “Dark Age”, or otherwise known as the “Bronze Age.” I get the label, really; with Walt Disney having passed away, the studio was left without its creative leader. The animation department was reduced several times over and the “spark” was arguably no longer there, what with the company opting for more lucrative live-action movies. I don’t know all that went down during this time period, but I’m glad that there was even an animation department that still existed and was committed to continuing Walt’s legacy, even if the films would be a bit more lackluster. I have to say, though, that this is a good start to this new age (frankly, there are far worse entries later on). The Aristocats does not have the “classic” feel that many of its predecessors had. It has a simple plot that’s basically One Hundred and One Dalmatians meets Lady and the Tramp with different animals. Honestly, what makes me enjoy this movie is its humor and the relationship between Duchess, the kittens, and O’Malley. Edgar doesn’t rank high on the list of Disney villains, but everything he does in this film serves a humorous purpose that I can’t help but fondly appreciate him. The songs may not be the most memorable, but oh boy is that jazzy chorus from “Ev’rybody Wants to Be a Cat” just so darn catchy! Granted, this era can’t possibly be as bad as the War Era, which I realize is setting a very low bar. But hey, I know I can watch The Aristocats every now and again and still enjoy it.
