Halloween is sadly upon us 😒😎. This holiday season does lead to some cat abuse because of the link between black cats and Halloween. It is an unpleasant association at heart because it harks back to Medieval times and the chronic and widespread abuse of domestic cats for hundreds of years. Black cats are still associated with witches. Hundreds of years later. You’d think that people would have dumped the superstitions and grown up. On the African continent there is plenty of superstition regarding domestic cats. It appears to be almost endemic. Medieval thinking is alive and well in many parts of the world.
The killing of tigers for body parts to be eaten for ostensibly beneficial reasons is all based in idiotic superstition. The same goes for the abjectly cruel cat and dog meat trade. A ghastly stain on humankind.
I appreciate the fun element of this video. It has been created with care and skill. It works well. And it is somewhat entertaining. Some will find it more entertaining than others. It is pretty innocuous too.
However, it perpetuates the link between black cats and witchcraft which is associated with so much animal and human cruelty. It also perpetuates the belief that black cats are the embodiment of the devil.
This is why some cat rescues do not adopt out black cats immediately before Halloween. They fear that adopters will use the cats for some sort of nefarious abusive purpose to do with black magic.
I am going to be a horrible killjoy and argue that we should not make these sorts of videos. They should be barred from Twitter. No chance that that will happen of course. It is far too puritanical an idea.
I also don’t like to see domestic cats dressed up to make them look like little humans. Once again, I am out of step with a large section of society. I know that it is fund and cute etc. but ultimately it is disrespectful of the domestic cat.
I am with PETA on this. They famously say: “ANIMALS ARE NOT OURS to experiment on, eat, wear, use for entertainment or abuse in any other way.”
Note the word ‘entertainment’. This video is using a black cat for our entertainment n’est-ce pas?
The video was made to get hits. The person who made it wants success on social media. That’s the objective. Little consideration is given to the cat and the message that it sends to the gullible.
Yes, I know I am going on far too much. It is boring. But that’s a problem too. Animal welfare is more boring than using animals as entertainment.
