One solitary extraneous note: several times in this video I sarcastically refer to Cat’s difficulty in participating in standard social convention as “inhuman”, when in reality I think the naivety and earnestness of the character are extremely human, and speak to the confusion and baselessness we all feel on some level. We’re all trying to behave like those around us, navigating pleasure and pain to varying degrees of sophistication, and often just barely managing to express ourselves, all the while hoping desperately that we are Human-ing correctly.
Honestly the worst part about Cat's character was in how deeply she was fetishized. Her ND traits were flanderized and taken advantage of to put her in fetishy situations and to lean into the "dumb sexy baby" character trope. It's legitimately one of the most awful intersections of ableism and misogyny bc the appeal hinges entirely on the ability to manipulate and take advantage of a girl or woman.
The line “Jennette McCurdy was also nominated for that award. She didnt show up. Would you?” Made me so incredibly sad and it rlly puts you into her perspective, that anytime she was pitted against ariana, she wouldnt win because of the industry and the general populations bias
I have an autistic/ADHD reading of Cat - her literal interpretations of things (punching Tori), the rejection sensitivity, the echolalia, the inability to focus, hyperactivity.... It feels like the writers were really trying to punch down neurodivergent people, and that really got in my head as a kid. Even though I related to Cat the most as a kid, I felt like I couldn't be myself because I thought I would get picked on like Cat was.
My theory is that they had to make Cat dumber and dumber in text and wouldn't let her sing at all to try to give SOME spotlight to Victoria. You can see how she's more competent again in Sam and Cat.
Cat Valentine throughout the series (to me, at least) quite literally feels like a neurodivergent person learning that she doesn't need to mask around her friends
My interpretation of the whole "Cat punching Tori" thing wasn't that she was stupid enough to believe it was a genuine request: rather she was mad enough to WANT to punch her, and then kinda sarcastically played dumb.
another interesting thing i noticed about cat's shift is her wardrobe. in the first season when she was just a typical teenage girl who was kind of dumb & neurotic sometimes, so she wore pretty typical late 2000s/early 2010s teenage girl clothes. she wore short shorts/skirts, tank tops and t-shirts with necklaces and rings and the like. in short, clothes that a teenage girl who liked feminine things would wear during that time. however, as the show progressed and her character became more childlike and her brain shifted from dumb teen to young child, she began to wear clothes that were more similar to something a young girl would wear. she started wearing more pink, her clothes had more frills and ruffles, her skirts became longer, her accessories became less like something a teen or adult would wear (like the statement jewelry she wore in s1) and she started to favor bows and some simple jewelry, like things a young child would like to wear. idk if this means anything, but it was something i noticed
growing up i related to sam a lot, she was an unapologetically loud and opinionated kid that came from a broken family. its heartbreaking looking back at these dumb nickelodeon shows years later and seeing how much the actors suffered behind the scenes
This video is actually perfect- it doesn’t command my attention as much as it runs alongside it. It goes perfect with any activity you pair it with because it feeds your mind. I’ve aced tests to this video, I’ve given birth to this video, I’m married to this video, I owe my life to this video.
Saw a tweet today that said "I’m genderless. I’m full of gender. I’m a malewife. I’m a biblically accurate angel. I’m a pop idol. I’m the fourth incarnation of god. I’m a convicted criminal. I can never die"
I’m here from the Quinton Reviews 8 hour part 2 monstrosity and somehow you putting 2010 Cat up against 2014 Cat is more striking and horrifying than anything I’ve ever seen in my life. If a real person devolved this over 4 years you’d be screaming for brain doctors to be saving this poor, broken person. The voice changes too are crazy, I forgot how different season 1 Cat sounded!
The way Cat reacts to gestures of romance and someone being interested in her is almost exactly how I did in high school. A guy tried to hold my hand one halloween and I LITERALLY sprinted away lmao. Things like that gave me a disproportionate amount of anxiety bc I didn't know how to respond.
I came to hear how Cat is dumb and left with a highly existential, immensely tragic view on the world that we live in and a ruined relationship with my father
The section about Jennette hits different after the release of her book. Cj ahead of the curve as always the points they brought up about her are literally the same ones people r bringing up now. This video is so phenomenal omg
Cat is just so clearly nuerodivergent coded, the way she masks, camoflages, her sensitivity to stimuli, the dopamine hungry way that adhd people feel like they have to fill their impulses, the lack of subtlety. Ironically the more Ariana reveals that Cat is masking the more real the character fighting to socialize and connect with other people underneath feels.
