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Taylor Swift Pulls Off Catwoman's Creepiest Look in 'Cats' Trailer: Why She's Purrrfect for the 'Batman' Movie

Maybe Taylor Swift is ready to play the Catwoman to Robert Pattinson's Batman.

By Treva BowdoinPublished 5 years ago 5 min read
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Image credits: Warner Bros., Universal Pictures

There are two things that the internet loves above all else: cats and weird stuff that can be turned into memes. The new trailer for the Cats movie delivers both, so it’s inevitable that its creepy kitty characters will live on in internet infamy, no matter how the movie based on the Broadway show does at the box office. And if it does bomb, at least it can serve as Taylor Swift’s audition for the new Batman movie starring Robert Pattinson. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Catwoman will be one of the villains in the latest reboot of the Dark Knight film franchise.

Reactions to the Cats trailer have mainly been focused on the appearance of the movie’s talented kitty characters, which include Taylor Swift as Bombalurina, a flirtatious, tomcat-crazy feline with tawny fur and a possible addiction to catnip. She gets high by snorting her drug of choice out of a sequined-covered canister, likely before setting it down on a table and knocking it off for fun.

A lot of people are of the mind that the Cats filmmakers were so preoccupied with whether or not they could use “digital fur technology” to turn Taylor Swift into a feminine feline that they didn't stop to think if they should. Some critics also think that Swift and the other Cats characters look like fantasy fodder for furries. However, my mind didn’t immediately jump to internet weirdos with anthropomorphic animal fetishes when I saw the pop star’s pampered puss character. I knew Bombalurina looked familiar to me, and, as luck would have it, I had just read an article where I saw her hand-drawn prototype. The piece mentioned a 1992 episode of Batman: The Animated Series that introduced fans of the Dark Knight to what is undoubtedly Catwoman’s creepiest incarnation.

The episode is titled “Tyger, Tyger,” a reference to poet William Blake’s most-quoted work. It tells the tale of a mad scientist who is obsessed with creating animal-human hybrids. He has an apeman henchman sedate and catnap Selina Kyle at the zoo, where he finds her talking to a non-human tiger about what a tragedy it is to keep him in a cage. Back at the scientist's secret island lair, he reveals that he has somehow figured out that Selina is Catwoman, and he thinks that he’s making the cat burglar’s dreams come true by injecting her with a serum that gives her a tail and pointy teeth. Instead of being gray like her costume, the fur of the catperson version of Selina Kyle matches her blonde hair. It’s striking how similar the cartoon cat looks to Taylor Swift’s digitally-enhanced singing feline.

Image credits: Warner Bros., Universal Pictures

Selina Kyle seems so uncomfortable in her furry feline form that it’s almost like her animated character is aware of how much her new look is creeping out Batman fans. Or maybe she finds the “Tyger, Tyger” plotline just as disturbing as I do; the reason the scientist turns her into a real catwoman is so that she can be a mate for his favorite creation, a beefed-up catman named Tygrus who looks more like a werewolf than a cat. Luckily, Batman swoops in and saves his girlfriend before she’s forced to give birth to a litter of kitten super soldiers. Tygrus loses interest in Selina after she decides that she'd rather live out her days as a human instead of a Cats extra who can never remove her costume.

It’s hard to imagine this plotline from Batman: The Animated series being used in the upcoming Batman movie starring Robert Pattinson, but maybe Taylor Swift deserves serious consideration for the Catwoman role for proving that she’s better at being a real catperson than Selina Kyle. Unlike the animal rights activist with the hots for Bruce Wayne, Swift seems to be completely comfortable with her freaky feline form. She nails the lounging cat pose in the Cats trailer, and it's obvious that she pounced at the chance to star in the movie. The cat lover was so enthusiastic about getting cast in Cats that she spent a third of a year perfecting her kitty mannerisms. According to the “You Need to Calm Down” singer, she had to attend “cat school” in preparation for her role. She was only supposed to go for three days, but she was having so much fun acting like a feline that she decided to attend the kitty classes for four months.

Image credit: Universal Pictures

In other words, Taylor Swift is very dedicated to her craft. She might not have much experience acting, but she’s proven that she’s willing to put in the work to make sure that she gets her character right. Her animal education could also give her an advantage over other Catwoman hopefuls who don’t have any training in how to get properly tangled up in Venetian blinds or fill up a vase by becoming a furry liquid. Taylor can also take comfort in knowing that the Catwoman role isn’t all about the acting abilities of the actress who squeezes into the feline thief's skintight suit; as Oscar-winner Halle Berry proved, no level of talent can save a poorly-written movie from being clawed to pieces by critics.

Taylor’s only other movie credit besides her Cats role is a small part in the 2010 romantic comedy Valentine’s Day, which also starred The Dark Knight Rises Catwoman Anne Hathaway. In the film, Swift played the love interest of Taylor Lautner, who appeared alongside future Batman Robert Pattinson in the Twilight movies. So Taylor Swift already has a few Catwoman and Batman connections.

Perhaps Taylor Swift is already using one of these connections to claw her way into the Batman movie. Last month, she and her current source of future song inspiration, Joe Alwyn, were spotted out on a double date with Robert Pattinson and Suki Waterson. If Swift does use her somewhat surprising friendship with the new Dark Knight to land the role of Catwoman, let’s just hope that her pet —Oliva Benson, Meredith Grey, and Benjamin Button—get to make cameos in the Batman movie as some of Selina Kyle’s furry feline friends. Let's also pray that her Catwoman suit isn't enhanced with digital fur.

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