Sigourney Weaver: Cat Lady

I just spent a half hour or so staring at six photos of dogs in costumes and trying to imagine what the cute little pooches would say if their cute little pooch minds were capable of thoughts beyond "eat," "attack" and "get hair on dark clothing." It would be easy to blame the mediocre results of my brainstorming on the lingering scent of Greek salad dressing on my hands from lunch, so that's what I'm going to do. The memory of my lunch was simply too distracting to think of anything worthwhile. Also, it turns out I'm not good at writing clothed-dog dialogue. Maybe I'd be better with other types of pets. I might be a natural iguanas-in-costume writer, for example, but I've never been given the opportunity. There's a variety of people I'd like to blame for that, but I'm going to make things simple and blame all humanity for its lack of interest in lizard costumes.

I can trace the roots of my inability to write convincing dog dialogue back to my college education, which died with a whimper a couple of months ago. My degree is in English, and though I probably learned something over the twelve eternities it took to earn it, my bachelor's degree provided me with no real practical skills. If it had, I'd be putting the finishing touches on my furry fan fiction saga by now. Instead, my education focused on equally marketable topics, such as deciphering the gender issues in horror films.

One horror film I remember being mentioned in relation to gender topics is Ridley Scott's 1979 picture Alien. I watched the movie for the first time last night, and it has a variety of obvious gender issues going on, but I don't want to talk about them; that's why I got out of college. Rather, I'd like to examine an aspect of Sigourney Weaver's career that I don't think gets enough attention: Between the dedication of her Alien character, Ripley, to the spaceship's resident cat, Jones, and her turn as the blue feline fetishist in Avatar, I think it's time we crowned Weaver as the First Cat Lady of Cinema. There are more subtle pieces of evidence to support my claim, too. Think about it: Weaver appeared in 1995's Copycat. If you don't follow me, the word "cat" is right there in the title. I'm also pretty sure she wore a cat suit in Galaxy Quest. C-a-t suit.

The clues are undeniable. I like to imagine that between searching for The Keymaster and being interviewed for "How to Look Great Past 60" articles, Sigourney spends her time in a filthy home overrun by dozens and dozens of malnourished, exponentially multiplying cats. I could be wrong, but I've got a gut feeling about this one. If you need a visual aid:

Imagine Ripley trying to escape that and you've got yourself one fine idea for a movie. Come to think of it, so do I. Quick, somebody get Ridley Scott on the horn.

Posted by Meredith Boone