photo credit: ben pollard
Jessica from Seattle asked me an oddly subversive question:
So, in the cartoons, cats and mice hate each other but they both love cheese. Oh, and dogs hate cats in the cartoons, what’s with that?
Well, I have been told that in every lie there is a seed of truth, cartoons largely being lies (convenient lies meant to lull children into a sense of false comfort that life offers something more than disappointment), and this particular TV meme offers a seed of truth. The truth is that cats hate mice in real life. They hate them so much that they will actually torment a mouse to death and then leave the severed halves on my pillow for when I get home. Also, mice do like cheese (but not as much as cookies) that is a second seed of truth, so the cat mouse lie is like a grape — it has two seeds. No, but wait… there is more a third seed of truth in your cartoon web of lies — if you fill a cat with cheese it will die. However, if you fill a mouse with cheese it will just get fat. And that Jessica is how mice and cats are like rock, paper, scissors — mouse beats cheese, cat beats mouse and cheese causes congestive heart failure.
Also since you are probably referencing Tom and Jerry I should point out that it is an elaborate allegory for the cold war era chest-beating, and the dog represents the dormant beast of China sleeping in the backyard. Tom & Jerry is just pseudo-patriotism thinly white washed with a veneer of childish violence to indoctrinate kids into being ruthless cat beaters and consumers of sugary cereals, and some junk.
