A Tough Break for Cats
Cats, sweeties, we are so sorry for all that you had to endure over this winter. On December 20th, 2019, Universal Pictures released the box office bomb Cats based off of the musical of the same name. Hate all you want, but this crime was nothing compared to what was released two days earlier on Netflix. Don’t F**k With Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer contains footage of cat slaughter that even a dog lover like myself could barely stomach. His victims expanded to both aisles of the Canadian government as well as an international student from China. Luckily, for the most part the focus is not on said “internet killer” but rather the “hunters” who utilized a Facebook group to bring them to justice. This includes Deanna Thompson and her alter ego “Baudi Moovin” as well as a gentleman using the pseudonym “John Green.” It is absolutely fascinating what these individuals are able to uncover. This includes tracking the killer’s location based on mundane things like a vacuum cleaner featured in one of the abhorrent videos posted. The concept of focusing on those who found the killer as opposed to the killer himself is a refreshing angle to take. That is something that this documentary does right.
While its flaws did not take away from my experience overall, they were glaring especially towards the end. The guilt of the killer was blatant, and yet his clearly delusional mother was interviewed for the final two parts of the three part series. It is one thing to have two parts of the story, but again there is no denying that this man was the killer. Her inclusion felt less like a striving towards journalistic balance and more like straight up exploitation. Then there was the final line delivered by Thompson, who questions whether their investigating only fueled the killer’s desire to commit further crimes as well as if the audience themself is complicit. “Did we feed the monster or did we create it? And you, you at home watching a whole f***ing documentary about (the killer), are you complicit? Perhaps it’s time we turned off the machine.” By no means are these claims baseless. There does seem to be a sort of unhealthy obsession with true crime that is ever-growing. I avoided using the killer’s name throughout this article as this monster truly does not need anymore feeding whether or not he knows it. Ultimately, however, one could argue that he would not have been caught the way that he was without said machine and he in fact could have wreaked even more havoc otherwise. Rather than simply turning off the machine why don’t we try to use the machine for good?
