I caught 'Cat Daddies' last night at a showing in Columbus, OH and really enjoyed it! It's a pretty straightforward premise: the doc features 8 or so men and their pet cats and shows how their human-animal bond enhances the life of each "cat daddy". I kept expecting it to morph into a lecture on masculinity and the history of the femeninization of cat ownership (which I actually would have dug, too) but it didn't -- probably to its benefit.
The issues of gender, the effects of global warming, the state of American healthcare, Covid, homelessness, race, poverty, social media, etc are all present and important parts of these men's lives -- but they are woven through the film in a skillfully apolitical way. By steering clear of a social "deep dive", 'Cat Daddies' allows the focus to stay on the individual, emotional bonds between men and their cats, and -- like pet ownership itself -- remains something (most) everyone will probably enjoy!
The issues of gender, the effects of global warming, the state of American healthcare, Covid, homelessness, race, poverty, social media, etc are all present and important parts of these men's lives -- but they are woven through the film in a skillfully apolitical way. By steering clear of a social "deep dive", 'Cat Daddies' allows the focus to stay on the individual, emotional bonds between men and their cats, and -- like pet ownership itself -- remains something (most) everyone will probably enjoy!