Normally, awards shows are reserved for celebrating the best that the world has to offer, but last night, at the BAFTA awards, the show stopped to recognize what is viewed as one of the worst films of 2019, when Rebel Wilson took the stage to present an award, and took a moment to take a few shots at her own movie, Cats.
The world has had no shortage of jokes about the film adaptation of Cats since long before even the movie came out. When the first trailers hit, the odd Island of Doctor Moreau-looking characters were easy targets, and when the movie actually came out and was largely agreed to be...not good...the jokes only came harder and faster.
So why shouldn't Rebel Wilson get in on the action just because she happened to be in the movie? The actress appeared on stage at the British film awards last night to present the award for Best Director, but before she did, she had a bit of fun. In the setup Wilson mentions the awards' show's theme of the evening was one of sustainability, leading her to make her own awards show dress out of two previous dresses she had worn before...
The red is from that one time I didn't win Miss Australia and the black is from a funeral I just went to for the feature film Cats. Cats… strangely not nominated for any awards. I’m not sure if everyone here is across the controversy, but this year there has been a distinct lack of nominations for felines. Even in the Best Director Cat-agory. No felines have been nominated.
Rebel Wilson went over really well at the BAFTAs. Her speech covered a variety of topics beyond Cats and people seemed to respond, though there was, without question, a bit of extra laughter when Wilson brought up the film in which she played a humanoid cat that unzips her own skin to reveal another set of fur that is also wearing clothing. Which happens again later in the film.
There have been a lot of different reactions to Cats from the cast of the film since its release in December. While nobody is trashing the film, some have defended it, within reason, and others have fully embraced the movie's complete weirdness. At a certain point, you just need to laugh at yourself, and Rebel Wilson has never been shy in that regard.
You can check out Rebel Wilson's entire BAFTA appearance in the clip below.
We'll probably get a few more Cats jokes when the Oscars happen next Sunday. Once that show is over, we'll probably be about ready to let 2019 films fade away. Most of them will be forgotten, the great ones will be remembered, and Cats...well, it's not really clear if that's a movie we'll ever be able to entirely forget. No matter how hard we might try.
