[Editorial] The Female Lens in Cat People (1942)

In Cat People (1942), Irena Dubrovna (Simone Simon) is terrified of intimacy, and the possibility that it will prove a folktale from her hometown in Serbia true—that she will become consumed by lust and passion, transforming into a panther.

Irena doesn’t consummate her sudden marriage with American businessman Oliver (Kent Smith), leading him into the arms of his coworker Alice (Jane Randolph), who’s secretly been in love with him for years. Irena’s jealousy over the two’s closeness, which they hardly attempt to conceal in front of her, leads to her transforming into a panther at various moments to intimidate Alice.

Women’s sexuality has always been considered dangerous and shameful. Whether a true story or a cautionary tale, this fear of sex and intimacy define Irena’s life, especially her failed marriage, despite having an otherwise successful career as a fashion designer. Irena’s transformation into a panther at these moments may represent a supposed lack of control due to her emotions, or perhaps a freedom in embracing her sexuality and rejecting societal norms. 

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Alice serves as a foil to Irena, the demure and repressed all-American co-worker compared to Irena, the mysterious and foreign wife who manages to inadvertently ensnare Oliver while Alice has silently loved him from afar. Even in Oliver and Irena’s marital struggles, Alice’s role as the “other woman” is strictly on an emotional basis, serving as a confidant for Oliver and providing him support as he struggles to understand Irena.

Despite Irena’s warnings and hesitations, after Oliver meets her at the zoo one fateful day, their whirlwind romance leads to a rocky marriage. Oliver’s acquaintances comment that the marriage seems rushed, since he hadn’t known Irena for very long, and Irena doesn’t have any family or friends in New York. It seems like Irena self-isolates due to fear of the legend, not wanting to inadvertently hurt people. While Oliver’s persistence in wooing Irena can be initially seen as charming, it later proves to be arrogance as he assumed his love for Irena could “fix” her once they were married.

According to the legend, “cat people” were ungodly heathens, terrorizing the otherwise good and Christian Serbian village where Irena hails from and were banished by King John, cursed to live in the mountains as half-human, half-animal beasts to pay for their sins. Irena secretly fears that she’s one of them, and that despite her attempts to lead a good life, she’ll ultimately succumb to the curse of the cat people. This vague metaphor for the concept of original sin leads Irena down a path of loneliness and repressed emotions as he carries the weight of “sins” that she herself never committed.

nterestingly, Irena sees a psychiatrist after her marriage to Oliver in an attempt to understand her hesitation surrounding sexual intimacy. Her therapist later reveals that the cat people legend has its claws in Irena’s psyche, though the film implies as much too. 

One stand-out scene involves a jealous Irena following Alice to a pool after being the object of Oliver’s affection throughout the day. While swimming, Alice is terrorized by a cat-like creature. When she calls for help, the creature disappears, and a smug Irena is in its place. Though this transition happens off-screen, Irena’s transformation is implied. From the black fur coat she wears, to the cat-like smile at Alice’s distress, to the way she slinks out of the pool area after the encounter, Irena leans into the cat people legend as she tries to salvage her strained marriage.

Even outside of the context of sexual intercourse, Irena’s passion manifests in her jealousy, and she loses control as she feels another woman is threatening her territory. This oblique comparison of women’s emotions, deep and meaningful, to base animalistic desires is unique for the era, in which the Hays Code allowed women to be sexy (to an extent) but ultimately sexless. Irena’s agency as well doesn’t come from herself, but from giving in to this thing—dangerous and unnatural. 

Throughout Cat People, Irena has difficulty getting animals to like her, as evidenced when Oliver tries to buy a kitten as a pet for her, only for it to hiss at her. Irena is fixated on one of the panthers at the zoo, though, regularly visiting it to observe and even try to draw it at some points. She feels a kinship and a resentment toward the panther, a wild being trapped in a cage that it doesn’t belong in. During one of her visits, she steals the key to the panther’s cage when no one is looking and pockets it, metaphorically setting the cat free. 

In the more literal sense, Irena’s psychiatrist forcing a kiss on her causes her transformation in which she kills him before fleeing to the zoo. Oliver and Alice aren’t far behind, as Irena uses the key she stole to set the panther free. It’s killed in the pandemonium by an oncoming car, and Irena is nowhere to be seen after that, except for a dead panther next to the cage, with Oliver and Alice coming to the conclusion that Irena was telling the truth all along. 

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Ultimately, Irena gives in to the nature of the panther, and loses Oliver to Alice in the process, as if a woman embracing her sexuality makes her unfit to be a wife. Her implied death also stings, as the script seems to imply that her struggles were too much for this world, and she was only believed after she died, instead of in life where she needed support and understanding, rather than ridicule and disbelief. 

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