Abstract
This chapter will apply Jacques Derrida’s and Donna Haraway’s ideas to trace carefully the moments in A Whisker Away (2020) when the human-animal species boundary is complicated and when the feline perspective is highlighted and even privileged. Despite the film’s humanist ending and its failure to challenge the human-animal hierarchy, it is worthwhile to explore how the film contributes to the denaturalization of human perspective among child viewers. Through close readings of its plot and its cinematography, this chapter argues that A Whisker Away offers imaginative opportunities for (child) viewers to experiment with species boundaries and to inhabit the perspective of cats in bodily, cognitive, and affective terms. The film also hints that girls might become with cats or other animals in the posthumanist sense. Overall, it asks the viewer to recognize the place of the (domesticated) animal as well as human-animal relations in the construction of childhood or, more specifically, girlhood.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Transformation and Metamorphosis in Popular Culture: Transformative Scenes |
Editors | Sophia Staite |
Publisher | Routledge |
Publication status | Accepted/In press - 2025 |