Cats: A Look at Our Favorite Redhead(s)

A frustrating trend for me as a writer is to see so many films and television shows take the lazy way out and simply have things happen because the writers want them to. It’s gotten way out of control in recent years, but it had its nascence a decade or so back. It existed before that, but I think the current trend started about then.

Victorious is a very early example of this. Story things happen because the writers need them to happen. There’s very little craft to how the episodes are written and very little consistency in what motivates the characters to behave the way they do. They have motivations: Tori wants to be a pop star, Jade just wants to disturb people and express herself, Andre wants to write music. But that’s different from behavioral motivation. Why is Jade so mean? Why is Beck so chill? Why is Tori such an opportunist?

Why is Cat…Cat?

These are questions that, in most shows, have answers. It’s backstory. And yes, even characters in sitcoms can have backstories. (For a good example, look to Will Smith in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.) But Victorious never gave us much in the way of answers, beyond: it’s just how they are. In real life, maybe that’s true. Or seems true. People are how they are.

In reality, every choice, decision, and life experience shape us into who we are, with a dash of genetic predisposition thrown in, but that recipe is far too complicated to try and duplicate with a fictional character. And so, we writers tend to pick a series of easily categorizable events that help to color and flavor our characters.

The writers of Victorious didn’t really do that. The episodes were almost entirely things that happened to them in the moment. We almost never got a look at anyone’s backstory or their inner workings as a result of that backstory. There are a few exceptions to this. The most obvious is Jade’s relationship with her father, which is teased at beautifully in “Wok Star.” In fact, the entire episode is motivated by Jade’s backstory. It’s one of the shows’ best and in my opinion that’s due to how the story really comes from the character’s motivations and not because “this happened, and then this happened and then this happened.”

We got some tidbits about others. Beck lives in an RV on his parents’ property so he doesn’t have to live by their rules. That’s a really cool idea. Why did he do it? He’s so laid back most of the time. What would drive him to take that step? It’s not like he’s got a rebellious personality. Did we ever find out? Nope.

Cat, of course, is another character with interesting tidbits that never coalesced into anything coherent. And she has the added issue of having multiple versions of herself. Cat 1.0 is introduced in the pilot as a ditzy, neurotic, almost bipolar young woman.

Cat 2.0 and 2.5 come about as we move through Season 2 and into Season 3. She loses the trademark neurotic, “What’s that supposed to mean!?” In some ways she seems to become more functional. But her overall intelligence level seems to drop. And drop. And drop. Until by Season 4 she’s practically infantilized. It’s played for laughs on the show (an example of something happening because the writers want it to, rather than a crucial part of the character) but there’s no way someone like Cat would be able to function in the world without serious support.

My theory is this: Cat was meant to be comic relief. A two dimensional, silly, vapid punch line, similar to how Trina was always played for laughs because the worst things always happened to her and she was so unrelentingly obnoxious. But Ariana Grande infused such personality into her and displayed such great comedic acting chops that they changed her a few times, on the fly, to try and play into Ari’s strengths. This resulted in an inconsistent character whose eccentricities were basically blamed on her brother and whatever misdeeds he’d put her through. It was a backstory that kind of came up after the character had been established. But it also gave us a lovable, often-wise gem of a character who people were able to connect with in unique and special ways. Cat Valentine became the unlikely breakout character of the show who often even outshone the lead (not unlike how her actor would later outshine thee same lead with her music career).

Sam and Cat gave us a third version of Cat, one closer to her latter days in Victorious, but with a bit more worldly sense and responsibility. After all, she went from being a punch line to a main attraction, so she couldn’t be as dumb as they previously portrayed her. She kept her ditziness and childish behavior but they gave her enough street smarts that she could believably live with Sam and work as a babysitter.

So what’s the point of my rambling?

Well…in #GrandFinale, I chose to write alternating perspectives. We start off with Sam and then move to Cat and rotate back and forth. But while they were my two POV characters, I didn’t get inside their heads. My “narrator” in that story knew their thoughts and relayed them to the reader in her/its own voice, which sounded similar to Sam and to Cat. In other words, the narrative voice was able to provide context for Cat’s thoughts that Cat herself wouldn’t have thought of or come up with on her own due to her…issues.

In Untold Jori, I did a deep dive into Jade’s head. I painted a picture of Tori Vega as seen by Jade West. Anytime we see Tori, we see her through the lens of Jade’s personal bias, and that bias shifts as she admits her feelings eventually. Jade was a fascinating character to write like that. We share a lot of things in common, so it was pretty easy to find her voice. Tori’s voice was tougher. I wasn’t fond of how I wrote Tori in #GrandFinale. And in Untold Jori it was Tori, as seen by Jade.

When I was working out One Last Song, I decided to write it from Tori’s perspective. I wanted to challenge myself to do that same deep dive and get into Tori’s head more. It involved rewatching the show, and a lot of Jayniac’s and Quentin’s amazing videos on the character and series. But when Jade and Cat insisted they had stories to tell too, and I realized One Last Song was going to be a much, much bigger tale, I had to decide if I was going to indeed write it all in first-person, or revert to the third-person style of #GrandFinale.

Doing it all first-person meant a few things. First, it meant that I’d have to divide the story up into parts where each girl got her chance to drive. It would begin with Tori, since the show was Victorious and we hadn’t seen her as the lead role yet in my first. Tori’s arc is basically the original fic I was going to write (her senior year stuff). Jade’s would weave in and around Tori’s, because Jori has been endgame since the pilot and their destinies have always been intertwined (and I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise).

But Cat would be a different challenge. For one thing, I personally think her inner monologue and internal thoughts during high school would be nearly incomprehensible without the use of a third-person narrator to interpret and provide context. Getting a raw feed of Cat’s inner thoughts in those days would be tough. I knew her story would have to be the outlier in the fic.

By the time we reach the epilogue of #GrandFinale, Sam’s influence on Cat has been felt more deeply. So I chose a point after that for Cat’s flashback interludes, a point in time where she would have grown enough that I could directly tap into that inner feed and it wouldn’t be just a jumbled up mess of silliness. And what better time to choose than leading up to the wedding of Cat’s best friends? This Cat would be similar to her #GrandFinale self, but with enough personal growth that she could tell her story without it being too random or incoherent.

Adult Cat…that’s another story. Adult Cat in my universe has spent some time in therapy, wrestled and dealt with her personal demons, and has grown beyond her infantile younger-self. She retains her innocence and sweetness, because it was through those things that Cat sometimes proved to be something of a savant.

This meant committing, at least in my own mind, to an actual backstory from which to build from. What did her brother do? Why did it impact her in the way it did? I have a course of action chosen for that which informs how I’m writing her, but those details may not make it out in the story. (They may…but they may not.)

The interludes will eventually reveal Cat’s decision to go into therapy. It’s a pretty somber, sad reason but it did her a lot of good as we’ll see through adult Cat’s eyes as the modern story continues. I do hope that both versions of Cat feel like a natural extension to her television selves, with maybe hints of intent and planning and coherent character growth. She may have began as a punch line but she became one of the most beloved characters on the show and launched one of the most successful pop singers in modern times. There is something enduring and endearing about Ariana Grande, whether she’s being playful and ditzy or singing about crass sexual acts.

I hope I’ve managed to take what she brought to the role of Cat and build upon it in a way that leaves readers satisfied and thinking yes, this is the Cat Valentine I remember but she’s all grown up now. She’s a smart woman, and she keeps throwing me curve balls with her story. I know the ultimate end and the fate of the character, but she’s making it a blast to reach that point. I’m more invested in this little story than ever thanks to Cat and her surprisingly touching story that will basically carry us to the end of this massive fic. I hope you all agree as you join us in the journey!