In Which Kittens Face Rigorous Criticism

Sir Duke's unctuous albeit hirsute self-pity act is frankly becoming stale. Here he relies yet again on a misplaced faith that we will find the expression of his slight anxiety, with worried blue eyes accentuated with frowny-face whiskers, eternally and somehow inexhaustibly endearing, and his quiescent cradling in anonymous denimed legs an admirable resignation to the wise, pseudo-maternal care of his owner.

The subtext, besides the unconscious yet crude entendre of a kitten situated between the legs, is of course the passive affirmation of the class dominance of our own species.

This hollow mask is, of course, nothing less than a betrayal. And it is a betrayal of his own identity and culture. He cannot expect to trade on his youth and his emotive if superficially entertaining neuroses forever, internalizing a contradictory persona as a cheesy, kittenish nebbish, expecting to be stoked and bottle-fed simply because he delights the dominant species with shopworn yarn and bouncy-ball antics. It is not unfair to demand of Sir Duke a little more productive discipline and a little less self-aware bathos.