Comedy often works by taking familiar issues and distorting them into comic stereotypes. Case in point; Eleanor Abernathy, better known as the Crazy Cat Lady on the Simpsons. This minor but recurring cartoon character is portrayed as a demented old lady who screams in gibberish and throws cats at passers by. Certainly everyone in the audience has met someone with this kind of cat obsession, compensating for a lack of emotional stability with a large number of cats, even if they don’t go lunge into a feline-tossing furor of slapstick comedy.
It is important to note that the reality behind the crazy cat lady archetype isn’t limited to old women-- and it definitely isn’t anything to laugh at.
Animal hoarding-- be it cats, dogs, birds, or potentially man-eating tigers-- is a disorder officially recognized as a symptom of OCD, and one that not only endangers the person afflicted, but also the animals they compulsively collect. To the hoarder, collecting large quantities of animals is not so often considered wrong-- some cases are documented about sociopathic hoarders who are obsessed with collecting animals for the sake of manic accumulation, but most believe that they are trying to help give the animals a loving home. They are in denial about what they are doing, deluding themselves into thinking that their animals are living happily together.
The reality, however, is that accumulating so many living beings creates an unhealthy environment, physically and psychologically. For one thing, the simple mathematics suggest that the more pets a person has, the harder it will be for them to take care of them all adequately. For another, the sanitary conditions that so many animals living in a closed space create are ripe for all manner of disease and bacteria. And this to say nothing of the mental disturbance that an individual animal forced to live in a crowded space will suffer.
The part where the crazy cat lady truly goes from comic to tragic in reality is often in their pasts; psychological profiles of hoarders typically show backgrounds of abuse and neglect, leading to a pathological need to obtain and control other beings. Since pets are so warm and unequivocal with their love, they fill this desire perfectly-- and at the cost of their welfare.
If you see an animal hoarder on a sitcom, feel free to continue laughing-- there, it’s just a cartoon. If you see an animal hoarder in your own, real-life neighborhood, contact an animal welfare agency in the community, or even local law enforcement if absolutely necessary. These cases become legally difficult because the hoarder typically is acting with samaritan intentions, but the alternative-- an overcrowded, unsanitary environment for human and animal-- is far worse.
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About the author:
A freelance writer/cartoonist living in LA, with my fiance' and our wonderful cat. You can see my work at www.rubysworldcomic.com and rubynation.smackjeeves.com
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