Pop-Cultured Catholic #18: Playing One’s Given Role in God’s Theo-Drama… Or OwlKitty’s Mashups
Halloween season has been a prime opportunity for my series to delve into dark, complex, and macabre subject matter, and now it is over. To provide a 180-degree shift away from that tone, I have decided to focus on something simple, silly, and adorable for today… a popular cat named Lizzy… better known by her YouTube stage name, OwlKitty.
The story begins with Licorice, a stray cat taken into foster care, after she was found flea-bitten, malnourished… and pregnant with kittens. While rehabilitating, Licorice soon got the attention of one particular couple, Tibo Charroppin and Olivia Boone, who have already owned a cat and were ready to adopt another one. And on March 3rd, 2017, Licorice had finally given birth to a litter of six kittens. The couple especially took interest in one of her kittens, the black-colored one named Lizzy. While Licorice was adopted by another household, Tibo and Olivia got to bring home Lizzy, who eventually formed a mutual bond with their current cat named Juliette. Soon, Tibo would put his video recording and editing skills to good use, creating a library of videos starring Lizzy.
The turning point began when the owners of Licorice’s kitten, Lizzy, got the idea to make a video mashup, where Lizzy replaces one of the Velociraptors in the “Jurassic Park” film’s iconic kitchen scene. Using a combination of green screens, video editing, and cat toys to coach Lizzy, the “Purrassic Park” mashup was made. Due to Lizzy’s appearance, she was also given the nickname of “OwlKitty”. Soon, the 14-second parody went viral.
From that one brief “Jurassic Park” parody video starring Lizzy, a whole series of OwlKitty videos spawned. The repertoire grew from adding Lizzy to short clips of films, shows, and video games into making full parody trailers starring her, complete with supplementary “Behind the Scenes” videos. The production value grew to the point of Tibo sometimes inserting dubbed dialogue, clips of himself, other props, and even a “stunt double” for Lizzy. OwlKitty soon got to fight alongside the Avengers against Thanos, board the Titanic with Leonardo DiCaprio, clash with Godzilla as a kaiju-sized version of herself, snatch the fly buzzing around Mike Pence’s head, terrorize Amity Island in “Jaws”, pilot fighter jets with Tom Cruise, become the true culprit of “Paranormal Activity”, face down Gandalf as he commands she shall not pass, join the roster of a Super Smash Bros. game, and so on. She even got to revisit “Jurassic Park” and get promoted to the role of the Tyrannosaurus rex. As of now, the OwlKitty channel has 2.53 million subscribers.
While reading the comment sections for these videos, there has been one recurring comment I can paraphrase, which caused a silly theological analogy to cross my mind: “That cat is a superstar and she doesn’t even know it”. As far as Lizzy understands, all she is doing is just being a cat, playing with various toys, hanging out in front of a green blanket, and following her owner’s coaching. It is Lizzy’s owner, Tibo, who takes the actions he coaches out of her, then uses his knowledge, his abilities, and other collaborating “actors” far beyond her understanding to yield a bigger picture. That is, one more amazing than she can possibly comprehend… yet starring exactly her. Yet, if these OwlKitty videos were also being written, casted, directed, and produced by the cat herself, with no input from her owner, then they would be not only vastly inferior, but utterly nonexistent.
Over the years of watching Bishop Robert Barron’s videos, one of the recurring motifs I have seen is his distinction between God’s “theo-drama” versus an individual person’s “ego-drama”. Bishop Barron has used the latter words to describe the common tendency of many people to approach life as a play they are not only starring in, but also writing, casting, directing, and producing all on their own. People like Theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar have coined the term “theo-drama”, to illustrate the potential roles each person can act out in the bigger play that God is writing, casting, directing, and producing. If one thinks the difference in knowledge, intellect, creative vision, and resources between Lizzy the cat and her owners is vast, then imagine the difference in such qualities between God and regular humans. In a way, one can state that each person is still being offered their own unique starring role, which God can work into the broader “cinematic universe” he envisions. And the “genres” that God is enabling us to star in include countless others besides parodic comedy shorts. Yet in our limited knowledge and perception, all we can see around us are the mere “green screens”, “props”, “laser pointers” coaxing our actions, etc. We see those with no ability to fully comprehend how it will all look, once God brings together the other cast members' performances, the visual effects in post-production, and so on. Perhaps a human clinging to his own “ego-drama”, with a presumption that it will automatically be the greatest work for him to star in, would be partly akin to Lizzy the cat trying to be a better YouTube superstar by her own ideas and skills, without any of her owner’s direction, creativity, abilities, and resources.
Finally, I have always liked Bishop Barron’s take on the meaning of Matthew 18 Verses 1-5. That excerpt from the Gospels read: “At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, ‘Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me’”. Granted, we are not meant to specifically be like children, in the sense that we keep our intellectual capacity low and underdeveloped compared to an adult's. Rather, Bishop Barron has offered this as one of the potential explanations: “Children are like plants, rocks, and flowers in this sense: they don’t know how to be something that they are not. They haven’t yet learned to lie, dissemble, pretend, or to seek to be someone they are not meant to be. We are all, right now, being created by God for God’s purposes. Childlike joy returns to us the moment we put aside all our games of self-promotion and self-deception and live in accord with God’s deepest desire for us”. For that matter, I guess the Bishop could just as easily liken children to Lizzy the cat. She just behaves as the creator naturally made her to behave, remains receptive to the creative guidance of someone higher than her, and can let said someone fill in the rest to create a very good show, far better than any that she could envision purely on her own.
The first two supplementary videos will feature the adoption story of Lizzy, who would become the OwlKitty, as well as one of Bishop Barron's talk on the ego-drama versus theo-drama. Following that, I will include links to a large sample of OwlKitty mashups and "Behind the Scenes" videos which entertained me...
1.) "OwlKitty: The Adoption Story"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E-8DsGrpb0
2.) "Give Up the Ego-Drama! — Bishop Barron’s Sunday Sermon"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x_blFDePJY
20 OwlKitty Mashups and "Behind the Scenes" videos...
1.) "Jurassic Park - Starring my cat" (debut video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYZ6YNg_1OQ
2.) "Making Purrassic Park!" (debut video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=An5-RXCHTJ8
3.) "Jurassic Park but with a Cat" (T-Rex Breakout)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W85oD8FEF78
4.) "Jurassic Park with a Cat — Behind the Scenes" (T-Rex Breakout)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtIoMT1WX4U
5.) "Titanic with a Cat"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEPfM3jSoBw
6.) "Titanic with a Cat (Behind the Scenes)"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONgEvIuyVtE
7.) "Godzilla vs. Cat (OwlKitty Parody)"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf7GsKFepDg
8.) "Godzilla vs. OwlKitty (Behind the Scenes)"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V29BO4UR2mc
9.) "CLAWS! (Jaws OwlKitty parody)"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhmKfpKM8bw
10.) "Jaws + Cat (OwlKitty Behind the Scenes)"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAa0XYLCKXA
11.) "Avengers Endgame with my cat OwlKitty"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYr0hGFzU2I
12.) "The Shining + My cat (HD)"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIkxDXyNgAU
13.) "Lord of the Rings + My Cat"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mf06IwdpVM
14.) "Lord of the Rings + OwlKitty (Behind the Scenes)"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDer-LnEOXA
15.) "Top Gun with a Cat"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3rQ3328Tok
16.) "Top Gun with a Cat (Behind the Scenes)"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kO8z5fyr8U
17.) "Smash Bros with a Cat"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35MNFLkSyf0
18.) "Super Smash Bros. + @OwlKitty (Behind the Scenes)"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu9ZqJVXcrY
19.) "Purranormal Activity (with my cat OwlKitty)"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEqJjzN4J7s
20.) "Cat vs. Debate Fly (Behind the Scenes)"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrjLIytek6o
