Professional Trash

I have too much to say to really fit in a reply comment so I hope you don't mind me responding in post form! Thank you for asking, this is an important thing to discuss and ask questions and be curious about!

In my opinion:

The spirit of how the Siamese/Mongolian/Persian/Otherwise Asian cats were written is so inherently in bad taste that I think the number just needs to be abandoned altogether.

For Christ's sake the original poem and early versions of the show lyrics called them the C-slur. It was written to be mean about Asians and to me it feels disingenuous to behave otherwise/ignore that it's there. I'm not saying that you shouldn't think that Pirate Cats Doing Slaptick is fun. It IS fun. But in this instance it is also happening within the context of Really Shitty Racism that cannot be swept under the rug.

I think that going through the trouble of meticulously re-writing the entire song to remove/replace the Cruel Barbaric Scheming Asians Played By Actors in Yellowface would be a tremendous effort that to me kinda says "we care more about being able to have fun than being sensitive to an entire ethnicity of people and how portrayals like this perpetuate some nasty fucking stereotypes". I do not say this to attack or accuse anyone of being racist for enjoying Growltiger, but I do think it's important to question why we are willing to work so hard to try and salvage something that is inherently racist and hurtful.

To be clear, Pekes & Pollicles is not off the hook to me and I'd like to see a little more work put into it. I am much more critical about Growltiger because the racism has SO MUCH MORE PRESENCE in it than Pekes & Pollicles. To replace all the Asian cats in Growltiger would be more akin to having to replace all of the dogs in Pekes & Pollicles, not just the "heathen Chinese" mentioned in literally two lines. Though they should still do that, even the updated "winsome Chinese" has an unpleasant stink. The point is that imo rewriting is only a good option when it would be relatively small and unobtrusive, but the changes needed in Growltiger would make the entire number so unrecognizable that it ought to just be thrown out.

'Cats the Jellicle ball' has won three Tony awards, for best costuming, choreography and direction. 17 actors will have made their broadway debut with this production, six of whom being black transwomen, the most to share a broadway stage together.