History Main / CatsAreMean

* ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureDiamondIsUnbreakable'':
** Stray Cat, a British shorthair, makes it way into the Kawajiri house where it got impaled by shards of glass. However, since it was struck by the [[SacredBowAndArrows Stand Arrow]] beforehand, it survived by transforming into a {{planimal}} that could shoot a BubbleGun of compressed air towards anyone it deems a threat. It was treated rather fairly, though, and even gets a happy ending when it's adopted by Okuyasu.
** Yoshikage Kira's [[FightingSpirit Stand]], Killer Queen, looks like a bizarre humanoid cat. The Stand's appearance might be a reflection of Kira's predatory nature. Even aside from that, Kira has many cat-like mannerisms; his fingernails grow, clawlike, when he starts feeling the urge to kill, he's very finicky and vain, and he's prone to LecherousLicking. He also happens to be Stray Cat's original owner before Okuyasu freed it from him.
** In general, cats are portrayed less positively than dogs throughout [[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure the series]]. This is allegedly because creator Creator/HirohikoAraki dislikes them, due to a bad experience with one as a child.

* In Creator/StephenKing's short story, "[[Literature/JustAfterSunset The Cat from Hell]]". It kills several people, one guy by [[AttackTheMouth leaping into his mouth]], and the guy chokes to death [[OrificeInvasion as the cat crawls down his throat]].

* Played straight and then subverted in ''Anime/TheBorrowerArrietty''. Sho's cat, Niya, initially, is mean and predatory towards Arrietty, but he ultimately makes peace with her.

* ''Series/BabylonFive'' plays with this trope in spades: the Dilgar were basically a race of Nazi-like humanoid felines responsible for massive genocide and experimentation on sentient beings. However, they ended up extinct when their sun went nova, as they had been forced back to their homeworld.

* ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'': In one episode, Mike and the Bots watch a movie in which a magical spell gone awry sends an ordinary house cat into a vicious frenzy of claws and teeth against its owner, prompting Mike to quip, "So, this is like ''any'' cat then."

* ''Series/TheXFiles'' episode "Teso Dos Bichos" had sewer killer pussy cats as its monsters of the week. Said cats were summoned up by a jaguar spirit connected to a female shaman's skeleton. They were mewing and hissing very loudly, killing people, stacking them in a sewer, and they attacked Mulder and Scully, a pair of very tough FBI agents, and hurt them quite severely.

* ''Webcomic/{{Lackadaisy}}'': this may or may not count, considering WordOfGod has stated that the characters are more "humans in cat form" than straight up anthropomorphized cats, but every single character in ''Lackadaisy'' has at least one semi-psychotic trait. Rocky is bordering on PsychopathicManchild, Freckle is AxCrazy, Mordecai is a [[FourEyesZeroSoul cold-blooded]] PsychoForHire, Viktor is a RetiredBadass with a tendency of [[OverprotectiveDad beating the hell]] out of Ivy's various boyfriends, Nina has shades of MyBelovedSmother mixed with MamaBear, and even gentile Mitzi has a well hidden [[BitchInSheepsClothing ruthless streak]].

* Kamineko, that cat who keeps attacking Sakaki in ''Manga/AzumangaDaioh''. In the cat's defense, Sakaki seems to have an aura that makes [[AnimalsHateHer cats hate her]], with one exception. Mayaa is the antithesis of this trope: a wild-born Iriomote cat who not only is the first cat to permit Sakaki to pet it, but, intially meeting, actively seeks her affection, proving utterly devoted to Sakaki. To drive home this point, Mayaa later drives off Kamineko and a small horde of cats in her defense. The fact that Kamineko gathered up the cats just to attack Sakaki and Chiyo-Chan seems to point to the conclusion that it was just a jerk. Furthermore, in the last episode, when Sakaki apologizes to it for trying to pet it all the time without taking its feelings into account, it walks up to Sakaki, allows her to move her hand toward its head as though to let her pet it... [[JerkWithAHeartOfJerk then bites her without any warning]]. WordOfGod has confirmed that it's not that Kamineko hates people, it's just that Sakaki's cold, tough demeanor makes cats think she's going to hurt them. Wild cats, however, are obviously not scared that easily.
* Played straight and then subverted in ''Anime/TheBorrowerArrietty''. Sho's cat, Niya, intially, is mean and predatory towards Arrietty, but he ultimately makes peace with her.

*** The Betsumon from Episode 32 are a huge pack of nasty, remoseless {{Identity Impersonator}}s in Tailmon/Gatomon suits who revel in isolating their victims by replacing them in their lives and wiping out whole swathes of people and Digimon from existence this way, gleefully rubbing into their faces that they're isolated when nobody recognizes them anymore.
*** The Bastemon in Episode 35 is the definition of this trope in Digimon form. Unlike her ''Anime/DigimonXrosWarsTheYoungHuntersWhoLeaptThroughTime'' counterpart, Bastemon is an arrogant Digimon who wants to reverse the relationship between cat and owner, and uses her Helter Skelter dance to turn cats into frightening, hissing Nekomata monsters who can control the bodies of humans to perform dangerous acts like walking on narrow, high-up spaces. When she gathers enough victims, she hoards all of them to a pet cementery where she forces anyone who can't act like a cat to dig their own graves and seeks to turn a person who passed her test into her own HumanPet.

* Kyo from ''Manga/FruitsBasket'' is a subversion, being a bitter jerk intially glance but actually being a JerkWithAHeartOfGold. He's basically hated by his own family for being the cat of the zodiac and he is also saddled with a curse that [[spoiler:turns him into a hideous and apparently horrible smelling demon should he ever not wear his magical bracelet. The curse stems from the cat of the zodiac legend disagreeing with God. Turns out, he [[WhoWantsToLiveForever didn't want to live forever]]]]. His charming personality doesn't exactly help either. [[spoiler: Of course, he gets the girl in the end.]] Kyo's got pretty good reasons to be the way he is. [[spoiler:His skittish personality comes from his mother killing herself for "giving birth to a monster" and being told "IHaveNoSon" by his traumatised and also mentally unstable father right after that, who handed the kid to Kyo's uncle, Kazuma. Also he, just like Yuki, was a victim of the also mentally unstable Akito's psychological abuse, and later blamed himself greatly for the death of Kyoko, Tohru (the girl)'s mother, which he witnessed.]] So, he's not an angel, but he ain't evil: more of a JerkWithAHeartOfGold with quite the FreudianExcuse.

** As his character page on this site suggests, Garfield's AdaptationalNiceGuy may be because cartoons and movies aren't just four panels where Garfield does something dickish and it ends there, leaving a lot more room for conesquences and development.

*** The Betsumon from Episode 32 are a huge pack of nasty, remoseless {{Identity Impersonator}}s in Gatomon suits who revel in isolating their victims by replacing them in their lives and wiping out whole swathes of people and Digimon from existence this way, gleefully rubbing into their faces that they're isolated when nobody recognizes them anymore.

* ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}:

* ''Anime/DigimonAdventure'':
** Tailmon/Gatomon was originally introduced as the BigBad's RightHandCat, beating the shit out of all seven of the protagonists' Digimon with little effort in their first encounter and mercilessly hunting down the eighth Chosen. Of course, she then turned out to have a FreudianExcuse, did a HeelFaceTurn, became the partner of Hikari Yagami/Kari Kamiya (whom she found she simply couldn't kill when they first met), and became decidedly not mean.
** The Kamiya/Yagami family's pet cat Miko. In the original movie, little Tai makes the mistake of defending Koromon for eating Miko's food, which results in rather nasty-looking scratches for boy and Digimon.

Simultaneously, there is a grain of "truth" to this trope. "A deadly game of cat and mouse" is often a very real situation; cats not taught to hunt properly by their mothers often appear to clumsily toy with their prey before killing it, and even veteran mousers will play with their quarry before killing and consuming them, in order to avoid being bitten, since the saying is correct that "[[http://failblog.org/2010/11/24/epic-fail-photos-tough-cat-fail-gif/ even a cornered mouse will snap at a cat]]" (but only when the mouse is ''aware'' of the cat; meanwhile, a cat that ''ambushes'' a mouse by surprise will kill it instantly, which is why cats are experts at hunting by [[StealthExpert stealth and secrecy]]). Cats are also infamous for [[ItAmusedMe hunting and killing for fun]] (for a primitive value of the word fun), even when they're not going to eat the prey (though given that among the other animals known to do this are [[EgomaniacHunter humans]] and the only ones who really enjoy it at that, we don't really have much room to give cats grief about it). Note that this doesn't make cats "mean" -- [[BlueAndOrangeMorality they don't have any understanding of human morality in the first place]]; you know, like most animals. In addition, cats' "hunting for fun" is a result of a trait present in all predators -- an instinctive drive to hunt creatures that register as prey. The difference is that wild predators are typically hungry enough to eat their catch when they're done, while the need to conserve resources and avoid injuries limits how much time and energy they can afford to expend chasing everything they see; cats, being well-fed and sheltered, don't experience these limiting factors. Notably, this is true for other domestic predators as well -- cats are simply let out on their own more often, and thus have more chances to chase prey. A dog or ferret in the same situation is no less prone to killing "for fun" (cf. DogsHateSquirrels).

* In ''Film/GrampsIsInTheResistance'', set in World War II, German General Spontz owns a Russian Blue that he rescued from the Eastern front, ''Oberfeldwebel'' Gustav. Who proves rather foul-tempered, clawing at his own master when introduced; Spontz blames it on the cat being full of himself ever since the Führer gave him the Iron Cross. Later, Gustav also attacks Michel Taupin while he's trying to eavesdrop on Spontz.

[[folder:Asian Animation]]
* In ''Animation/PleasantGoatAndBigBigWolf: Against the Dark Force'', the goats arrive in the cat-populated Qimao Kingdom and find themselves being turned into aggressive cat-like versions of themselves by the cats, leaving only Paddi and Wolffy to defend themselves.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Eastern European Animation]]
* ''Animation/KeremAKovetkezot'': All the big cat characters: the Jaguar and the Panther are serial killers (since they are predators), the Tiger seems to be some kind of mafia boss running a casino, while the Lion is a tyrannical KingOfBeasts. However, averted with the Wildcat, who is simply a narcissistic DreadfulMusician.
[[/folder]]

* The cougar from ''Film/HomewardBoundTheIncredibleJourney''.

* ''Film/NineLives2016'' features a jerkass who works through his issues after becoming a cat.

** Subversion: Maurice, the talking cat from Creator/TerryPratchett's ''Literature/TheAmazingMauriceAndHisEducatedRodents'', is a feline JerkWithAHeartOfGold: he's greedy, sneaky, and sarcastic, but, despite his protests to the contrary, he ''does'' care about the eponymous intelligent rats he's been hanging out with. He also makes it a point to check that the mice and rats he hunts can't talk before eating them, [[spoiler:out of guilt for gaining his own sentience by eating one of the talking rats]]. He even [[spoiler: [[BalancingDeathsBooks gives up one of his nine lives to Death]] in order to save Dangerous Beans]].
** Played straight with Greebo, Nanny Ogg's cat in ''Literature/{{Discworld}}''. He is a nasty, foul-tempered force of nature who is king of Lancre's cat population (and father of most of it), and it's generally agreed that the only thing that can slow him down is a direct meteor strike (though Nanny thinks he's an adorable little kitten). This is a cat who terrorises animals wherever he goes (bears climb trees when he turns up, and he's mentioned as having dragged in "half a wolf" once). The crowner, though, is when he once ''ate a bat-form vampire'' and later killed another after it used him as a pillow. For context, Discworld vampires are effectively impossible to kill without special equipment, fire, or dismemberment. The only things he's really scared of are elves, Feegles, and You (Granny Weatherwax's kitten, who very quickly turned out like her owner) - and if cornered, he ''will'' viciously attack elves.
*** When he ends up in human form, he's described as resembling "the more louche kind of buccaneer" who, incidentally, "emitted a kind of greasy sexuality in the megawatt range." Since this description and later official art depicted him as looking ''exactly'' like [[Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire Euron Greyjoy]], this turned out to be HilariousInHindsight.

[[folder:Pinball]]

[[folder:Religion]]
* Cats are considered one of the "evil" animals in UsefulNotes/{{Zoroastrianism}} and ([[ScienceMarchesOn wrongfully]]) considered part of the "wolf" species. Zoroastrianism splits animals into benevolent and malevolent as with everything else, with [[PredatorsAreMean most predators]] in the evil part. This believe lead cats to be killed or at least be forbidden in many cities and normally not taken as pets which in many cases lead to Iranian cities to be overrun by plagues of rodents forcing the magi (Zoroastrian priests) to loosen up the cat taboo (later records show that cats were common in Iranian cities probably for this reason). Dogs on the other hand were considered part of the [[HeroicDog good and benevolent animals]]. Interestingly this is exactly the opposite GoodAnimalsEvilAnimals arrangement of Islam: Muslims consider cats to be blessed (due to the apocryphal believe that Muhammad was a KindheartedCatLover) whilst dogs although not considered evil are considered unclean and not allowed to be held as house pets, which completely changed the tides on pet ownership in Iran after Islamization.[[note]]It didn't hurt that the Muslims that first conquered Iran viewed Zoroastrianism as a ReligionOfEvil and did their utmost to wipe it off the face of the planet. Today's Parsee community in the Mumbai area of India are [[TheRemnant the descendants of the Persian survivors of this]].[[/note]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Theater]]

* In ''VideoGame/BlazBlueContinuumShift'', Kokonoe acts this way towards Hazama in his gag ending, especially whenever he starts repeatedly sneezing uncontrollably due to his horrible allergies to cats, which, as suggested from her, are rather severe. (ItMakesSenseInContext because in the actual story, Hazama was way meaner and Kokonoe had a justified grudge on him)

** She tends to play it straight more often than not, though, as Kokonoe can be a major bitch at times, and her treatment of Tager often borders on abuse.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* ''Webcomic/EerieCuties'': [[https://pixietrixcomix.com/eerie-cuties/2009-11-18 the vampire queen has...quite a cat]]
* An unusually crude example can be found in ''Webcomic/ErrantStory'' -- the main character, Meji, is a sorceress who has a flying, talking cat by the name of Ellis as her familiar. The 'talking' bit is the clincher, though, since his use of language could make sailors blush -- he's constantly making crude suggestions, sexual references, and inappropriate jokes. For obvious reasons, Meji regularly applies a fireball or thunderbolt to him, but since he's MadeOfIron, it doesn't really deter him to any significant degree...

-->'''Elan:''' I can't tell if the cat is a good influence on Belkar, or Belkar is a bad influence on the cat.
-->'''Haley:''' Both I think, but it probably still averages out somewhere south of Neutral.

* WebVideo/{{Ask That Guy|WithTheGlasses}} episode 33: Question? How can I kill my family and frame the cat?
* Website/BabylonBee: According to [[https://babylonbee.com/news/nations-cats-endorse-trump-in-hopes-americans-will-go-back-to-work-and-leave-them-alone this article]], cats wants humans to go back to work so they can get back to doing the mysterious things cats do when their owners are away, such as plotting world domination.

* [[MemeticMutation Ceiling Cat is watching you masturbate]].
* Dusty the Fat, Bitter Cat was a long-time columnist in the Internet wrestling community. He started on parody site [=ScoopThis=] as a satire of cynical, snark-laden wrestling columns (with the cat character thrown on because "on the internet, nobody knows you're ''not'' a cat"), and would accuse other columnists of also being cats based on the sheer cynicism and hate they displayed in their columns. He became more of a straight example of these columns as he bounced around to other sites. He eventually applied for a position on Wrestling/{{WWE}}'s creative team, and came very close to getting the job.

* One of WebVideo/JesuOtaku's cats (the calico) isn't very friendly, as seen in the review for ''Manga/FruitsBasket''.
* In the ''WebVideo/LG15TheResistance'' video "Feline Feariousness", Reed rants about how cats are evil, manipulative, and steal souls, and finishes by urging viewers to "Get rid of your cat, before your cat gets rid of you!"

* In the pilot episode of ''Podcast/TheLostCat'', the protagonist is directed to "The House of Lost Cats" and warned that it's a dangerous place from which few return. He finds that the cats have completely taken over the house, trapping the owner inside. The cats overwhelm him and nearly chew off his foot. Their intent seems to be more [[BlueAndOrangeMorality mysterious]] that outright malicious, however.
* Played straight with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qit3ALTelOo&NR=1 The Mean Kitty Song]], until the last verse. Sparta is quite aggressive but Mr. Safety says right out that [[spoiler:he's not fighting, he's just showing love]].
-->[[spoiler: The one big thing I forgot to mention/was that he wasn't fighting./He just wanted attention.]]

* ''WebVideo/OzzyManReviews'': "Cats being dodgy" is a video with footage of cats behaving like nature's biggest ass-holes. There is a cat who attacks a toddler, a cat with demonic hiss, a cat who will not share food with other cats, a cat knocking stuff down for the lolz, or a cat bullying a much larger dog and the like.

* This video, titled "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7UhaeWFX8I Talking Cat Turf War]]", features a cowering tuxedo cat at the mercy of a hostile tabby cat.
* Steve Cash's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjZrUn03kXI Talking Kitty]] series showcases its main character, Sylvester, who'd rather have the house to himself. He once threatened to cut the dog's neck and attempted to force two other cats out by getting the landlord to evict the family!

* The hovercat from ''WebAnimation/WaterHuman''. As the name implies, it's an unholy union of cat and hovercraft which speaks in CreepyMonotone. And crushes people.
* In the animated short ''[[http://www.vimeo.com/6898451 Yellow Cake]]'', cats aren't just mean, they're [[{{Anvilicious}} imperialist]] bastards!
* There is an internet meme which shows how a cat and a dog view their respective existences. The cat carefully plots revenge on and escape from its human captors. Meanwhile, the dog will say things like "[[DogsAreDumb Walk! YAY! Food! YAY! Pet! YAY! Outside! YAY!]]"
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uehtn3TOBMg This video]] is a case of "Kittens are Mean". Warning: [[CuteKitten you may]] {{Squee}} a little when one of the kittens growls at its grandma.
* A common theme in dog and cat pictures is the cat sitting squarely in the middle on an enormous dog bed, with the poor dog (usually three or four times bigger than the cat) making do with the cat's bed or looking pleadingly at their owner.
* The {{Website/Reddit}} communities [[https://reddit.com/r/CatsAreAssholes /r/CatsAreAssholes]] and [[https://reddit.com/r/CatsBeingAssholes /r/CatsBeingAssholes]] are dedicated entirely to this trope.

* ''VideoGame/SuperMario3DWorld'': Because the game possesses an [[AnimalMotif all-around cat-theme]] with the introduction of the [[PowerUp Cat Bell Power-ups]], the cat-based enemies of the game include Cat Goombas, Cat Bullet Bills, Cat Banzai Bills and the final boss[[spoiler:, Meowser, the OneWingedAngel form of Bowser]].
** ''3D World's'' SpinOff game, ''VideoGame/BowsersFury'', released with the former game for Nintendo Switch, takes place in [[MagicalLand Lake Lapcat]], an archipelago inhabited by and based off of cats. Only this time, instead of just Goombas and the Bullet and Banzai Bills, ''all'' the enemies found in the previous game are seen as [[AnimalMotif cat versions, all possessing the usual cat features, such as ears, fur and tails]]. [[spoiler:Also included are Lapcat's resident cats, who start off friendly and helpful, at first, but become corrupted by the power of Fury Bowser, Bowser's other cat form, when Mario and [[EnemyMine Bowser Jr.]] have to fight him.]]

* ''WebAnimation/DarkSecretsOfGarrysMod'': [[ExaggeratedTrope {{Exaggerated}}]] in ''Garry's Mod Sötét Titkai 2'' where [=KillerTankHUN=] was [[BlackComedyRape raped]] to death by a cat.

* This compilation, appropriately named [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wA319ZtkTQ "Cats are assholes"]].

** In the ''WesternAnimation/AliceComedies'' Disney made before creating Mickey, Pete is a non-descript bearlike creature. Alice is also accompanied by a non-villainous cat named Julius.

** The main villain of the first act of [[WesternAnimation/MiscellaneousDisneyShorts ''Goliath II'']] is a tiger named Rajah (no relation to the nice, similarly-named tiger from ''WesternAnimation/{{Aladdin}}''), who is constantly trying to eat the titular elephant. He is ultimately defeated by being tossed into [[WesternAnimation/PeterPan a crocodile's]] mouth, but later crawled out unharmed and ran away, never to be seen again.

* The [[LittleBitBeastly Crazy Old Cat Lady]], a recurring VillainOfTheWeek in ''WesternAnimation/CodenameKidsNextDoor'', is a CrazyCatLady [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin both literally and figuratively]], being [[AnimalMotif half-human]], [[CatGirl half-cat]] and owning a large amount of cats who follow her every evil command, even having the ability to MakeMyMonsterGrow on herself.

** Parodied. The ShowWithinAShow "JustForFun/TheItchyAndScratchyShow" features a subversion -- Itchy and Scratchy magnifies the degree of sadism with which Jerry treated Tom. Itchy and Scratchy just removes the "he started it" justification. Scratchy the cat is [[DumbIsGood dumb and nice]], believing Itchy to be his friend, while Itchy conspires to kill him for no reason whatsoever. Sometimes, Scratchy, the cat, tries to team up with Itchy, the mouse. Itchy always takes this opportunity to launch an appallingly violent surprise attack.

* Chloe in ''WesternAnimation/TheSecretLifeOfPets'' is a downplayed version, being snarky and at times, rude, but still being a friend to the main characters and several other characters. Played straight with every other cat in the movie, though.
* Gus of ''WesternAnimation/CraigOfTheCreek'' has only appeared a few times, but always causes trouble when he does. In one episode, he even threatens to put Craig's grandfather in the hospital, claiming he did the same to his own owner.
** J.P's cat, Goo, on the other hand, averts this trope completely. The only time she shows any anatgonis is when J.P. tries to take away her favorite toy.

** J.P'S cat, Goo, on the other hand, averts this trope completely. The only time she shows any anatgonis is when J.P tries to take away her favorite toy.

* Literature/Mouseheart: Played straight with Queen Felina and her band of ferals, who terrorize the subway stations of Brooklyn and force RatKing Titus to offer up rodents for them to hunt and kill for their own amusement. Averted with Ace however, a cat who befriends Hopper, and even helps defeat Felina.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs'' wouldn't argue about this. Gargamel has a ''really'' nasty cat named [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Azrael]] who views them the same way most cats do mice.

* In both ''Bakeneko'' arcs of ''Anime/{{Mononoke}}'', the antagonist takes the form of a giant, monstrous cat. [SubvertedTrope Subverted]] with the fact that both times, they were created from humans being assholes. The first arc's bakeneko started as a cute, friendly kitten whose only violent act was [[spoiler: in defense of its owner]]. Overarching moral? Cats are sweet, innocent, and only ever want to help.

* ''WesternAnimation/SWATKats'' takes place on an alien planet inhabited by anthropomorphic cats. Thus, some of them are good and some evil. The RoguesGallery of villainous cats in the series includes Dark Kat (BigBad crime boss), Doctor Viper (a half-reptilian MadScientist), the Metallikats ([[OutlawCouple married gangsters]] brought BackFromTheDead as {{Killer Robot}}s), Hard Drive (a [[DigitizedHacker computer hacker]] with the ability to override machinery and travel through {{Cyberspace}} with a special jacket), the Pastmaster (a {{Time Travel}}ing sorcerer), and Madkat (a MonsterClown with magical powers).