The most talked about short story of 2017–or at least of December 2017–was a New Yorker story by Kristen Roupenian entitled “Cat Person.” It was discussed in hallways and on-line, on commuter trains and in classrooms. In fact, even the photo accompanying the story in the magazine’s pages went viral and has been subjected to much analysis in itself.

The photo for “Cat Person”  (Photograph by Elinor Carucci for The New Yorker)

To sum the story up, Margot, a young twenty-something college student meets Robert, an older man in the movie theater where she sells refreshments. After a second encounter, they begin texting each other and her initial hesitancy morphs into a realistic and charming internal battle of should-I-shouldn’t I.

The texting in the story is clever and does not feel forced. The turmoil that the young woman goes through is believable and sweet. And the man himself is a lovable bear.

It’s when they finally do get together when she returns to college from winter break that the story fails for me. Robert shows himself to be a bit of a “schlub.”  He is well meaning, but he is clumsy with himself and with her, and when it comes to their sole sexual escapade, he is both maladroit and ignorant.

Her condescension and abandonment of him finally forces him into petty meanness.

All of this reminds me of the early Marlene Dietrich film, The Blue Angel.  Made in 1930 (in both a German and English version) by Joseph Von Sternberg, the film features Marlene Dietrich as Lola Lola and Emil Jannings (in his first talking film) as Immanuel Rath, an elderly literature professor who becomes smitten with Lola who sings and dances at the eponymous cabaret “The Blue Angel.” While he has initially come to the cabaret to chase his students from such entertainments, he falls deeper and deeper for the sultry Lola. And as he falls for her, the orderly professor becomes more and more ridiculous and more and more an object of fun to Lola and her companions.

In the end, there is heartbreak.

It is there that I see the similarities. Neither the antagonist in “Cat Person” or Professor Rath in The Blue Angel are bad people. They are simply out of their element and ignorant as to how to cope. They are ordinary people in their respective worlds, but they become “schlubs” in the worlds of college romance and Berlin nightlife, respectfully–older men out of touch with the changing world around them

It is easier to empathize with Rath–Dietrich’s character Lola seems cruel and heartless much of the time–but Robert can also be seen as sympathetic. In “Cat Person,” Margot is also mean-spirited and self-centered. Her treatment of Robert–both during their date and after–is cold, perhaps undeservedly so.

But then 2017 is different than 1930, and Margot’s intuition may be pointing her in the right direction.