How Fritz the Cat Deconstructed 1960s America

Animation has evolved from being exclusive to children’s stories to a medium that could cover any topic or theme that one could think of. Because of this, its boundaries were continuously challenged by new artists who sought to make it a serious art form that featured complex or controversial narratives. This change in the world of animation can be traced back to one film: Ralph Bakshi’s 1972 Fritz the Cat.

Content Warning: This post contains discussions that some readers may find sensitive or offensive. If you feel uncomfortable, it’s okay to stop reading. Reader discretion is advised.

The character Fritz dates back to 1965. He first appeared in a self-published magazine by cartoonist Robert Crumb, a genius of the medium who would later move to San Francisco with his wife to take part in the counterculture movement. He would also become a heavy drug user, something that is depicted in great detail in Terry Zwigoff’s 1994 documentary titled Crumb.

Ralph Bakshi saw the character and became very interested in adapting his story for the silver screen. He struggled in the process to get funding as producers were put off by the story’s inclusion of sex, drugs, and racial issues.

The production of Fritz the Cat was very bumpy, but in the end, the film was made with a budget of $700,000 and went on to earn over $90 million worldwide. Its financial success wasn’t synonymous with critical appraisal, however. The film was heavily criticized for its graphic content, its sexual themes, and its mockery of the left-wing movement. Even the original creator Robert Crumb didn’t approve of Bakshi’s adaptation of his character at all.

1960s America: A Nation in Motion

The sixties were a pivotal decade in the USA. The Civil Rights Movement was making important strides, freedom and change were being preached by singers, poets, authors, and just about anybody with a platform. Everything was changing and one could feel this in the air. Bob Dylan took the stage in Newport in 1965 and sang the words “How does it feel? To be on your own with no direction home,” and captured an entire generation. The Beats in New York were deeply engrossed in their world of drugs and literature. The hippies wanted love, music, and peace. As the opening lines of Fritz the Cat describe it: “Happy times, heavy times.”

The film opens with a scene of construction workers having a conversation about raising girls who are supposed to go to college, have an education, get married, and start a family. Instead, these girls wind up moving in with guys and breaking their parents’ dreams. This conversation was actually recorded by director Ralph Bakshi, who paid a few construction workers some money so that he could use their conversation in his film. One of them rises and starts urinating from the top of the crane, as he does this the film cuts to the credits. This raw opening scene sets the tone for the remainder of the film.

Next, we are in Washington Square in New York where we meet our protagonist for the first time. Fritz and two of his buddies show up to the square with their guitars to play protest songs and impress girls. Folk music was making a big comeback in 1960s New York. It was being played everywhere—in the parks, streets, cafes, and bars. Names like Bob Dylan, Dave Van Ronk, and Joan Baez were starting their careers at this time.

In this anthropomorphic tale, all the characters are animals, and some groups, or more specifically, races, are given an animal to represent them. This choice, which proved to be very controversial, is first noticeable in this scene when the three girls are extremely attracted by a crow that is supposed to represent an African-American person. The three girls, or bunnies in this case, rush to the crow and start making condescending remarks about their interest and fascination with Black culture, saying things like “I’ve read everything James Baldwin has written or I never knew you people were so civilized.” To their shock, the crow leaves after saying, “I’m no n-word.”

Fritz uses this opportunity and rushes in leaving his friends behind, and starts a dramatic monologue about his tortured soul and his artistic suffering in an effort to impress the girls. This ends up working like a charm. As he continues rambling on about his great experiences in life, the girls follow him to a friend’s house where he suggests a healing and learning expression known as naked closeness, a pseudo-intellectual rewording of sex, and impressed by his big words, the girls follow.

The scenes that follow are one of the biggest reasons Fritz the Cat earned its notorious status back in the early 1970s. These scenes are full of graphic depictions of sexual acts and drug use that make a parody out of the free-love movement that started in 1960s America. Very soon we are introduced to the film’s second generic representation—cops are portrayed as pigs. While this comparison has grown in popularity over the following decades, that wasn’t the case when the film first opened in 1972. The pigs break the party in a failed clumsy attempt to display authority, and while they are easily distracted by all the naked girls having an orgy in the bathroom, they do manage to cause damage and end up beating the whole party down to a pulp, with the exception of Fritz who manages to escape.

The next scene is set at a synagogue as Fritz attempts to hide from the cops in its bathrooms only to end up fornicating with a lady in the women’s bathroom. Once the cops enter, one of them is revealed to be a Jew, asking his colleague to keep his voice low out of respect for his people. As this scene progresses, it is easy to read it as anti-semitic since it mocks the chants, the holy texts, and the devotion of the attendees. Towards the end of the scene, the radio turns on, first playing a Nazi speech which sends the whole room into a terrified silence. This sound is soon replaced by a news station declaring that America has agreed to send more arms to Israel and the room erupts in celebration. The political and ideological implications of this scene are very controversial and are one of the biggest reasons Fritz the Cat was criticized upon its release.

Nevertheless, Fritz manages to escape once again, back to his dorm room. He finds all his friends buried deep in books and homework. He gets increasingly frustrated with their devotion to studying as he keeps trying to strike up conversations with them. Fritz then goes on a long rant about the dullness of university in comparison with all the adventures that life can give. These are all adventures that he feels entitled to as a writer and poet. University education, and indeed, intellectualism in general, were very much in fashion in the era, but at the same time, there were groups that opposed this approach to life and opted for something less cerebral and more tangible. This Jack Kerouac philosophy which Fritz so clearly endorses leads him to burn all of his books and notes, burning down the whole building with it in the process, and leaving for a bar in Harlem that is shown as full of crows.

It is very clear that Fritz is not welcome there. The bartender even spits in his drink before handing it to him. But Fritz is soon rescued by a friendly crow who befriends him to some extent and keeps him company in the bar. Then they leave the bar and their mischievous adventures commence. First, the crow steals a car for a joyride, and together, they head to the house of a drug dealer who’s friends with the crow. This female crow who is given sexual features tempts Fritz after giving him a generous amount of marijuana but then mocks him.

Fritz gets the idea that he should “tell the people about the revolution” and heads out to the streets of Harlem to give a speech about the people’s need to stand up for themselves and fight back against oppression. Once things get heated and the cops show up, killings occur amidst the crows and Fritz simply runs away. He then runs into a girlfriend who sneaks him out of New York. On his trip across the US, he once again runs into revolutionaries and participates in their plans without much thought.

Fritz is a parody (or a mockery even) of the mid-century intellectual activists. He disregards education as a waste of time and a poor alternative to the wonders of life but simultaneously uses it as a tool to impress girls. Fritz plays folk music, the genre that scored this great decade, but again for the same purposes. He preaches change and calls for revolution, but is too scared to participate in the change himself. The left-wing intellectual in Fritz the Cat is painted as pretentious and cowardly. While this portrayal is obviously caricatural, its criticisms are not rooted in fiction only.