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Hulu’s new comedy series Dollface, starring Kat Dennings, has an interestingly bizarre feature in the first episode that subverts the stereotypical imagery of a woman as a lonely cat lady after a heartbreak.
Dollface is a story about a girl named Jules who gets dumped by her boyfriend and quickly realizes that due to her preoccupation with her relationship, she had let all her female friendships deteriorate over the years. But that's not the most striking factor of the first episode, this is - Beth Grant features as the cat-lady who shows up unannounced to pick Jules up in a Greyhound-style bus to take her back to her girlfriends whom she had neglected over the years.
Who is Beth Grant?
Beth Grant is an American actress who can be best identified as a series regular on the television comedy The Mindy Project, where she portrayed the role of Beverly Janoszewski. She is also known for her roles as Gracie Leigh in the post-apocalyptic drama Jericho, and as Marianne Marie Beetle in Wonderfalls.
On the silver screen, Grant is best known for her roles in films like Rain Man (1988), Child's Play 2 (1990), Speed (1994), Little Miss Sunshine (2006), and No Country for Old Men (2007). She has also portrayed the character of The Woman with Hair but No Beard in Netflix's A Series of Unfortunate Events.
Grant also identifies herself as a second-wave feminist and recognizes the importance of working with women in the industry. Her role in Dollface and her character as Jules' guide helped her realize the potential of the statement that women are each others' biggest support systems.
More about the Cat Lady in Dollface
The Cat Lady in the Hulu comedy series is not the kind of cat-lady that dominates stereotypical imagination - the image of a lonely woman with an unhealthy obsession with cats. She is quite literally a cat lady who has the body of a woman but the head of a giant cat. The Cat Lady appears to chaperone a lonely Jules back to her fun-filled life with her girlfriends which she had left behind due to her relationship. As bizarre as it may sound, Kat Dennings has commented on the matter saying,
“You kind of don’t really know what the deal is, if she’s in Jules’ imagination, or if she’s really there. Kind of like the Calvin and Hobbes thing — that’s what I call it. Is she a good presence, or is this some weird, dark, magical element? I really like that. As a viewer, I like being withheld from.”
Elements of magical realism are in abundance in Dollface and most of them involve the Cat Lady. She pops up as a bus driver, a cat therapist who facilitates discussions between Jules and her cat Turtle, and a game show host for a game of "Should She Go Out?"
Through all this the Cat Lady encourages Jules to reconnect with her women friends and take back control of her life where she soon realizes that her friendships are probably the most meaningful relationships in her life.
