That Cats Joke at the Oscars Has the Movie's VFX Team Snarling

Visual effects artists and some of the cast of Cats are currently fighting like... well, like cats and dogs after two of the movie’s stars blamed bad visual effects for the film’s disastrous reception during a presentation at this year's Academy Awards.

Rebel Wilson and James Corden (also known by their fursonas, Jennyanydots the Gumbie Cat and Bustopher Jones, respectively), appeared at the Oscars to present the Best Visual Effects award while dressed as their film characters. “Nobody more than us understands the importance of good visual effects!” the pair said, making sure to show off their completely bare hands, a dig at an especially infamous VFX failure from the box office disaster. The Visual Effects Society didn’t take to kindly to the joke—and the implication that it was effects artists’ fault that Cats was a flop.

"Last night, in presenting the Academy Award for outstanding visual effects, the producers chose to make visual effects the punchline, and suggested that bad VFX were to blame for the poor performance of the movie Cats," the VES told Variety in a statement. "The best visual effects in the world will not compensate for a story told badly. The Visual Effects Society is focused on recognizing, advancing, and honoring visual effects as an art form—and ensuring that the men and women working in VFX are properly valued."

On Twitter, there was an even more personal response to Corden and Wilson’s diss. Yves McCrae, who worked for Moving Pictures Company, which did the VFX for Cats, called out the two actors for their remarks—actors who, let’s not forget, did cash hefty paychecks for their roles in the movie they lampooned on Sunday night.

“Hey guys I haven’t watched all of the Oscars but I assume these two were really classy and thanked me for working 80 hour weeks right up until I was laid off and the studio closed, right?” McCrae wrote.

Moving Pictures Company closed the Vancouver studio where McCrae worked last December, although the conglomerate has other locations still operating. Incidentally, the now-shuttered Vancouver studio was tasked with the last-minute redesign of the initially horrifying upcoming live-action Sonic the Hedgehog, which just adds insult to injury.

At Sunday's ceremony, for the record, 1917 won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects, (and to be clear, the WWI epic and also every other nominee looked leagues better than Cats did). But the overworked, under-recognized visual effects artists who dutifully did what their misguided bosses told them to do are perhaps not the people everyone should be pointing fingers at. There’s more than one way to skin Cats, and the VFX are hardly where haters should start. Corden and Wilson’s anti-Cats joke might have worked even better if they’d presented the Best Director Oscar and dunked on Tom Hooper—and we would’ve gotten to see Bong Joon-Ho react to them as an added bonus.

Good luck looking away!

Originally Appeared on GQ