In the 2007 animated film Ratatouille, the rodent protagonist, Remy, is taken by his father to see the shop window of a Parisian rat catcher for a lesson in the laws of the universe. Alongside shelves packed with lethal rodenticides, dead rats swing by their necks from a makeshift gibbet. This, the young Remy is warned, is what happens when rats dare get too close to humans. Their world is one that belongs to an enemy.