Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein… Pepe Le Pew? No, that can’t be right. I mean, it’s not wrong.
[sighs] Explain it to me. The overly-flirtatious skunk from Looney Tunes has been accused of promoting rape culture. And he’s also been cut from LeBron James’ upcoming Space Jam reboot.
Did Looney Tunes character Pepe Le Pew normalise rape culture?Credit:
How did we get here? The stink was raised in an article from New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow last week, who was writing about the decision by Dr Seuss’ publishers to no longer reprint six titles due to their racist and insensitive imagery. Recalling problematic pop culture from his childhood, Blow wrote that Pepe Le Pew “normalised rape culture”.
Come on, he’s just a cartoon skunk. And French. Blow’s claim isn’t even a new perspective on Pepe. Way back in his 2000 standup special Killin’ Them Softly, comedian Dave Chappelle had a famous bit about revisiting Pepe Le Pew cartoons as an adult with his nephew. “Good god, what kind of f—ing rapist is this guy! Take it easy, Pepe!” Chappelle quipped.
The joke hit precisely because we all remember Le Pew’s shtick. Take 1949’s Oscar winner For Scent-imental Reasons, which features Le Pew mistaking Penelope Pussycat for a female skunk and chasing her endlessly around town as she tries to evade his aggressive advances (not to mention his threats of suicide if she doesn’t reciprocate).
Sure, when you put it that way… In a follow-up viral Twitter post breaking down a scene from 1960’s Who Scent You?, Blow further argued that Le Pew’s hijinks “helped teach boys that ‘no’ didn’t really mean no, that it was a part of ‘the game’, the starting line of a power struggle”. “It taught that overcoming a woman’s strenuous, even physical, objections was normal, adorable, funny,” he wrote.
So Pepe Le Pew’s cancelled? Perhaps. According to Deadline, he won’t be appearing in Space Jam: A New Legacy, the sequel to Michael Jordan’s 1996 cult classic, with his filmed appearance set to end up on the editing room floor. Deadline says the decision had “nothing to do” with Blow’s recent remarks but the timing of the revelation is interesting.
Wait. What happened in the deleted scene? According to Deadline, the scene – directed by Terence Nance (Random Acts of Flyness), who departed the project over creative differences just a month after filming began – spoofed on Casablanca‘s Rick’s Cafe Americain with Pepe playing a bartender who starts hitting on a woman at the bar, played by Brazilian actress Greice Santo.
