Release the character of Pepé Le Pew

Pepé Le Pew, the stinky skunk of French origin created by Warner Bros. in the Looney Tunes animated stories and characterized by following a cat to kiss her convinced that she can’t resist her charms, she came out.

The cartoon is one of the last animated characters to face a review because of the inappropriate messages it “normalizes”. In his case, violence against women.

In recent days, Warner has announced a decision to release the character precisely for the “normalization” of incorrect messages. And now, the director of “Space Jam: A New Legacy”, Malcolm D. Lee, has edited the scene in which that character appeared.

According to what happened, Pepé Le Pew is in a sequence of the animated film that premieres on July 16 in which he emulates the film “Casablanca” in which he represents a bartender flirting with a woman. In a repeated sequence since its creation in 1945, the skunk begins to kiss the woman’s arm, but she pushes him and hits him with a chair; She tosses her drink to him and slaps him, letting him spin in his chair.

At that moment, LeBron James and Bugs Bunny arrive, looking for Lola Bunny. Pepé tells them that he knows where she is and accidentally tells them that the cat Penelope (the character who is harassed in dolls) has filed a restraining order against her. Then LeBron James warns him that he cannot touch others without their consent.

The decision to remove the scene was not to the liking of Greice Santo (“Jane the Virgin”), who expresses the character of the woman who confronts Pepé, because, as a victim of sexual harassment, he considered that on the stage the skunk received in the the latter deserved by her.

Although he is assured that it is not a related decision, the truth is that the news of Pepé Le Pew’s removal from “Space Jam 2” coincides with the publication of an opinion piece in The New York Times last weekend, in which Charles Blow assured that Pepe Le Pew “normalizes the culture of rape” and that he raised a discussion about the social representations that dolls make in popular culture.

In recent days, Dr. Seuss Enterprises has announced that it will stop selling six of its books that “distort people in a bad and bad way.”

In his column, Blow claims that Le Pew repeatedly tries to kiss the other character without their consent, and no matter how hard he tries to run away, he doesn’t give in and even locks the door.

The columnist also criticized the portraits of puppets such as Speedy González, who help “popularize the corrosive stereotype of drunk and lethargic Mexicans”; or the supporting character who appears in “Tom and Jerry” known as Mammy Two Shoes, stigmatized as “a black maid who spoke with a strong accent.”

The elimination of Pepé Le Pew is not the only change from the next “Space Jam”, because the character Lola Bunny will have a less sexualized image.

Director Lee was responsible for the change, because while the rest of the anthropomorphic drawings have a childish look, Lola Iepuraș’s attributes and clothing highlighted her sexual characteristics.

“Lola Bunny was very sexualized, like a Betty Boop combined with Jessica Rabbit,” the director told Entertainment Weekly.

Among the details that surprised Lee in the previous film, released in 1996, is the fact that the rest of the characters called Lola Bunny with nicknames such as “hot” and “heart of pimples”, in addition to the fact that her wardrobe was significantly shorter than the rest .

“We are in 2021. It is important to reflect the authenticity of strong and capable female characters,” said the director.