Cartoon character Pepe Le Pew will not appear in the sequel to Space Jam, according to an announcement that comes after a New York Times column argued the character perpetuates rape culture.
A scene of Pepe Le Pew for the Warner Bros. movie was cut back in June 2019 but was only reported on Sunday after the character was criticized in the New York Times column.
“Pepe was set to appear in a black-and-white Casablanca-like Rick’s Cafe sequence. Pepe, playing a bartender, starts hitting on a woman at the bar played by [actress Greice Santo]. He begins kissing her arm, which she pulls back, then slamming Pepe into the chair next to hers. She then pours her drink on Pepe, and slaps him hard, sending him spinning in a stool, which is then stopped by LeBron James’ hand,” Deadline reported of the scene that was cut.
“James and Bugs Bunny are looking for Lola, and Pepe knows her whereabouts. Pepe then tells the guys that Penelope cat has filed a restraining order against him. James makes a remark in the script that Pepe can’t grab other Tunes without their consent.”
The announcement comes after columnist Charles Blow wrote a piece last week that stated, “Some of the first cartoons I can remember included Pepe Le Pew, who normalized rape culture.”
He also repeated the comment this weekend in tweets.
“RW blogs are mad bc I said Pepe Le Pew added to rape culture. Let’s see. 1. He grabs/kisses a girl/stranger, repeatedly, w/o consent and against her will. 2. She struggles mightily to get away from him, but he won’t release her 3. He locks a door to prevent her from escaping,” Blow tweeted Saturday.
“This 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 overcoming a woman’s strenuous, even physical objections, was normal, adorable, funny. They didn’t even give the woman the ability to SPEAK,” he said.
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The cut scene sparked the ire of actress and advocate for women Greice Santo, who plays the woman opposite Pepe, because she said it finally portrayed the skunk getting a comeuppance for his behavior.
“This was such a big deal for Greice to be in this movie. Even though Pepe is a cartoon character, if anyone was going to slap a sexual harasser like him, Greice wished it would be her. Now the scene is cut, and she doesn’t have that power to influence the world through younger generations who’ll be watching Space Jam 2, to let younger girls and younger boys know that Pepe’s behavior is unacceptable,” Santo’s spokesperson said.
