Pepe Le Pew Is Not A Role Model
Pepe Le Pew, amirite?
We’ll be circling back to him in a minute, but first I want to talk to you about India.
You may not be aware of this, but there is, at present, a human rights travesty happening in India. According to The Guardian, right now India is the least safe country to be a woman on Earth, with a woman or girl raped every 20 minutes. Because many of the victims are lower caste, the crimes are not typically investigated unless they’re horrifying in severity, and even if they are, are oftentimes not prosecuted. Of course, this statistic does not capture the many, many more women who are harassed, groped, molested, and who were too afraid to report their assault to the police.
Today I read a thread on Twitter about this terrible situation, and some uninformed person who will remain unnamed chimed in to ask the following:
The assumption underlying this tweet is that the reason a woman is raped every twenty minutes in India is because they must have some manner of inferior “rape culture” that needs to be “fixed” and that is in no way racist/ethnophobic either BTW.
A whole lot of people believe “rape culture” and not human choices are what creates rape. “Rape culture” causes rape, and these same people generally believe that “culture” is something that is very trivial and easy to change, like defeating racism by striking images of Aunt Jemima from boxes of pancake mix. People who believe in “rape culture” tend to believe that Pepe been a bad, bad boy, and Pepe needs to go.
Supposedly, if not for “rape culture” human men would be just big ol’ snuggle bunnies despite repeatedly proving themselves to be the most dangerous animals on the face of the globe in pretty much every other purview. Hey, let’s interview this passenger pigeon about how kind and gentle men are in the absence of Pepe Le Pew, shall we? Oh wait, we can’t, because passenger pigeons are all dead. Somehow, amazingly, men hunted passenger pigeons to extinction despite never once seeing a comical cartoon skunk doing it.
You may have detected some sarcasm in my previous paragraph. That’s because I have a pretty hard time believing that men rape because of Pepe Le Pew. Because that’s what we’re being told, right? We are being told that Pepe Le Pew is part of rape culture just like Han Solo and Prince Charming kissing Sleeping Beauty without her consent, and if only we eliminate these characters from the pantheon of pop culture, rape will up and vanish, or something, I guess – the details are hazy. Maybe somebody slipped me a roofie.
Because apparently, even though rape is supposedly not at all innate to humanity, all it takes to turn a normal decent guy into a rapist is the slightest incidental contact with a fictional character. Apparently, even though “not all men”, all it takes is seeing a horny cartoon skunk to turn a good man bad. Men are pure of soul and clean of heart, until they see a cartoon character, and then watch out!! The inherent purity of the human male, so fragile, so delicate, dangling by the slimmest of gossamer threads, will be corrupted. A switch gets flipped and then bazinga, altar boys turn into Matt Lauer and Harvey Weinstein entirely against their will.
That girls can see this same cartoon character and not turn into a sexual harasser is somehow not relevant to this convo.
Using this logic, even though they don’t even show kissing in Bollywood movies, somehow India’s rape crisis must somehow be caused by “rape culture”.
Rape, I hate to inform you all, is part of the human condition. It is something human males do to human females, (and in some cases other human males, but that is not my story to tell). If you are a human female, you already know this because I don’t think there’s a one of us who hasn’t gotten those icy fingers down your spine when you encounter a dude who is considering doing it to you. Even if he changes his mind, and fortunately they usually do, you know it was on the table for a time, even if the man in question was never fully aware, he was thinking about it. You know it in your gut even if you were unfailingly polite the whole time since that’s what society taught you to do – constantly question your instincts of getting the hell away from there because you don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, because the worst thing a woman can ever do is hurt a man’s feelings. You know it even if you later go on to be friends or more than friends with said guy.
You can uncover this indisputable fact that men rape women by studying humanity – rape is found in all human culture, even, shockingly, those that came into existence before Looney Tunes. Punishments for rape are codified right into the most ancient sets of laws we are privy to. Laws against rape predated the existence of Pepe Le Pew by a solid three millennia. Rape was invented long before cuneiform, and both scientists and historians alike believe rape occurred long before our ancestors were ever even what we recognize as people.
Long story short, the idea that Pepe Le Pew is the driving force behind rape is ahistorical, unscientific, and completely ludicrous when judged dispassionately by the laws of common sense. It’s probably more legit to say it was a short skirt (but don’t say that either). Men rape women for a lot of reasons that are beyond the scope of this piece. But the biggest reason is that they wanted to.
Some of you are probably pretty offended by this, and would like to give me some song and dance stating “but rape is about POWER” or “not all men tho” depending on your political persuasion. But surely my fair-minded masculine friends, supposed purveyors of manly logic over girly emotion, surely you must admit that regardless of the whys and wherefores and whosits and whatsits, if you’re walking around as the human equivalent of a loaded gun, you can’t fault a girl for not wanting to play Russian Roulette with you. You’re the greatest guy in the whole wide world, undoubtedly. I know you, and I know you would never, ever. You’re just a really realistic looking Nerf Gun. But that guy over there, who knows, and so it simply behooves all women to treat every gun we encounter as potentially loaded.
Until that gun goes off, you don’t know if there’s a bullet or a foam dart in it, so please do not question my desire to protect myself, to protect others, from that hulking TotallyNotYou over there, who would also swear on a stack of religious tomes that he would never, ever, either. Women have some pretty valid reasons to take the possibility of rape with great seriousness, thus dismissing/diminishing female concerns in this regard, and acting all butthurt when we have said concerns is really exceedingly crappy.
To put it another way, attributing rape to Pepe Le Pew somehow controlling the male brain (which some of you claim is sooo much smarter and dispassionate than the female brain) is so damn insulting it nearly flabbergasts me. It insults my intelligence, and worse, it’s insulting to my safety because it trivializes and beclownifies the motives that lay beneath rape. If it’s so easy for a man to succumb to his darker instincts that the presence or absence of a cartoon skunk triggers the reaction, maybe, just maybe, menfolk aren’t trustworthy enough to have around, even the ones that are Nerfs.
Now hold on, there, missy, I can hear some of you saying. I KNOW you believe in toxic masculinity because I’ve read your stuff and you’ve talked about it in the past.
And it’s true. I do believe culture has a role to play in imparting ethical values, up to and including “hey douche, rape is bad, mmmkay”.
Or as I have mentioned in the past:
You may point out that Pepe Le Pew does this stuff, and you would be quite right. He’s like a poster boy for bending the rules of consent, so therefore he’s a bad guy, right?? Surely little children shouldn’t see such a thing on their morning cartoon shows?
But Pepe Le Pew, unlike a whole lot of other guys the media parades out before and rubs into the faces of our nation’s impressionable children, is not portrayed as an aspirational figure. He’s the JOKE. The animators and by extension, the audience, are making fun of him and by extension, all men who behave in a boorish, sexually aggressive way.
You see, the thing with Pepe Le Pew is, he’s a skunk. He stinks. The pretty pussycat doesn’t want to be with him and he refuses to take the hint. We laugh and laugh at how clueless he is. No one, but no one, sees Pepe Le Pew and thinks “when I grow up, I want to be THAT guy”. (unlike Bugs Bunny, who is cool as f*ck, and is totally aspirational.)
Banning Pepe Le Pew doesn’t undo all the myriad examples of toxic masculinity and rape culture that exist, including the massive and unignorable things that exist in our culture that DID NOT COME from works of fiction. Banning Pepe Le Pew doesn’t erase the impact of thousands of other sources telling boys to get laid at any cost in order to be a man. Nor does it erase the impact of thousands of sources telling girls that cool chicks put out in the face of pressure, and if you do it the boy will love you forever and ever, and the even more thousands of sources telling women to doubt their instincts and they shouldn’t hurt boys’ feelings and “not all men”. Banning Pepe Le Pew simply eliminates one of the few things in media that is warning against boorish male behavior!
To put it another way, no one wants to be Pepe Le Pew, any more than they want to be the eternally defeated Wile E. Coyote. These are not aspirational figures! But a whole lot of dudes consume massive amounts of media in which women are mocked, scorned, belittled, treated as objects, and media in which men who treat women badly are painted as thoroughly justified, insanely cool, and get lots of play. Any men you encounter in said media who attempt to be chivalrous, kind, loving, or cooperative are belittled as betas and cucks. A whole lot of dudes watch PUA on YouTube; a whole lot of girls find dates on Tinder, swiping right to be treated as a cum dumpster for some dude who will never call them again, enthusiastically consenting all the while because that’s the message they got loud and clear from the media they consumed.
My friends, we’ve walked into the doctor’s office to inquire about a hangnail when we’re actually dying of leprosy.
Banning Pepe Le Pew simply takes away information about the world from children, information that it is sadly of paramount importance to learn somewhere along the way. (Trust me, learning that the world we were told was safe actually wasn’t the hard way like so many of us have had to, sucks and is terrible and can haunt you the rest of your life – both emotionally and physically, because lest we forget that sex, let alone rape, can have very real physical and mental consequences for women that last a lifetime). Girls need to learn that men like Pepe le Pew and Harvey Weinstein exist, and boys need to learn that in a functional society, being a man like Pepe or Harvey renders one ridiculous and unlovable and the butt of everyone’s joke.
The real question about men and rape is not why do men rape, since it’s obviously a part of human nature to rape (of course, just because something is natural, doesn’t make it desirable, don’t @ me folks), but why do they NOT?
And the weird answer to that question is that answer is also “culture”.
Culture does transmit values, boy howdy, does it ever! But if you take one thing away from this piece make it this: the WAY we impart values is not always or even usually a case of straight up mimicry. If it was, those rebellious youths of the 60’s who grew up with Dick and Jane and pledging allegiances to flags and learning that the policemen were their friends would never have thought to become hippies and rebel. Whatever “culture” creates in the hearts and minds of small human beings, it CANNOT be a case of straight replication because if it was, culture would never change, it would stagnate, and we would pass down the same culture as human beings over and over again throughout history and all around the world. Culture cannot be straight up mimicry, because if it was, it sure the hell would not have changed as rapidly as it has over the last 200 years.
Just because something unpleasant that human beings do is represented in culture doesn’t mean that it INFLUENCES culture in that way. I can listen to Martina Mc Bride’s song “Independence Day” all day long and not light my house on fire, and it’s a hell of a lot more inspirational than Pepe Le Pew. I listen to The Chicks sing “Goodbye Earl” and don’t feed my husband poison black eyed peas. Impoverished cancer victims can watch Breaking Bad and not sell meth. The things we see may make us think, may give us a better understanding of the world, but they do not directly affect our behavior.
Cultural values are not imparted by monkey see, monkey do, and they never have been. There are messages that kids take away from the things they see, including fiction, and they take those messages away in ways that are much more insightful and cleverer than simply imitating Pepe Le Pew as if they’re little programmable robots, garbage in, garbage out. One of the best, the very best ways to influence people against bad behavior is to turn said bad behavior into a joke. Archie Bunker was a great tool in the fight against racism because he revealed the truth about racists, that they were pitiful blustering idiots who were scared because they were dying out. And Pepe Le Pew demonstrates quite clearly that men who don’t take no for an answer are laughable buffoons that women should run from and the rest of us should laugh at.
Viewed through this lens, it makes far more sense for the folks behind Looney Tunes to ban Speedy Gonzalez than Pepe Le Pew, and the reason is that Speedy is a misrepresentation of Hispanic people (though many Mexicans, my family included, adore Speedy and would be irate if he was cancelled) and adds nothing to our lives other than comedic racism. Speedy Gonzales does not impart necessary information about how to navigate the world. Pepe Le Pew on the other hand absolutely DOES contain a life lesson in his very inception, and is highly informative about the types of people and situations you may encounter in this world. Speedy Gonzales is just a pointless stereotype. Pepe Le Pew is a warning.
I mean seriously, do you think Pepe Le Pew was made a skunk on accident? Of course not. Skunks are black and white for the same reason as monarch butterflies are so distinctively orange. A bird who tastes a monarch butterfly quickly learns to avoid them. You learn quick in this world that you don’t want to get close enough to a skunk to be sprayed by him, just the same as you don’t want to get close enough to a creep to get groped. My dudes, you don’t want to BE a stinky creep, either. Lesson imparted; lesson learned.
Something happened there in the world for a minute there and for a brief shining moment it was safe for women in a pitifully few nations on the planet. Not perfectly safe, but safer than we had been ever before in human history. Ironically, this brief shining moment of female freedom happened at the same time and place in which Pepe Le Pew was running amok.
And the geniuses of cancel culture want to ban every means by which women uncover the reality that men can be scum? You want to ban any and every representation of men behaving badly, and send women out into the world unwarned about the depths to which some men will happily sink to if allowed? You want to send women out unprepared and uninformed, into a world in which every incarnation of male sexuality is constantly elevated, celebrated, promoted as just this side of holy?
You can see attitudes of male entitlement in tens of thousands AITA Reddits, you can see them expressed in the pages of men’s magazines and pro-sex websites like Vice, you hear them expressed by MRA and incels and Jesse Kelly and his ilk on Twitter. You can see these toxic attitudes in movies and TV shows and commercials, and you can hear the sentiments expressed when men turn to each other and say, ‘I’d tap that”. Male entitlement, 2021-style, tells men, again and again, from just about every venue possible, that women are objects to be used sexually and discarded. At the same time, it tells women that if they want love, the way to get it is by letting themselves be used sexually and then discarded, and hope that maybe one of these times the dude will stay with you instead of chucking you in the garbage. And it tells a whole whole lot of men that the women who refuse this treatment are denying them what is theirs by divine right.
Just do it, Nike says. Just do it, our whole culture says. You deserve it. Take what you want. Don’t take no for an answer. I want it NOW! These are the messages we, especially we of the male persuasion, have drummed into our heads from countless sources. Is it any wonder some men take that message and extrapolate that into their own sexual entitlement?
Suffice it to say, we have bigger cultural fish to fry than Pepe Le Pew.
People, wake up – that glorification of sex, sex, sex as the highest pinnacle of human achievement, of trying to get laid as the most noble goal to which all mankind can aspire, IS rape culture. A culture that presents male sexuality as sacred and keeps women in the dark about their safety or lack thereof while telling them that they should put out at the drop of their panties because men NEED it, men deserve it, and you don’t want to hurt their precious manly feelings, IS rape culture. Whether it is in the US or India or Timbuktu, male entitlement is at the core of rape culture, and unfortunately getting rid of that is going to be a hell of a lot harder than banning a cartoon skunk. Because the reason why those attitudes are so endemic in fiction is because most fiction is made by men and it’s an attitude that is present in the men who are making fiction.
You guys want to chicken and egg this, I’ve seen you try it, but the reality is, rape culture comes from human culture and human culture comes from human minds and you can get rid of all the cartoon skunks and Han Solos in the whole wide world, you aren’t going to eradicate these attitudes from the wellspring they emerged from – the human brain. Even if you get rid of the very overt Pepe Le Pew, you won’t be able to get rid of the 10 zillion covert pro-rape-culture messages men receive every day over the course of their lives, at least not without creating a culture so restrictive it will be hell on earth. All we can do is warn, and Pepe Le Pew performed that function quite nicely.
Why do some of you want women to be unwarned in this world, anyway? Is it that your delicate sensibilities don’t like to be reminded of the reality of the world because it’s more comfy to you to live in your bubble and never look human nature in the face? Because that’s pretty shitty, serving up women like lambs to the slaughter, or perhaps a drunk girl at a frat party. The world SHOULD be safe, we whisper to young girls. IT SHOULD BE SAFE because people like Pepe Le Pew should not exist. Watch us wave our magic wands and make that bad skunk go away!
But Pepe doesn’t go away, now does he? He simply goes to work for NBC and has a button installed on his desk to lock the door from afar, he simply becomes famous and gives you a drink with drugs in it and gets away with it, for years and years he keeps on getting away with it. The Pepes among us do exist, it is inarguable that they exist, so many of them exist that you can take your “not all men tho” and shove it up your Nerf Dart Repository. The Harveys and Matts and Bills and Louies and all the many men who have gone unnamed for so long, exist, and preventing them from being represented in media – not celebrating them, but as a cautionary tale – does nothing to make them not exist. It only makes women not expect them when they enter our lives. And they may even make people with skunky tendencies to be less aware of their own foibles, to be more likely to indulge their darkest instincts, because no one ever held up a mirror to their faces and showed them what their behavior really looked like from the outside. Because seeing it from the outside, ain’t nobody wants to be Harvey Weinstein.
There is a propensity among the people who engage in cancel culture to mistake things that make them uncomfortable with things that should be banned, even when things that make them uncomfortable are otherwise of artistic, educational, or philosophical value. I’ve written about this in the past regarding the movie A Star is Born and the character of Harley Quinn, both of which, like Pepe Le Pew, have strong elements of cautionary tales buried within an otherwise palatable story.
Just because a program shows a person doing a bad thing or being a bad person, this does not necessarily INSPIRE anyone to do a bad thing or be bad person. Cautionary tales are a very valuable weapon in the arsenal of imparting positive cultural norms and personal values. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a lesson that comes with a gripping or hilarious storyline attached to it is better received than a preachy preachfest, and can enable people who would not be otherwise receptive to such a message to receive one.
Thus, if, as a culture we decide some things are truly too toxic for our culture to withstand, and we choose to leave them in the past, we need to take great care we’re selecting the right things for the right reasons. Pepe Le Pew is a representative of behaviors and attitudes that are endemic, hellz yeah he is, but he is neither inspirational nor aspirational. Nor is he even the tip of the iceberg when it comes to rape culture.
At least Pepe Le Pew lays the issue where it belongs, at the feet of un-self-aware men, rather than telling women it’s THEIR fault for not being as strong and powerful as Captain Marvel.
When it comes to women’s rights, America ain’t India. Women have it pretty good here, but there are some pretty ugly undercurrents of misogyny swirling, coming at us from a variety of sources. I think a lot of us gals are starting to see that, and are waking up to realize that somehow, some way, despite the world being systemically oppressed by hordes of males of varying hues, that the end result of all of it is that a lot of people have suddenly simultaneously concluded that women are the Actual Bad Guys. A whole lot of people are expressing hate towards women these days, and there ain’t no hate like the hate men who hate women have burbling within.
And that, that right there, is the biggest driver of rape culture there is.
Banning Pepe Le Pew is like putting a band aid on a bullet hole. It does nothing to fix the problem, it only serves to make some people feel they did something to camouflage a problem that is potentially fatal.
To be honest, I always took Pepe Le Pew as a slightly mean joke on French men- he thinks he’s a great seducer, but he stinks. And, I gotta say, there are reasons why anyone who has shared space with old school French men might think that! Something funny I just learned is that, in France, he’s supposedly not dubbed as French- he’s supposed to be an Italian!
As for rape culture, I think it’s right that men across cultures commit rape, but I think it’s less about the committing than how societies respond to it, which does vary greatly. I mean, there’s a big difference between, say, the traditional Italian vendetta culture, where committing rape might well get you killed; and a culture where getting caught literally raping a passed out woman behind a dumpster can result in the rapist getting a slap on the wrist because, gosh, he has such a bright future ahead of him and we don’t want to screw that up.
So, I do think society needs to take the crime of rape much more seriously, but I also doubt that a cartoon skunk makes any difference in that regard.Report
1. Puts me in mind of how what the Brits used to call “the French Pox” was called “The English Disease” in France.
2. Banning Pepe – who is a joke and as Kristin pointed out, is meant as a joke at best and a horrible warning at worst – is EASY. Attacking the sleaziness of men in all levels of society (government, entertainment management, university administration, education, etc., etc.) or even considering that some women might act similarly* is HARD. So we do the easy things and pat ourselves on the back for doing SOMETHING.
It’s like me feeling good that I picked up and threw away the old envelope from a bill I paid last week while ants invade my kitchen because I spilled sugar and never cleaned it up.
*All the cases of high school teachers (often women in their 20s) “seducing” their male students. Even if it’s not statutory rape, there’s something really gross about the power dynamic and I admit I am always creeped out when I hear about a prof macking on one of their students – there is SUPPOSED to be a distance there.
I dunno, I found the Pepe cartoons funny when I was a teen, but maybe I was and am just a troglodyte? A lot of what passes for humor now does not amuse meReport
Yeah, I agree it’s just too easy and doesn’t actually change things. It reminds me of Wanda Sykes’s bit about how her entire life has changed once we all started saying African-American. She’s at the bank, “Oh, wait, you’re not giving me a loan because you think I’m Black! No, it’s an easy mistake- I’m *African-American*! So, I’ll take that in small bills…”
There definitely is some mid-20th century humor that hasn’t aged well. I think of the old boss chasing his young secretary around the desk to grope her, and you wonder “So, Grandpa, why was that funny again?” But, I think I’d find it much more cringe-inducing if someone was trying to make that joke today. It’s really why I don’t like SNL- the humor is often so hacky and outdated!
The older authority figure/younger lover dynamic really is creepy. It’s the *other* reason it’s hard to watch Woody Allen movies now, aside from the obvious- even if he wasn’t a sex offender, he relies *all the time* on that dynamic and, you think, Dude, why are you so afraid of women?
But, ya know, having my middle-aged wife leave me for a kid in his early 20s, I definitely agree that it’s not just men who are afraid of partners who are their own age!Report
Even the mid-century humor that aged well can be incomprehensible. Like the Illinois Nazi scene in Blues Brother. “His name is Elwood Blues and he’s a Catholic” said with only slightly less bile than a Nazi would say Jew or the N-word. A Silent, Baby Boomer, and Gen X would understand why a bunch of mid-West Nazis don’t like Catholics but Millennials and Gen Z would need an explanation on the big deal.Report
Yeah, I hadn’t thought of that one! Even in the 70s and 80s there are plenty of jokes that don’t quite make sense now. I had to look it up to remember what Belushi’s “When Kong dies, EVERYBODY cries!” was about.
I’ve been watching a lot of older comedies- circa 1930s- lately and one thing I keep thinking is there’s old humor that’s sort of hacky and insensitive, and that makes me cringe a *little* and then there’s humor that’s just kind of hacky and *meanspirited* and it’s a whole other level of discomfort.
F’rinstance, the Marx Brothers sometimes rely on racial stereotypes that are a little cringey- I watched “Go West” the other night again and the “Indian” characters are a little hokey. But I think it’s just mildly eye-rolling because the butt of the joke is always on the Marx brothers being an anarchic force in any cultural group. But, usually, everyone loves Harpo’s music. They always make themselves the butt of it and polite society as the straight man.
I also watched Mae West’s movie “Go West, Young Man” recently and I love Mae West, but man, there’s a really racist stereotype of a Black auto mechanic in there that was definitely typical of the era’s comedy, but really hurts to watch today. And I think it’s because he’s the butt of the joke and it’s a mean joke.
So, like many have said, Pepe is the butt of the joke and that makes a difference to me.Report
Another more minor example would be the German or Polish pride parade scene in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Ethnic white identity was still pretty strong in the mid-1980s but now nearly is all gone.
On LGM, a poster recently, and I think convincingly argued, that a lot of the current explosion in millennials and zoomers embracing different gender identities or trying to do reverse-passing is because of the collapse of the Yankee-WASP identity. Before World War II, the default American identity was a White Protestant from the British Isles/Northern Europe Even if you were upper middle class in education and mannerisms, if you were a Yankee-WASP of some sort, you didn’t belong to default America. Hence, Lace Curtain Irish and their Greek, Italian, Polish, German Catholic, etc. counterparts.
Slowly after World War II the Yankee-WASP identity slowly began to collapse. This collapse accelerated during the 1980s and 1990s and by the end of Clinton’s Presidency, no longer made sense. Every other ethnic white identity kind of went along into a generic white identity with the end of Yankee-WASP. So you had all these kids that would previously have a sub-national identity that no longer have one. The more right leaning ones embraced a white identity but the liberal ones needed something else as a replacement.Report
Yeah, that’s interesting. It’s true of most cities that are growing I suspect. I do remember every year hearing about Dyngus Day every year in Buffalo, but there’s a bit of a time warp there. And, alas, everybody’s Polish on Dyngus Day.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=everybody%27s+polish+on+dyngus+dayReport
The definition of “white” has changed such that many folks who were previously not considered white — or not considered ACTUALLY white — has grown. There is a bit of chicken-and-egg dynamic, where “whiteness” was offered to more recent European immigrant waves after initially being denied them (e.g., Irish, Italians) and subsequent generations of these groups embraced more and more of the American side of their hyphenated ethnicities.
Take my family:
Great-grandparents were Italian immigrants who lived in the basement of my mom’s home and never learned English. My grandma — born and raised in an Italian community in Jersey City was Italian first, Catholic second, and eventually American. She warned me not to goto college in the south because “the rebels will hate your Catholic blood.” Note: she was born 75 years after the Civil War.
My mom identifies as Italian-American but how much has sort of ebbed and flowed. Her first husband was half-Italian (giving my siblings and I 3/4 Italian blood but a big fat Polish name) and her second husband not Italian at all.
I’m white and Italian/Polish-American. So in 4 generations you have 4 very different experiences of whiteness and ethnicity in America. If you saw all 4 generations in a picture, you’d identify us as white undoubtedly. But those earlier generations didn’t see themselves as such AND others — particularly other whites — didn’t always see them that way either.
This doesn’t always flow that direction. Many groups from the Middle East/Southwest Asia/Northern Africa were previously seen as white but that all changed after 9/11.Report
I couldn’t agree more! Thanks for reading!Report
Totally! Thanks for reading!Report
One rape every 20 minutes is 72 per day, or about 26,280 per year. With a population of 1.3 billion, that comes to about 2 per 100,000. For comparison, South Africa’s rape rate is 130 per 100,000, Sweden’s is 60, the US’s is 30, France’s is 16, Germany’s is 9, Canada’s is 1.7, and Japan’s is 1.0:
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/rape-statistics-by-country
Now, of course, due to differing standards and underreporting rates, these numbers probably shouldn’t be taken at face value or used for international comparisons. But if we were to take that statistic at face value, it would suggest that India has one of the lowest rates of rape in the world, not the highest.Report
I know this isn’t really what your post is about, but I can’t resist the opportunity to point out the gross incompetence of journalists.Report
Really interesting data. The numbers across countries are probably not easily comparable, given the differences in laws and in willingness to report. The grim thing is that both India and South Africa have a lot of northern European cultural and legal structures, so the difference of nearly two orders of magnitude probably reflects the daily experience.Report
Rufus F. has the right take that Pepe is mean-spirited joke on mid-century French men by mid-century American men. He first appeared in 1945, at the end of World War II, so he might be the cheese eating surrender monkey of the mid-20th century.Report
One of the mild kerfuffles had to do with Pepe le Pew being removed from Space Jam 2: Electric Boogaloo because of, yes, the issues you talk about in the first half of your essay.
A culture of toxic masculinity that needs to be overcome! Discarded!
It feels like there’s no rhyme, reason, or limiting principle.
I mean, seriously: When was the last time that someone thought about Pepe le Pew prior to the Space Jam 2 announcement? The 90’s? The Oughts? When that WB Cartoons box set with the unskippable Whoopi intro was released?
I know that I hadn’t given him so much as a thought until it was announced that Pepe was cancelled.
Soon I will think about him for the last time and never think about him again.
And we’re going to have a situation where we look at those numbers from India and find ourselves asking how we, as wealthy liberals in the First World, could best re-educate these benighted people and return them to the feminist culture they had prior to being colonized by the British and made into misogynists.
I mean, assuming that we’ve fixed our own problems enough to the point where we can say that other people, not just us, need to change.Report
Well, there were probably three options here, right?
1.) Just plan not to include Pepe in the movie. What would the response have been? Would that have been seen as “cancelling” Pepe?
2.) Plan to include him, read the room, decide to cut his one scene. That is what happened. What has the response been? Was Pepe “cancelled”?
3.) Plan to include him and stick with the plan. What would the response have been? Would we have been talking more or less about Pepe?
At some point, someone had to make a decision as to whether or not to include Pepe. And Taz. And Tweety Bird. And whatever other characters were potential options for the movie. Pepe was either going to be in the movie or not in the movie. And my hunch is that no matter what the decision was or when it was made, there was going to be some level of kerfuffle. So the idea that no one would have thought about Pepe unless the movie folks did option #2 feels silly.
I would also contend that as someone who doesn’t have young children, you are probably less likely to think about these things than those of us who do. That isn’t a criticism but when I hear you say, “When’s the last time someone thought about Pepe le Pew prior to Space Jam 2?” my answer is, “Oh, man, I think about all those guys all the time! Whether it is because I’m actually deciding what to let my kids watch or simply because we do watch something that makes me think, “Man, they’re watching this and I was watching Pepe le Pew and things were so much better/worse back then!”Report
Have you seen Clockwork Orange?
Like, if I talk about the “Singing In The Rain” scene in Clockwork Orange, would you know what I was talking about?Report
So, I looked into all this. Here is a description of the since removed Pepe le Pew scene:
“According to the story, the skunk would’ve been living in the world of Casablanca when Bronny showed up to ask about the whereabouts of Lola Bunny. According to the description of the scene, Pepé tries to kiss a woman’s arm—she promptly slaps him—and LeBron gives him a lecture in consent.”
So, you don’t just have Pepe there, you’ve got Pepe doing Pepe things AND you’ve got a lecture on consent.
How do you envision conversation of the movie having gone (or, at least, Twitter conversation of the movie) with that scene in place? The Woke Police would have decried his inclusion at all and the actions he engaged in and the anti-Wokers would have wanted LeBron to just shut up and play ball and leave the lectures for somewhere else.
Anyway… I’m not seeing your whole point here. You seem to be saying that no one was talking about Pepe before the Space Jam decision to remove his scene (though it looks like Pepe was already in the news prior to that) and I’ve pointed out that those of us who watch media — new and old — with children are often talking/thinking about characters like Pepe le Pew. And now you’re talking about the Clockwork Orange gang, who I am familiar with.
Is your argument that you can’t include the Clockwork Orange gang and exclude Pepe? Is your argument that Pepe and his original scene should be in? Or that both should be out? Is there a difference between featuring a character as Pepe was to be and having the Droogs in the crowd in a background shot? Is it possible Pepe is also in the background somewhere and we just haven’t found him yet? Would that matter?
So… again… what is your point here?
Also, does it matter WHY Pepe was removed? Like, if his scene was cut because it was just trash or didn’t support the plot of the movie, is that okay? Or is Pepe now being controversial mean he can’t be removed from anything for any reason?
Because this take here sheds some different light on it:
“According to Deadline, which first reported on the deleted scene, the sequence was cut before Pepé Le Pew came under renewed scrutiny, including a New York Times column that said the character “normalized rape culture.”
A production source confirms the scene was removed from the “Space Jam” sequel after director Malcolm D. Lee boarded the project. The film’s original director, Terence Nance, left the production, and Pepé was never animated for the live-action footage that had been shot.”Report
Kazzy, please understand: I am not someone who sees Space Jam as an important part of my cultural heritage. I did not hear about Space Jam 2 and immediately think “they’re going to screw it up” and allow it to ruin the next two minutes of my mood.
I had heard that Pepe le Pew was removed from the flick and the argument turned to something to the effect of whether it was good that Pepe le Pew was removed from the flick because of important discussions like consent, toxic masculinity, and rape culture.
This happened, by the way, right smack dab in the middle of the Doctor Seuss kerfuffle.
And if you want to have me defend Pepe le Pew, I’m not going to. He was never one of my favorite cartoons from the era, while I’m one of those folks who agrees that French people are automatically comedy boosters (seriously, imagine a joke that begins “there was this guy”… now imagine a joke that begins with “there was this French guy”… see? Funnier!), there needs to be more than one note to the joke and Pepe le Pew is a one note joke.
If we agree that the Pepe le Pew scene fell flat because, dammit, nobody wants to see LeBron James give a speech about consent, hey. I am likely to agree. That’s probably something that, were it crowbarred into the movie, would fall flat. (Hey, they should bring in Kobe Bryant to give the speech! Was he available?)
My argument, such as it is, is that the Discourse was that It Was Good That Pepe le Pew Ain’t In The Movie. Why was it good that he’s not in there?
Well, because of toxic masculinity, male entitlement, and rape culture.
Okay. Sure.
Hey, the Clockwork Orange guys are in the film. Huh.
Well, you know. You have to understand. There are a lot of people out there who just know Malcom McDowell as the Phineas and Ferb guy who was also in that one Star Trek movie. A Clockwork Orange? Wasn’t that one of those old black and white movies?
(And I realize that I still don’t have an answer to my question. If I talk about the “Singing In The Rain” scene in Clockwork Orange, would you know what I was talking about?)Report
“My argument, such as it is, is that the Discourse was that It Was Good That Pepe le Pew Ain’t In The Movie. Why was it good that he’s not in there?”
I, personally, don’t care if Pepe le Pew is IN the movie. I would rather the scene as described not be in the movie because I don’t really want to field questions from my 6- and 8-year-old about, “What was THAT all about?” And not because I’m unwilling to have those conversations (see below re: The Sandlot) but because the scene (again, as described) just feels hamfisted in a weird way and not like the best way to actually explore whatever it is that it is trying to explore. So, I personally would rather they just put a retconned version of Pepe le Pew who has a sick handle and iffy jumper and interacts like all the other Tunes with his female counterparts OR they put in old school Pepe le Pew and let him act all awful and I can explain that or they just have him in the background or they not put him in there at all and I’d prefer all of that to what it sounds like the initially planned because having a character who my kids don’t know anything about act like a jerk and then get his comeuppance and than everyone gets a lecture in the middle of a movie that is best described as “Superstar Plus Cartoons Vs Aliens in basketball” just feels dumb and weird.
So… is it good that he’s not in there? I dunno. Am I glad that particular scene was not included? Yea. I am.
As for the Clockwork Orange guys — and, yes I’ve seen the movie and read the book and know exactly what scene you are talking about — I don’t care that they appear to be in the background audience shot for half a second. If they take a couple hostage and sexually assault them and engage in all sorts of acts of ultra-violence… yea, I’m glad they aren’t doing any of THAT.
And I think it is perfectly reasonable to say, “I’m glad that Pepe le Pew scene got cut and I don’t care about the Droogs in the background.” I think it is perfectly reasonable to say, “I’d like to watch ‘Space Jam 2’ and avoid any conversations about sexual assault and the like” and that sounds very possible based on my understanding of how the movie exists currently.Report
I agree with this.
As for whether it’s good that Pepe isn’t in the movie… eh. I imagine I could come up with a scene that would be funny with him. Do the skunk thing. Have the green trail of scent that follows him go up the nose of a handful of people and have them droop. Maybe give him a line about how he is a changed man and respects everybody so much more than he used to. And *THEN* have the skunk droopy smell thing happen! Comedy! You could get a snort out of a number of people with that!
As for whether it’s good or not that he’s not in the film, I’m sure I’m not qualified to say.
But I can say that there was a great deal of Discourse about how it was good that he is not in the flick. And why did the discourse say it was good? Toxic masculinity, male entitlement, and rape culture.
Whether or not you agree with it being good, do you at least agree that the Discourse argued that it was good that he was not in the flick for those reasons?
If you can, at least, see how that was argued (whether or not you agree with it!), do you see how the inclusion of the Droogs is a hair dissonant?Report
For those of us who aren’t on Twitter, whether there was a capital-D Discourse on Pepe Le Pew at all is a genuine question. And if there was, then so much the worse for Twitter, et al.Report
It was in the New York Times.Report
So are a lot of things that hardly anybody talks about. Especially if the story is about what the extremely online are saying.Report
Oh, I was unaware that you had issued a list of “sources that are approved information according to CJ Colucci.” I did not know that you were the final arbiter of what sources of information were legitimate and which weren’t. Silly me.
I mean, I guess I thought this site was called “Ordinary Times” and not Arrogant-AHoles.com, thus it was ok to discuss things that ORDINARY people from many different walks of life are discussing and not some incredibly insular community of self-impressed lawyers and tech workers.
“Pot, it’s the Kettle here, and brother, I got some disturbing news for you – you’re black!”
To put it another way – if all you have is a statement that “this information did not come from a source originally approved by me personally” you have no argument to make and should probably just scroll past without commenting.
Let’s just admit what this is about, really. It’s just another volley in you, and a few other people, but mostly you, your attempt to very subtly suggest that I am stupid, crazy, overreacting, too online, to undermine me in the eyes of other people, and what’s much more questionable and in fact, quite skeevy, to make me feel stupid and inferior and not worthy of being here.
It’s gross, it’s wrong, it’s against the rules of this site, and IMVVHO it really doesn’t speak well of you as a human being that you play this card on anyone, particularly against one of the people who is doing the heavy lifting of keeping this site going.
Again, for the 15th time, someone has to produce content for this site. In order to have something for people to read here, we need to get story ideas from somewhere, and something that is being widely discussed in a variety of arenas – online and elsewhere, actually – is completely valid.
It is shitty in the extreme that those of us who are willing to write here have to face this constant ridiculous nonsense from a bunch of bored jerks armed with pea-shooters who simply show up to take potshots at the people they don’t like.Report
It’s a bunch of men, seeing a woman that it’s allowed to explain to, and they just can’t control themselves.
(The way they think all men act when presented with a vulnerable woman.)Report
The only person making this personal is you. I responded to Jaybird, who talked about a capital-D Discourse that those of us who don’t hang out online don’t believe is happening in meat world. You are, of course, entitled to write about what’s going on online if you find that interesting, and you may have noticed that I didn’t say a word about what you, KD, wrote, or even whether you should have written it. I do think the topic isn’t a big deal in the non-online world. I could be wrong about that, though nothing I’ve seen suggests that it is, but I have neither challenged your take on it (which I largely agree with, by the way) nor suggested that there is anything wrong with you deciding to write about it. And I certainly didn’t say anything about you. You decided to go in a different direction. I don’t intend to go down that road.Report
If the NYT no longer counts as “meat world’, I’m surprised but not displeased.
If someone asks for a citation of what’s going on in meat world, though, could you provide a list of acceptable sources?
For the future, I mean.
I expect this to come up again.Report
“The only person making this personal is you.”
you have been acting like a total asshole this whole time, but I guess it’s possible with sufficient thought to convince yourself that you aren’t doing that as a personal attack.Report
Here is the entirety of what I had to say on this:
For those of us who aren’t on Twitter, whether there was a capital-D Discourse on Pepe Le Pew at all is a genuine question. And if there was, then so much the worse for Twitter, et al
and:
So are a lot of things that hardly anybody talks about. Especially if the [Times] story is about what the extremely online are saying.
There is, apparently, a “rule” against discussing the, shall we say, disproportionate response to these rather bland remarks, and its possible sources, so I won’t go there.Report
My take on the bland remark is not “this is worth getting hysterical, like a woman does” over.
It’s “if we can’t use the New York Times as an example of what people are talking about, what can we use?”
Because this is going to come up again.Report
Whatever else this is, it’s not disproportionate.Report
I find myself still not knowing whether we can use the New York Times as a reference in the future.Report
I’m sorry to hear that. Whether a source is a good source for whatever point you want to make takes actual thought in real time, in the context of what you are trying to prove. I know it’s work, but there’s no avoiding it.Report
I was hoping that “people are talking about this” was sufficient.
“Yeah… ON TWITTER!” (paraphrased) came the response.
Okay. I guess I don’t have much to say to that.
Then it got pointed out how the NYT was talking about it too.
And the response was not “I guess the blood/brain barrier has a leak!” but “the NYT is only talking about how they’re talking about this on twitter” (paraphrased).
WHICH IS WEIRD.
Like, there’s nothing that can overcome that level of “I refuse to acknowledge that people that I actually consider to be people have heard of this.”Report
It’s only disproportionate if it hadn’t happened repeatedly in several other threads. This time, I felt like responding, but it has been a long time coming from you.
There’s a certain type of manipulator that throws out “bland” statements that are clearly meant as an insult, and then when someone takes the bait, they can step back and assume the high ground, acting all befuddled and superior while the other person gets angry about it. I’m simply calling you out on it this time rather than walking away like I have many other times.
And since you cannot resist the temptation to do the exact same thing here, you prove the point.Report
I’m not that good. But I do know enough to get out of the way of witnesses who insist on immolating themselves in front of the jury.Report
If you say so. But of course this isn’t a trial, you are not the prosecution, I have done nothing wrong but engage in a comments section that everyone else engages in all the time (oftentimes in quite heated exchanges based on past history).
That you try to portray the situation that way is just more of the same.Report
A prosecution and trial would suggest that someone accused you of something. I didn’t.Report
honestly was not expecting to see “The New York Times? That toilet-paper rag?” come out of a lawyer’s mouth todayReport
And you didn’t. Reading comprehension problem strikes again.Report
I mean, I’m not on Twitter so I don’t know what happens there. I’ll take your word that happened
But again, this is all about what uninvolved people are saying. Ask THOSE folks about the Droogs. Maybe they want them out, too. No dissonance then, right? Unless/until the filmmakers say Pepe is a monster who shan’t be shown but the Droogs are totes cool, it’s just Twitter folks Twittering. Who cares?Report
I’m tempted to create a few Twitter accounts:
#The Narrative
#The Discourse
and of course, the all-powerful, omnipresent and fearsome-
#THEYReport
Everything I said to the other two, but tenfold because you’re generally much more thoughtful a person than this.Report
Again, this was in the New York Times. I’m using something that was being discussed publicly as a jumping off point to talk about some stuff I’m interested in, stuff I write about all the time, toxic masculinity, rape culture, etc. I mean, a solid 75% of what I write is on that subject so this is really not coming out of left field for me to pick this as a topic of discussion.
Who cares? Well, you know what, I think I speak for a whole hell of a lot of women here – again, including several of the most prominent members of OT – when I say WE CARE. I personally would enjoy a world in which my daughter and I can go out into it and be safe, and in order for that to happen, we have to unravel some of the mysteries about why men assault women, because trust me, it ain’t due to a cartoon skunk.
I personally think it’s one of the most legit subjects to discuss, that’s why I talk about it all the time. If that bores you, hey, you have the capability to just scroll past without commenting.
But to tell any woman, “who cares, this came from Twitter, probably” when she’s trying to discuss the origins of sexual assault (again, just as I said to CJ above, I suspect this is to undermine me as a person and a writer, which is its own special level of shitty) where do you get off? You’re basically telling women not to try to figure out the cultural underpinnings of sex assault because it bores you.Report
“But to tell any woman, “who cares, this came from Twitter, probably” when she’s trying to discuss the origins of sexual assault (again, just as I said to CJ above, I suspect this is to undermine me as a person and a writer, which is its own special level of shitty) where do you get off? You’re basically telling women not to try to figure out the cultural underpinnings of sex assault because it bores you.”
Where did I say anything of the sort? Please, point to it. Because I am super confident I didn’t say anything of the sort.
Jaybird — not me, Jaybird — led this thread off with, “When was the last time that someone thought about Pepe le Pew prior to the Space Jam 2 announcement?”
To which I responded: “I would also contend that as someone who doesn’t have young children, you are probably less likely to think about these things than those of us who do. That isn’t a criticism but when I hear you say, “When’s the last time someone thought about Pepe le Pew prior to Space Jam 2?” my answer is, “Oh, man, I think about all those guys all the time! Whether it is because I’m actually deciding what to let my kids watch or simply because we do watch something that makes me think, “Man, they’re watching this and I was watching Pepe le Pew and things were so much better/worse back then!””
As to any comments I made about Twitter, they were in regards to Jaybird asking me to answer for what folks on Twitter were saying. I am not on Twitter. I recognize there are many robust conversations that take place on Twitter which I am unaware of. I took Jaybird to be asking me to defend positions that I do not hold and I wasn’t going to play that game. If people on Twitter… or people in the NYT or people here or people elsewhere hold those positions, so be it. If you want to engage with those positions and the people who hold them, be my guest. But there is little use in asking me to weigh in on those positions.
I offered my take on Pepe le Pew which is probably not very far off from your take on Pepe le Pew. I was then asked about the Droogs (I criticized them) and I was asked my feelings on the inclusion or exclusion of these various folks in Space Jam 2 and I offered a pretty comprehensive position.
None of which has anything to do with Twitter so I don’t know why I was asked about Twitter.
So, if you really think my position is, “Who cares, this probably came from Twitter,” than I really don’t know what to say because I don’t think anything I’ve written here supports that.Report
“[I]f you really think my position is, “Who cares, this probably came from Twitter”…”
well
there was that bit where you said “I mean, I’m not on Twitter so I don’t know what happens there. I’ll take your word that happened[.]”
that
might
have made people think your attitude was in fact “who cares, this probably came from Twitter”Report
That was in response to being asked:
“Whether or not you agree with it being good, do you at least agree that the Discourse argued that it was good that he was not in the flick for those reasons?”
I mean, the Discourse was happening on Twitter. I’m not on Twitter. So, it is hard for me to confirm or deny what is happening there. Which is what the question was asking.
“Are people saying these things?”
“From what you’ve offered, people on Twitter are saying those things so I would agree that people are saying those things.”
I offered no value judgement on the medium or its users, only commented on my limited ability to speak to what transpires there.Report
I have a pretty vivid memory of some boys in my school (this would have been freshman year, 9th grade, 14-15 year olds) raving about how hilarious A Clockwork Orange was and then saying the names of various girls at the school they wanted to rape. IDK if you’re younger than me or what but ACO had a big following in GenX.
That you don’t see the disconnect between blaming Pepe Le Pew for rape culture while putting in (for some reason) an Easter Egg of an incredibly violent and rapey movie that is basically toxic masculinity in a nutshell, baffles me.Report
You have grossly misunderstood me. I’ve said that I *do* think about Pepe le Pew and the like because as a father or sons, I consider deeply what messages I send them.
Jaybird took the position of, “Who thought about PLP before all this?” I said I did.
My point was that I don’t care what Twitter is saying about it and whether Twitter folks are being inconsistent.
Is there reason to object to the Droogs inclusion? Absolutely. Is their inclusion in the background of a scene going to impact my decision to watch the film with my kids? No.
With all due respect, it seems you’ve gone out of your way to read my comments in the most disagreeable way possible. I was not commenting on your piece in this particular but with Jaybird’s comments. I think any fair reading of my comments makes that evident.Report
” Is their inclusion in the background of a scene going to impact my decision to watch the film with my kids? No.”
that’s the point, you idiot
that’s literally the entire point
“This character whose entire joke is that he’s a lech who never scores, gets slapped and smacked around, the cartoons he’s in end with him getting a comeuppance for his behavior? Problematic, hurtful, harmful, a bad example, we can’t expect children to understand all the nuances, they just do whatever they see on the screen! These characters who are violent meth-head rapists? ehhh, they’re just in the background, nothing to worry about there.”Report
I can’t tell if this is sarcasm or not? Is it?
Assuming it’s not, well, I’m not inclined to respond to someone who calls me an idiot. But to the actual quote in question…
My kids have zero context for who the Droogs are so their presence would be inconsequential to what they take away from the movie.
That is independent of what I may think of the director’s decision to include them.
I was offering the perspective of, “I have sons in the target demo for this movie. How do I feel about them seeing these different things in the movie?”Report
“I have sons in the target demo for this movie. How do I feel about them seeing these different things in the movie?”
The guy who tries to mack on girls and gets slapped around? Dangerous! Problematic! Badthink! Cancel! Cancel!
The guys who beat the crap out of a dude and rape his wife? eh. It’s not like they get any lines, right?Report
That is the eyes through which YOU see them.
Those are not the eyes my sons see them through.
They see the skunk kiss the woman and get smacked and LeBron offer a lecture and say, “What just happened?”
They see the guys in all white and think, “Storm Troopers?”
Which isn’t a defense of their inclusion. I think it’s really frickin’ weird that they are included and gives me lots of questions about the makers of the film.
But it is literally inconsequential to my sons’ viewing the film. They probably will not even notice them.
Are we allowed to consider this from different perspectives? Or do we have to view everything through a single lens.Report
For what it’s worth, I think that the joke of including the Clockwork Orange guys after writing out Pepe le Pew is a joke that will fly over the heads of 98% of the audience.
I might even be willing to go so far as to say that it’s a really, really *FUNNY* joke.
But I wouldn’t want to explain the joke to, you know, someone who isn’t perpetually Online.Report
The joke being, “Okay, we took out the little skunk that you guys got so upset about but wait until you see what we left in?!?! IF you even see it!”Report
“I might even be willing to go so far as to say that it’s a really, really *FUNNY* joke.”
Good satire is when the audience doesn’t get that it’s a joke.
Great satire is when the audience gets that it’s a joke but thinks it’s not about them.Report
So, I want to make sure I’m understanding what actually is going down here. Please tell me if this is accurate.
1.) The original plan for Space Jam 2 included a scene with Pepe la Pew doing his thing, getting smacked for it, and LeBron James speaking on consent.
2.) Space Jam 2 changed directors.
3.) The director removed the scene in question for reasons not made public.
4.) Some folks were happy that Pepe le Pew was removed from the movie because they find his character problematic.
5.) The NYT and other places featured conversations and explorations of Pepe le Pew and the problems with the character.
6.) A trailer for Space Jam 2 showed a scene where the Droogs from A Clockwork Orange are featured in the background.
7.) People are wondering why Pepe le Pew was removed while the Droogs were not.
8.) Some folks are accusing other folks of being inconsistent because of the removal of Pepe le Pew and inclusion of the Droogs.
Do I have that right?
Because, if so, I think a whole lot of this conversation doesn’t actually make sense.
For starters, we don’t know why the Pepe le Pew scene was removed. Without knowing the reason why, we can’t really comment on whether or not the makers of Space Jam 2 are being inconsistent or playing a joke or anything. We just don’t know.
Further, accusing folks of being inconsistent doesn’t really make sense either. I mean, is anyone out there saying, “I’m glad Pepe le Pew was removed AND I’m glad the Droogs are included?” Because, sure, that would be a pretty inconsistent stance to take. But is anyone actually taking that stance?
All we know is Pepe was in and then he was out and the Droogs are currently in and the people responsible for those decisions haven’t made it known why they made those decisions so looking for some grand narrative that links all this and exposes inconsistency falls kind of flat because we don’t know the actual whole story yet.
But, again, if I’m wrong, please correct me.Report
We don’t know if the guys who included the Droogs even watched A Clockwork Orange!
Maybe they didn’t know that the movie is problematic.
Maybe they were just going through their catalog and including every single IP that they still own and there isn’t anything more to it than that.
Maybe someone in the editing room said “dude, you know what would be funny? If you put the Droogs in there. I bet you five bucks you won’t!”
“Five bucks?!?!? YOU’RE ON!” and then he put the Droogs in there and got five bucks. Maybe he used the five bucks to buy a hot dog and chips and a Slurpee at 7-11.
We just don’t know.Report
So would you agree that a large Discourse emerging about who is or isn’t being dissonant with regards to Pepe/Droogs/Space Jam is putting the cart before the horse?Report
Dunno. I mean, if these people are too young to know about A Clockwork Orange and have no idea who those guys are, it’s hardly fair to ask them why they have a double standard, innit?
If, however, they’re one of the “It’s Good That Pepe le Pew isn’t in Space Jam 2 because of Toxic Masculinity” people, I imagine that they’d have strong opinions about the Droogs after being informed of such things as the “Singing in the Rain” scene.
As someone who has seen that scene, wouldn’t you agree?Report
I agree that I imagine they’d have strong opinions.
Do we have any sense of their opinions?
Or is this a “The silence is defeaning” kinda thing?Report
I have to admit: the sample size that I have of people who know that Pepe was removed (and has expressed relief that he was) and also know that the Droogs are still in there consists pretty much entirely of the folks in this thread.Report
So you can see why wasting breath on The Discourse felt a little frustrating for us?
I was happy to engage your point on PLP and on the Droogs but I dunno why we spun our wheels on potential dissonance.
FTR,
PLP = Bad
Droogs = Worse
SpaceJam2 = Better with neitherReport
Well, my argument is not that Space Jam 2 is better without either.
My argument is that getting rid of Pepe le Pew because of Toxic Masculinity but leaving in the Droogs is Funny AF.
When it comes to whether it’s good that Pepe le Pew was removed… eh. Again. I’m not qualified to say. As I said above, I could probably come up with a joke or two that would get a chuckle from the grown-ups while sailing over the heads of the little ones.
I think that the bottom part of my original comment was where the true bite of my comment happened to be, but, you know.
It’s easy to have an opinion about Pepe le Pew and what ought to be done.Report
“ My argument is that getting rid of Pepe le Pew because of Toxic Masculinity but leaving in the Droogs is Funny AF.”
The “because of” is doing a ton of heavy lifting and we’re not even certain it is so… correct? I mean, from what I read, the actor filmed her part but PLP was never even animated and he was cut before PLP reached any sort of real d(D)iscourse (i.e., before the NYT piece).
I mean, if the reason for his removal was other than “toxic masculinity” or similar such things, we are in a very different place.
But, yes, no to PLP and yes to Droogs is at the very least eyebrow raising. I’d definitely give it the eyebrow raising emoji.Report
Well, the original scene was a Pepe le Pew macking on some babe and LeBron telling Pepe that, no, Pepe needed to Respect Women.
That scene got dropped.
Perhaps it got dropped because the director doesn’t think that Respecting Women is an important message! THAT’S WHY THE DROOGS ARE INCLUDED.
Now, I think that that would be less funny but, still, kinda funny. (It was funny to write, after all.)
Maybe there are other reasons.
I’m not entirely certain how much benefit of the doubt we need to dispense.
As for “he was cut before PLP reached any sort of real d(D)iscourse (i.e., before the NYT piece)”, I have to do the “Really?” thing here, given the amount of discussion of various adjacent topics in the run-up.
We can probably go back on this very site and find examples! (Should I bother looking?)Report
“All we know is Pepe was in and then he was out”
the last refuge of the owned: “well nobody really knows anything, there could be any number of reasons, let’s all just agree that we disagree on this, I don’t understand why you’re so upset about it anyway”Report
With the boys being a bit older, we’ve been watching more movies of my youth. One the entire family enjoys is “The Sandlot.” If you aren’t familiar with the movie, there’s a scene where one of the boys fakes drowning so as to be rescued by the female lifeguard he’s been crushing on from afar and then tries to kiss her while she performs mouth-to-mouth. She (rightfully!) freaks out and throws him out of the pool, I believe calling him a “little pervert” in the process. Unfortunately, the movie doesn’t stop it there and shows the two sharing a longing gaze, implying she actually enjoyed it and a voiceover at the end of the movie informs viewers that the two end up marrying and having many children (wink wink nudge nudge). It’s cringe-y. Our kids freak during the scene because they’re still very much in the “EW, KISSING!” stage and we make sure to always point out that the REAL problem with what he did is that it is never okay to trick someone into kissing you. I wish I didn’t have to say that watching what is otherwise a pretty wholesome kids movie but I do say it and it is something they need to learn — whether watching a movie or elsewhere.
It’s kind of icky the original scene exists but in a movie that is largely about “Dumb Things Kids Do in the Summer” it doesn’t seem unreasonable to include among the many dumb things the kids do during that summer. What’s really frustrating is that the character in question is ultimately rewarded for his awful act, which accomplishes nothing for the story and is wholly unnecessary for reasons other than trying to make it seem like not an awful act.Report