The famous skunk of the Looney Tunes, Pepé Le Pew, will not be part of the cast of the new movie Space Jam: A New Legacy, license plate Warner Bros and sequel to Space Jam, in which the protagonist Michael Jordan will be replaced by the famous basketball player LeBron James. The controversial Looney Tunes character has been canceled from the upcoming film and is not featured in any Warner Bros. television project.
This decision followed the news that Pepé Le Pew's only scene in Space Jam: A New Legacy had been cut by the director. Malcolm D. Lee who had taken over the project from previous director Terence Nance. The scene in question would have been a parody of the film Casablanca which sees Pepé Le Pew in the role of a bartender. Terence Nance, the first director of the project, had foreseen a sequence set in a Rick's Café, in black and white, in which Pepé tried with a woman (Greice Santo), bothering her and insisting despite her numerous refusals.
Pepé Le Pew will not be featured in Space Jam 2, the accusation of a NYT columnist
Pepé, still in the aforementioned scene, kisses her arm, sits next to her and, after the insistence of the skunk, the woman, shortly before LeBron James' intervention, throws a drink at him and slaps him. James and Bugs Bunny are looking for Lola (Bunny), and Pepe, later tells the boys that the cat Penelope got a restraining order against him. LeBron James would then have warned him not to touch others without their consent. Actress Greice Santo has publicly expressed her disappointment with the scene cut as he believed he had the power to teach young viewers that Pepé's behavior is unacceptable.
Il spokesperson for the actress, chatting with Deadline, said, “It was very important for Greice to be in this movie. Although Pepé is just a cartoon character, if someone had slapped a sex offender like him, she would have wanted to be that person. Now that the scene has been removed Greice no longer holds the power to influence the world through the younger generations who will watch the sequel, to make them understand that Pepe's behavior is unacceptable. "
Warner Bros has tried to change the way its animated characters are represented
Presented for the first time at the Looney Tunes in 1945, Pepé Le Pew is a character conceived by Chuck Jones, Tedd Pierce and Michael Maltese, who appeared in many animated shorts, one of which, For Scent-imental Reasons, winner of an Oscar in 1949. The character of the French-speaking skunk, originally voiced by Mel Blanc, he has always been characterized by aggressive behavior that leads the other characters surrounding him to constantly reject him.
While the decision not to include Pepé Le Pew in the new film Space Jam: A New Legacy and deleting it from all future projects would have been taken over a year ago, the news came to light a few days after the release of a journalist's editorial. New York Times, Charles M. Blow, which accused Pepé Le Pew of having normalized the culture of rape. The article reads that “Some of the earliest cartoons I remember included Pepé Le Pew, who normalized the culture of rape; Speedy Gonzales, whose friends helped popularize the corrosive stereotype of drunk and lethargic Mexicans; and Mammy Due Scarpe, a stout black waitress who spoke with a heavy accent ”.
The depiction of women in the Looney Tunes
Because of this sequence of events, many have speculated that the decision was made in response to the very incisive and timely New York Times article. However, as the decision was made by Warner Bros over a year ago, the two events aren't actually related. Warner Bros recently tried to change the way its animated characters are represented. For example, in the new Looney Tunes episodes created for HBO Max, Yosemite characters Sam (translated as Red Mustache Sam or Sam Sympathy) and Elmer Fudd (Taddeo) are no longer equipped with guns and, for the upcoming Space Jam sequel starring Tune Squad member LeBron James, Lola Bunny, it has been redesigned so as not to be as hyper sexualized as it once was.
The depiction of female animals in Looney Tunes cartoons is controversial. Lee, the director of the Space Jam sequel, told Entertainment Weekly that he was surprised at the highly sexualized portrayal of Lola Bunny in the original film. "This is 2021," said the director, "It is important to reflect the authenticity of strong and capable female characters."
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