— News —

Pepe Le Pew Cut From ‘Space Jam 2’ Movie

Move came last year, but announcement comes days after claim cartoon skunk 'normalized rape culture'

By Joseph Curl

•

Mar 8, 2021 DailyWire.com

•

283696 01: Looney Tunes character cookie jars are on display at the Warner Bros. Studio store October 23, 1996 in New York City. The store, originally a three floor specialty store, has been redesigned into a nine floor department store with a cafe, interactive attractions, and a screening facility for computer animated 3-D Looney Tunes cartoons under the sponsorship of Michael Jordan. (Photo by — Evan Agostini/Liaison

The amorous French skunk Pepe Le Pew won’t be making an appearance in the upcoming sequel to “Space Jam.”

The news comes shortly after a New York Times columnist claimed the animated skunk featured in Loony Tune cartoons “perpetuates rape culture,” according to Deadline.

“Deadline has learned that a hybrid live-action animation scene between Jane the Virgin actress Greice Santo and Pepe Le Pew, shot back in June 2019 for Space Jam 2 was left on the cutting room floor,” Deadline reported.

“The live-action scene was filmed by the pic’s first director, Terence Nance. As we first reported in July 2019, Nance left the production with Malcolm D. Lee taking over. Under the direction of Lee, Pepe Le Pew was eliminated from the sequel a while ago and never animated for the live-action footage which was shot. According to sources who saw a rough cut three months ago, they didn’t see any kind of cameo by the skunk,” Deadline wrote.

While the writer, Anthony D’Alessandro, said Pepe’s firing from “Space Jam: A New Legacy” has nothing to do with the recent remarks made by The New York Times’ Charles Blow, he wrote “wait until you hear about the scene with Pepe which was cut.”

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 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. 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.

Blow wrote in his column that “Some of the first cartoons I can remember included Pepe Le Pew, who normalized rape culture; Speedy Gonzales, whose friends helped popularize the corrosive stereotype of the drunk and lethargic Mexicans; and Mammy Two Shoes, a heavyset Black maid who spoke in a heavy accent.”

After criticism, the columnist wrote on Twitter that right-wing 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.”

“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 wrote.

Menu