Just days after a New York Times column blasted Looney Tunes cartoon Pepe Le Pew for "normaliz[ing] rape culture," the lovesick skunk has been cut from the new "Space Jam" movie. Deadline Hollywood reports 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."
Santo is apparently livid.
"This was such a big deal for Greice to be in this movie," her spokesperson said. "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."
Here's the thing: Pepe's behavior was always unacceptable. That was the joke. No one (or at least no one with a fully functioning brain) grew up thinking that the way to win a girl's--or a black cat's--heart was to grab and kiss them against their will. The humor of Pepe Le Pew cartoons always derived from the creative ways in which Pepe would be foiled. His behavior was so over-the-top that it essentially showed children how not to behave.
Alas, this doesn't seem to matter to the woke mob.
Dan O'Donnell discussed this at length on Monday's show. Click on the player below to listen and click here to subscribe to "The Dan O'Donnell Show" on iHeartRadio!