Pepe Le Pew, Bugs Bunny, and the very un-PC history of Looney Tunes

The cancel culture debate stinks. Quite literally, this time. The latest name to be tossed on the ever-growing scrapheap of problematic, un-PC stars is, ahem, Pepe Le Pew, the randy French skunk from the Looney Tunes cartoons.

Pepe – who debuted in the 1945 short Odor-able Kitty – was set to appear in the upcoming Space Jam: A New Legacy, in a scene with Jane the Virgin star Greice Santo. Now Deadline reports that the loved-up Pepe has been scrapped from the film. The news comes after New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow said the character “added to rape culture”.

Pepe Le Pew cartoons typically involved a female cat, usually known as Penelope Pussycat, having a white stripe painted down her back – by scooching under a freshly painted fence, for instance – which caused Pepe to mistake her for a skunk and pursue her relentlessly. Pepe, of course, smells horribly, but takes the rejection – whether it's Penelope running away, or even being batting him off (with an actual baseball bat, no less) – as some flirty game of playing hard-to-get.

“We can spend the rest of our lives making love,” says Pepe in a comedy French accent, as the object of his affection tries desperately to escape his clutches. He simply won't take no for an answer.

In a series of tweets, Charles M Blow described the problem with Pepe Le Pew: “1. He grabs/kisses a girl/stranger, repeatedly, [without] 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.”

Pepe Le Pew does have an odd history. Far from the iconic status of Looney Tunes leader Bugs Bunny, Pepe Le Pew is a peripheral character – a small target for the culture war to take aim at. Though he is strangely well known, despite appearing in just 17 cartoons.

He was created by Looney Tunes maestro Chuck Jones, and apparently based partly on a screenwriter friend – a self-professed ladies’ man. The character also parodies the 1937 film Pépé le Moko, a French noir set in colonialist Algiers. Pépé le Moko was remade in the US as Algiers in 1938, and again as Casbah in 1948. Pepe Le Pew referenced them directly with the 1954 cartoon, The Cats Bah.

Pepe’s French-ness is pretty dodgy itself – a romantic, sexually aggressive stereotype. In his first starring cartoon, 1945’s Odor-able Kitty, in which Pepe was caught out by his wife, it was revealed that Pepe was in fact American – the French accent was a facade for the ladies. Which is slightly more accurate – there are no skunks in France, after all.

Though a relatively minor character, Pepe was not without success. He won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film with 1949’s For Scent-imental Reasons.

Filmmakers weren't ignorant to his ways. The tables have been turned on Pepe before. In 1952’s Little Beau Pepe, he sprays himself with cologne, the scent of which turns on Penelope so much that now she becomes the sexual aggressor – which causes Pepe to run a mile (“Control your-zelf… madame!”); and in 1959’s Really Scent, the cat – this time born with a natural skunk-style stripe – is so desperate to mate that she douses herself with smelly cheese to match Pepe's disgusting stench – once again causing Pepe to run from her.

That Pepe Le Pew promotes rape culture is a tricky argument in the broader subject of how cartoons influence viewers. Would we say that Wile E. Coyote promotes ACME explosions and anvils being dropped on heads culture? That Sylvester promotes eating canaries culture? Or Bugs Bunny promotes shooting a Wabbit Hunter up the backside culture?

Last year, Warner Bros self-censored by disarming Elmer Fudd of his trademark shotgun when it relaunched Looney Tunes. “We’re not doing guns,” executive producer Peter Browngardt told the New York Times. Critics of the “screen violence creates real violence” debate will argue that kids are smart enough to differentiate between fantasy violence and real violence. Would that extend to Pepe Le Pew’s persistent a-wooing?

It’s true that some of the cartoon skunk’s antics were pretty dreadful by real-world standards. And if the Confessions of a Randy Skunk-style carry on wasn’t damning enough, Pepe’s associations haven’t done much for his rep.

Johnny Depp – whose existence has been deemed irreparably toxic – said he partially based Captain Jack Sparrow on Pepe Le Pew. “What I loved about Pepe Le Pew was this guy who was absolutely convinced that he's a great ladies man,” Depp told IGN in 2003. “And he's a skunk. Watching those cartoons, this guy falls in love, deeply falling in love with this cat. The cat clearly despises him, but Pepe Le Pew takes it as sort of a, 'She's just playing hard to get. She's shy. Poor thing.' I always loved a character like that, just blinders no matter what the actual reality is happening around him. This guy sees only what he wants to see.”

In 2016, the screenwriter Max Landis – who’s also been accused of misogynistic behaviour himself – claimed he was writing a Pepe Le Pew movie. The internet did not greet the news with enthusiasm.

But Pepe isn't the only problematic Looney Tunes character. Mexican mouse Speedy Gonzales has been criticised as Hispanic stereotype. Even Bugs Bunny himself has a racist past. In the 1941 short All This and Rabbit Stew, Bugs is pursued by – but constantly outsmarts – a deeply offensive black stereotype.

It’s little surprise that the cartoons don’t hold up; Looney Tunes aren't for kids. Speaking to the Chicago Tribune in 2002, Robert McKimson Jr. – son of Looney Tunes animator and director Robert McKimson – said: “The Warner cartoons were aimed strictly for adults ­– they were never meant for children.” The cartoons were censored – with violence, sexual innuendo, and drug references removed – when they arrived on kids’ TV programmes in the 1960s. “They chopped the hell out of them,” said McKimson Jr.

By now, complaints and jokes about Pepe Le Pew are well-trodden. Back in 2000, US comedian Dave Chapelle called out Pepe’s behaviour in a hilarious routine. Interestingly, the character has continued to be seen as a marketable commodity – though in the pre #MeToo era. Just 10 years ago, he appeared in a Valentine’s-themed commercial for AT&T. In 2012, he was seen pursuing Penelope in a MetLife commercial.

Deadline reports that Pepe's scene from the Space Jam sequel has not been removed in response to Charles M. Blow’s tweets. The live action part of the scene was apparently filmed under original director Terence Nance in June 2019, but was cut sometime after Malcolm D. Lee took over as director.

The scene was to have been set in a Rick’s Café Casablanca-style location, where Greice Santo would reject Pepe's advances by pouring a drink over his head and slapping him – at which point Pepe confesses that Penelope has filed a restraining order against him.

According to Deadline, Santo – herself a victim of sexual harassment and campainer against domestic violence – was upset to learn the scene had been cut. A spokesperson told Deadline: “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.”

Is it fair game, to cut Pepe from Space Jam 2? A reasonable punishment of years of his troubling behaviour? Or has he been unfairly scrubbed without the chance to redeem himself, attone, or better himself for the present day as other Looney Tunes have? After taking his comeuppance like a man (well, skunk) a 2021 version of Pepe Le Pew could have come up smelling like roses.