Last week, a New York Times reporter who apparently believes there is no actual news to cover at present took to Twitter to claim that the Looney Tunes character Pepe Le Pew “contributes to rape culture”, because obviously there was no such thing as rape prior to the appearance of theatrical cartoons in the 1930s. Rather than merely consider this idiocy as one more part of the growing lust for censorship of basically everything and everyone not pre-approved by the Grand High Board of Puritans, let’s consider the particular nastiness of this repellent specimen of malodorous moralism.
First and foremost, this pearl-clutcher proceeds from the typical assumption (beloved of humorless scolds without even the most rudimentary knowledge of the history of the medium) that anything animated is “for children”. The Looney Tunes were comedic theatrical shorts intended mostly for adults, shown before Warner Brothers films in theaters to fill out an evening of viewing. When in the 1950s, the young television industry started mining Hollywood for content to fill its programming schedules, cartoons were naturally part of that, and when television became the default evening entertainment in the 1960s, theatrical cartoons were one of the casualties of Hollywood’s struggle to survive. By the 1970s, Americans had succumbed to the collective delusion that any entertainment involving illustrations must be the sole province of children, despite many of them being old enough to remember a time when even housewives, GIs and businessmen read comic books, and most of them being old enough to remember prime-time animated shows such as The Flintstones. Illustrated entertainment went from being a medium also appreciated by children to one abandoned almost entirely to children, and though that began to change again in the 1980s, authoritarians still cling like embedded ticks to their battle cry “THE CHILDREN™!!!” as an excuse for censorship of any and all illustrated entertainment (including comic books, anime, South Park, and yes, Looney Tunes), because their desire isn’t to “protect children”; it’s to cram all of society into a government-controlled nursery school where No Fun Shall Be Had.
As a child, I didn’t find Pepe Le Pew funny at all, because I lacked the necessary frame of reference to see the humor. Like so many Looney Tunes characters, Pepe is a grotesquely over-the-top burlesque of a particular type of person, in this case the clueless man who, despite being repulsive to others, has convinced himself that he is the second coming of Casanova. Pepe isn’t the hero of his cartoons; he is the butt of the joke, a person so clueless he doesn’t even realize that he literally reeks. His creators aren’t celebrating him; they are mocking him, and only women who have endured the attentions of his real-life counterparts can fully appreciate the mockery. Censors, on the other hand, are chronological adults burdened with a child’s view of a universe without free will, where things just happen because of malign forces from outside of themselves; they are therefore not only impervious to the humor, but see it as a source of evil magic that programs passive viewers. Frankly, I’m sick to death of moronic tabula rasa arguments proposed by dimwits whose entire grasp of psychology amounts to thirdhand Skinneresque pseudo-intellectual rot. Garbage people who see humans as machines to be programmed also invariably have cartoonish views about sex work, and usually support policies that allow steroidal thugs to rape women and call it “rescue”. And it takes a truly Loony level of hypocrisy to be more concerned about the “rapey” behavior of cartoon skunks from the last century than about actual rapes of marginalized women by present-day government officials.
You hit the nail on the head for sure Maggie! Thank you.
“His creators aren’t celebrating him; they are mocking him, and only women who have endured the attentions of his real-life counterparts can fully appreciate the mockery.”
THIS is why I subscribe to Maggie fuck’en McNeill and not The New York Times.
Brilliant analysis from the lady who is always the smartest person in the room. Thank you.
One thing I remember about those cartoons was that the only thing the cat objected to about Pepe was his smell. Several times, either she lost her sense of smell for a while or Pepe lost his stench…and she was suddenly the one on the offensive, calling Pepe’s bluffs, much to his disquiet. Having a female character take the initiative in these things was not at all common back then.
It’s been over 40 years so I only vaguely recalled that when you mentioned it, but you’re absolutely right.
https://invidious.snopyta.org/watch?v=LXXZ-kBne5M
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Early 20th century Betty Boop cartoons were often racy, for adults, but kids usually didn’t get the jokes.
Adult animated movies began production again in the 1970s.
There was La Planète sauvage by René Laloux in Czechoslovakia, 1973.
I enjoyed it then. It’s still worth a watch. You’ll find it on youtube.
In America there were the (in)famous works of Ralph Bakshi. I particularly enjoyed Fritz the Cat and Wizards.
Wizards has the coolest surprise ending I’ve seen in animated or ordinary movie.
You can find some of Bakshi’s work on youtube also.
Bakshi’s work is reviewed here:
It’s hard to predict when a really serious backlash to all this woke madness will appear, but when it does it will be a real doozy.