IT STINKS

Public Enemy #1.

 I don't know what's stupider: a New York Times columnist who decides a cartoon
skunk is worthy of our attention... or people on the left who take him seriously... or  people on the right who use the columnist's musings as further proof that our God-given rights to enjoy horny members of the Mephitidae family is being taken away.

The columnist, Charles M. Blow, actually wrote "Pepe LePew added to the rape culture" with a straight face. I guess he hadn't gotten any clicks, likes, thumbs-ups, or what the kids call attention lately and had to write something that would get everybody from the yentas on The View to the daughter of Pepe LePew's creator to chime in. (Oh, and Fox News, of course, the home of anger mismanagement.)

Good Lord! How many people would even name Pepe LePew as one of their top 20 favorite cartoon characters? In the pantheon of Warner Brothers characters alone, Pepe LePew was strictly B-list compared to Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig and Elmer Fudd. Even Foghorn Leghorn was funnier.

I ask you: does this cat look frightened?

In case you never saw any Pepe LePew cartoons, here's what they were all, and I mean all, like: Female black cat accidentally gets a white stripe painted on its back. Pepe LePew, mistaking her for a skunk, begins a merry chercez le chat  for eight minutes before the paint is washed off.

That's it. And yet somehow the Warners animators managed to wring eighteen cartoons out of this shaky throughline. The only variant was how the cat got the stripe on her. Did a paint can spill on her? Did she accidentally walk under an upside down white brush? Even the Road Runner/Wile E. Coyote cartoons promised more surprises, if only because of the endless supply of  destructive Acme products available.

Neither Sigird Guire nor Heddy Lamarr
seem to be offended by this Pepe.

Charles Blow and his fellow congregants of Our Lady of the Perpetually Offended don't even realize that Pepe LePew is merely a hyped-up parody of Charles Boyer's character Pepe LeMoko in the 1938 movie Algiers. That's the movie where Boyer didn't say, "Come wiz me to ze Cashbah, where we will make beautiful music togezzer", even if every two-bit impressionist (including Pepe LePew) thought he did. 

Warner Brothers, like every other risk-averse business today, is taking no chances. Pepe LePew has been dropped from the non-awaited sequel Space Jam: A New Legacy. Only the most dedicated Mephitis mephitis scientists will miss him.

So thanks Charles M. Blow for stirring up yet another culture wars non-controversy. You've given the Republicans the opportunity to deflect people's attention from their negative votes against the extremely popular COVID relief bill... their attempts to restrict voting rights... and their new law to make almost all abortion illegal in Arkansas. 

As I re-read the first paragraph, I think I've decided who really is stupider.

     

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