Fox News defends Pepe Le Pew after ‘rape culture’ skunk cancelled from Space Jam sequel

Fox News came to the defence of Looney Tunes character Pepe Le Pew after the cartoon skunk was cancelled from an upcoming film, Space Jam: A New Legacy.

"There's no end in sight!" said Fox host Brian Kilmeade of the cancellation.

"Nobody is perfect enough for the masses. I'm not saying he's a perfect cartoon character but, believe it or not, I'm not looking to cartoons as my role models.”

Le Pew appeared in the first Space Jam movie starring Michael Jordan but was cut from the LeBron James-led sequel during production, according to Deadline.

While no reason was given for the removal of the scene, the news came after The New York Times published a column claiming the character "added to rape culture".

Writer Charles M Blow argued in the article, itself about the six cancelled Dr Seuss books, that the skunk normalised rape culture. He defended the take on Twitter after he said "right-wing blogs" got mad.

"Let’s see, 1. He grabs/kisses a girl/stranger, repeatedly, w/o consent and against her will," Mr Blow began.

"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," he added.

Fox News host Katie Pavlich said on Monday's episode of Outnumbered that the scene cut from Space Jam had the skunk being reprimanded for his behaviour.

"So instead of showing people a lesson, which we've all seen through books and pop culture and cartoons throughout history, they're just simply erasing it rather than teaching people about the lesson of personal space," Ms Pavlich said.

Co-host Kennedy Montgomery agreed that the scene should have been left in the movie for a "teachable moment".

"You can cancel everything, you could cancel every comic ever," she said. "You can pretty much cancel everything which leaves us as an undifferentiated blob."

In the scene cut from the Space Jam sequel, to be released on 16 July, Le Pew was to appear as a bartender in a black-and-white Casablanca scene hitting on a character played by Jane the Virgin actress Greice Santo, according to Deadline.

Santo's character pulls her arm away and pours a drink on Le Pew before LeBron James tells the skunk he can't grab other Looney Tunes without consent. The live-action portion of the scene was reportedly filmed in June 2019, but it was never animated after a change of director on the movie.

A spokesperson for Santo, who has spoken out about her own sexual harassment, said she was upset over the scene being cut.

“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," the spokesperson said.

"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 behaviour is unacceptable.”