“Jane the Virgin” actor Greice Santo says that a scene with her and Looney Tunes’ character Pepé Le Pew has been removed from the “Space Jam” sequel.
The cultural legacy of Pepé Le Pew, a lustful skunk who speaks with a French accent, has been examined in recent days. In a column published last week, Charles M. Blow, an opinion writer for The New York Times, said the character “normalized the culture of rape”.
“Space Jam: A New Legacy”, starring LeBron James and Don Cheadle, is a continuation of the 1996 sports comedy that brought together the great NBA Michael Jordan with Bugs Bunny and other digitally animated characters from the Looney Tunes.
Entertainment news channel Deadline reported that Pepé Le Pew was set to appear alongside Santo in a black and white scene parodying the classic drama “Casablanca”.
In the scene, Pepe supposedly starts hitting Santo’s character and starts kissing his arm. But she walks away, throws him on a chair, spills him a drink and slaps him, which makes him spin on a stool.
The live-action part of the scene was filmed by the project’s first director, Terence Nance, according to a Warner Bros. spokesman. Pictures, the studio that distributes the film.
The second director, Malcolm D. Lee, removed the scene from his first cut and eliminated Pepé Le Pew from the film some time ago, the spokesman said – suggesting that the change was not directly related to the New York Times column.
In a statement, Santo’s representatives said she was dismayed that the scene was supposedly removed from the film.
“Although Pepe is a cartoon character, if someone were to slap a sexual harasser like him, Greice would like it to be her,” said Santo’s manager.
“Now the scene is cut and it lacks the power to influence the world through the younger generations who will be watching ‘Space Jam 2’, to let girls and boys know that Pepe’s behavior is unacceptable,” added the manager .
Santo has publicly advocated that women face sexual predators and sexual misconduct. Three years ago, she recorded the song “Você Você”, a track in Spanish about a woman who is relentlessly harassed by a man.
“I was inspired by the courage of all women in the #MeToo movement to finally take a stand against it and say: ‘Enough’”, Santo was quoted at the time of the debut of the song.
