Cancel Pepe Le Pew and Speedy Gonzales?
The characters in two-decade-old “Looney Tunes” were in danger recently after a New York Times columnist disagreed with them in an opinion piece on six rejected Dr. Seuss books.
The rehearsal prompted Latino Speedy fans to backtrack on Twitter.
“I loved seeing Speedy Gonzales growing up,” wrote a user, @soytaquitobelle. “He was always smarter than those who tried to catch or attack him. I’m a Mexican. I don’t want him ‘canceled’.”
Gabriel Iglesias, a Hispanic comedian who will give Speedy a voice in the new film “Space Jam”, also called “cancel the culture”.
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“Does that mean they’ll try to cancel Fluffy too?” he tweeted, using a nickname for himself. “You can’t catch me canceling culture. I’m the fastest mouse in all of Mexico.”
Charles Blow, who wrote Dr. Seuss’s article, argued that Speedy Gonzales’ friends on the screen “helped popularize the corrosive stereotype of drunken and lethargic Mexicans.”
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He later tweeted a video of Pepe, a French skunk cartoon who, for many, was very sensitive to women on the screen, forcibly hugging and kissing a cartoon cat as evidence that the character “normalized the rape culture” .
Speedy Gonzales arrives at the new Speedy Collection Preview Party on April 19, 2007 in Los Angeles. (Getty Images)
But Speedy was the self-proclaimed “fastest mouse in all of Mexico” – known for being smarter and overcoming villains by repeating his Spanish mantra: “¡Andale! ¡Andale! ¡Arriba! ¡Arriba!” (“Come on! Come on! Up! Up!”)
“Really? Are we doing this?” wrote the voice actor Victor Melin. “Speedy Gonzales’ speech? Let me be clear, most, if not, MOST of us, Hispanics and Latinos, LOVE Speedy. I grew up in a Mexican / Salvadoran house where we LOVE him and still love him. He is not offensive. . STOP !!! “
“I didn’t like being called ‘Speedy Gonzalez’ by the all-white coaches and teammates on my Y baseball team, with them adding” ANDA-LAY ANDA-LAY! “, Moisés Chiullán wrote.” … bc I’m not Mexican, I’m Cuban. I —— love Speedy Gonzalez. “
Other people also expressed an opinion on the controversy.
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“I think most Latinos love Speedy Gonzalez, which is a good argument that he shouldn’t be ‘canceled’,” wrote director James Gunn. “But Pepe le Pew, at least for me, is offensive for the way he treats that cat.”