Comments

1
It's because, through the texting technology, the lady cat (who's, what, a trans-skunk?) can enjoy pepe's affections without having to smell his skunk skank.
2
I was just having this conversation last night.
3
If the bitch didn't want "it," then why did she dress that way?
4
I learned plenty of life lessons from these cartoons: rape is funny, racism is perfectly fine and that gun and anvil related violence is mostly harmless.
5
Charles and Lindy could take a lesson from you David. This is what good absurd social critique looks like.
6
Speaking of unwanted advances, I have a request for the Gay Community.

Can we agree on a "high sign" that straight guys can use to signal "no, not in a million years" ?

I mean, it's getting real annoying while trying to ogle the girls at 24 Hour Fitness to have gay guys walk in front of me and giving me looks.

How about the Vulcan handshake? Anything...just tell me!
7
She saw what was available on "cathunt dot com" and decided to settle?
8
#6 ask the women you ogle what 'high sign' they use to send you the signal 'no, not in a million years'.
should work perfectly.
9
It used to be called "pitching woo."
10
I think you need to get a life.
11
You left out an important part of the cartoons. Usually at the end, the cat breaks down (out of frustration or pent-up lust) and starts chasing Pepe in turn, which freaks him out. Apparently Pepe is all talk and no action. Either that, or he only likes 'em when they struggle.
12
There was definitely at least one Pepe sketch that ended in the cat going to a limburger cheese factory to be saturated with the stinky cheese as a sign of her accepting the advances of the skunk.

I always thought of Pepe's plight as more of an 'inner beauty will shine through' lesson when I was younger, but as I got older I was aware of how rapey the whole gag was.

Final thought: could Pepe LePew be responsible for a generation of Axe body spray soaked d-bags grinding on females? Makes sense to me.
13
THAT cartoon screwed me up as a little kid. I seriously thought that cats and skunks were somehow related when I was 4 years old.
14
slow news day
15
A piece of trivia, another word for skunk is "woodpussy". For some reason multiple places online say it is slang, however, it is right there in merriam-websters with no mention of it being slang.

As for Pepe, you can read it any way you like, for instance it could be seen as fetish positive, in that Pepe gets the wrong signal from her, that she's one of his types, at first she is repulsed but then gets into it. Or he could be stalker. It doesn't matter, because it is a freakin' cartoon. I mean, a guy could take a way the message that if a woman continually rejects and humiliates you, she will come to love you. But really, they just wanted to make kids laugh.
16
I guess I should post this: Found cat, black with white stripes.
17
You know, ze women, zey all love some skunk, no?
18
Real-life animals also make poor role models.
19
11 hits it on the head. Part of the gag in the past was that women were only desirable when they themselves lacked desire. Now women are supposed to be perpetually horny lust-bombs, so the ad is different. Call it whitewashing (npi) an ugly narrative; the fact is that our conception of appropriate gender relations has changed.

I'd like to see something about the perpetual battles in Looney Tunes between silent characters (like rape-victim cat) and garrulous characters--it codes a lot of power dynamics.
20
Dave Chappelle does a (NSFW) bit about this and Sesame Street.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUmYGLIub…

(Audio's kinda crappy)
21
dave chapelle did a great stand up bit about this a while back. for my part i didn't understand concepts like rape or even sex when i was five years old so i don't think there's any real damage that pepe has done to me. i just thought his pushiness and the absurdity of the basic misunderstanding were entertaining. even as a kid though i did start to feel like "hey man, she said no ok...", the repetitive gags always got boring after a while.
22
Maybe Mme. Pussy discovers that skunks don't have ovulation-inducing spines on their dicks like tomcats do. Less pain, no unwanted pregnancies--what's not to like?
23
Looney Toons also taught me I could safely run off a cliffside for approximately 20 feet, or until I looked down. Gravity does not have an effect if you are not looking down.
24
@20
Thanks for the link. It was good for a mid day pick me up. Makes me wonder what other cartoons have a twisted under current.
25
She's totally hot for Pepe and always has been, the reason she is repulsed is because he stinks. Like @11 said, part of the gag was her chasing him as well. She can act completely in love because now she can text him without smelling his stink.
26
@8 Riz you are the biz!
27
@25 is right - the cat always flirts and bats her eyes until she catches a whiff.
28
Forget AT&T! Pepe should be shilling for Google Latitude!
29
It's role playing.
30
Once you go skunk, you'll never go drunk.
31
OK, translating into human... nope, I don't think I'd necessarily see as rape an overaffectionate man running up, hugging a woman and kissing her on the cheek under the impression that she likes him, then she kicks the shit out of him and leaves him there wounded. Seems more like an empowered woman to me.
32
"always black, for reasons that will soon become clear"

You didn't make them clear.

Also, did you read Gone With the Wind? It wasn't so much spousal rape as Scarlett finding out that she likes it rough. At least, that's how my 12-year-old mind read it.
33
32: She must be black to pass as a skunk.
34
i have fallen in love with david schmader, all over again.
35
In any case, it's bestiality.
36
I remember some of the cartoons switched it up by the end, so that the cat chased the skunk and the skunk ran away, exposing his shallowness. Nevertheless, Pepe was always one of my favorite cartoon characters as a kid and I'm happy to see him back on the teevee.
37
@25: That's right, there were a couple episodes where Pepe ended up drenched in perfume and smelled so good the cat couldn't keep her paws off him.
38
Pepe...a rapist???

What a sad, pathetic little people you've become...so small, so boring, so inhibited, so uninspired...

I weep for the life you've diminished, nay, extinguished. ...the marrow of it gone and forgotten...

39
Of course Pepe isn't a rapist. He's a stereotype of the seductive, smelly Frenchman. If there's anything we took away from this as kids, it's not that rape is okay (obviously). It's that silly stereotype.
40
I was thinking the exact same thing when I saw this commercial recently. bleech! this is blasphemy (this commercial)
41
Yawp @ 38 FTW!
42
It's called axe body spray effect
43
It's this simple. The cartoon is about overcoming differences so you can live together in peace!! Geez, I can't believe no one see this!!
44
"In the human world, this is called "rape,""

Are you sure? Because I always thought rape was hitting a woman, then putting a penis into her vagina and later ask friends to help burry her body in desert.
Wait... yeah, checked, even criminal law commentary sais it's somewhere around those lines.

Weird. maybe in USA, where even chess board is racist, and you are called sexist bitch for opening a door for feminist woman, rape is really what you say(or what this cartoon character do).

~ :D C.M.K. ~
45
Aside from this discussion about fictional characters (Just grow up. Call Chuck Jones (oh shit, he's dead. read his commentary, interviews or w/e) and find out, what HE intended these characters to be and represent)

I'd like to point out some other stuff I notice -
1. Pepe has cool apartment. Richie rich. bid success, high five
2. Penelope has scratching pole.
3. Penelope has a skull on the table. How cool is that?

4. They chat over phone, right?
WHY Penelope paints herself if Pepe can't see her? :D wtf? What is the reasoning behind this. Why?
5. I never knew cats or skunks have opposable thumb. :D [drums-crash cymbal]
46
If you look back though, in a few of the cartoons, Penelope Pussycat turns the tables on Pepe, and is just as enthusiastic about the chase.

In his own desperate words running away at the end of 'Little Beau Pepe':

"Why is it that when a Man is captured by a Woman, all he wish to do is get away?!"

People read too darkly into the nature of the world. But if you like encouraging hate and sexism at every turn, keep at the PC shit. (Tip: Politically Correct = Bigotry For the Spineless)

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