Entertainment Weekly revealed an updateddesign for "Space Jam" characterLola Bunny on Thursday.- The redesign for the film's upcoming sequel depicts Lola in a less sexualized manner.
- The redesign prompted a strong response online, with some calling it an example of "
cancel culture ."
The latest online
The point guard for the Tune Squad, the team comprised of
The redesign has prompted strong reactions online, leading to some calling it an example of cancel culture and drawing criticism from conservative media personalities. "I can almost hear the one on the right scolding me to wear a mask as she drives by in her Subaru," right-wing radio host Jesse Kelly wrote in a tweet on Thursday, referencing Lola Bunny's redesign.
The debate also touches on what it means to be a "strong female character" and how that intersects with aesthetics. Hilariously, the conversation is all swirling around a sexy cartoon rabbit.
Lola Bunny is heavily sexualized in 'Space Jam,' and her new design is an attempt to change that
There's little ambiguity in "Space Jam" that Lola Bunny is supposed to be sexy. She enters the Tune Squad's practice gym for the first time in a pair of short shorts and a cropped tank top. A saxophone wails in the background as Bugs Bunny noticeably fawns over her. Lola's eyes ignite in a burst of fire after Bugs calls her "doll" and she proceeds to land a slam dunk over his head, sauntering away from the hoop as she adjusts the strap of her tank top. Even Tweety Bird remarks, "ooh, she's hot" and makes a sizzling noise.
Later in the film, she's introduced as "the heartthrob of the hoops" as he saunters out. By the end of the film, she and Bugs are smooching on the court.
From early images of "A New Legacy," it seems that things are quite different for Lola this time around. Now, she's wearing full-length shorts and a jersey that covers her midriff; her curves aren't nearly as accentuated.
Entertainment Weekly reported that while Lola is still going to be the strongest player on the Tune Squad in the upcoming film (with the exception of LeBron James, of course), she's reluctant to return to her old team and Bugs Bunny after branching out on her own.
Director Malcolm D. Lee told Entertainment Weekly that he wanted to make Lola a more fully realized character in the sequel, working to center her athletic skills and leadership.
"Lola was very sexualized, like Betty Boop mixed with Jessica Rabbit," he told Entertainment Weekly. "Lola was not politically correct…. This is a kids' movie, why is she in a crop top? It just felt unnecessary, but at the same time there's a long history of that in cartoons."
Sexualized animal designs in cartoons, even when they're not humanoid, is relatively par from the course even in a post-"Space Jam" world. Just look at Stitch from "Lilo and Stitch" and his mate/female counterpart Angel, who is pink and has vague curves clearly meant to be indicative of breasts, or these deer from the animated film "Open Season."
-✨aaaa✨ (@worm_rights) July 12, 2020
Lola's redesign evoked a strong response online, including from conservative media personalities
"Lola Bunny" trended on Thursday with the Twitter-given description, "People share their feelings about Lola Bunny following newly released images from Space Jam: A New Legacy," which is a very diplomatic way of saying that people were yelling about how they couldn't be horny for a cartoon rabbit.
The news about Lola's most recent redesign comes on the heels of conservatives including Piers Morgan and Colorado Representative Lauren Bobert expressing outrage over Hasbro dropping the "Mr." from its Potato Head line of toys, blaming activists and "woke" culture.
Lola Bunny evoked a similar response, with conservatives including the aforementioned Kelly and former Daily Caller editor Scott Greer expressing their disapproval of the redesign. Greer spoke about it on his podcast, invoking Martin Niemöller's "First they came..." poetic confessional about apathy in the face of rising Nazism in Germany and tying the incident into a broader "cancel culture" discussion. "First they came for Mr. Potato Head… then they came for Lola Bunny…. So what will they go after next?" he said.
-Barry McCockiner (@UltraWeedHater) March 5, 2021
Aside from "cancel culture" and a general interest in sexualizing the rabbit, others have argued that changing the design to focus on Lola's athletic prowess implies that her sexiness and skill cannot coexist.
Much of the discourse was centered around a viral tweet that has since been deleted that juxtaposed an image of the redesign against what was supposedly official art of Lola from the first "Space Jam" film. Journalist Ryan Broderick reported in his newsletter Garbage Day that the image could actually be traced back to erotic art sites and appeared to be very sexy fan art.
-Ryan Broderick (@broderick) March 6, 2021
Since the redesign, there's been an influx in Lola love on social media
This is far from the first time animated characters have been updated for modern times. In 2018, DreamWorks' "She-Ra and the Princesses of Power" unveiled updated designs for its characters that were notably less beholden to a certain sexualized body type and featured more practical costuming. While those designs also prompted outrage, they also inspired an outpouring of support, and there's been a similar response around Lola as well.
-dawn (@dawnf1re) March 5, 2021
-Kros (@Krossan) March 6, 2021
There's also been an influx in incredibly explicit Lola Bunny art on Twitter and other social media platforms; Luke Winkie reported in Slate that r/LolaBunnyNSFW, a subreddit dedicated to not safe for work Lola Bunny art, had been in "free fall" since the redesign announcement but that artists were committed to producing explicit Lola art for audiences who craved it.
As of now, the "Space Jam" debate has continued after Deadline reported that Pepe Le Pew, the skunk character that New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow said in a tweet "added to rape culture," would not appear in the sequel. As media, from the "Space Jam" films to Hasbro toys to Dr. Seuss books, continues to be updated, it's going to continue to incite discourse: and in this specific case, it happened to be about a cartoon bunny's breasts.