Hippity Hoppity, Controversy's On Its Way

          A couple of days ago, new images from Space Jam 2 were released, and as you may or may not have seen, Lola Bunny's updated look sparked some heated online debate—her look, and the attitude that prompted the change in the first place. After sifting through an onslaught of furry tweets, tweets joking about the onslaught of furry tweets, and many, many people posting the "Calm down, son, it's just a drawing" meme from SpongeBob, I found the old versus new Lola, as well as the comments of the director, Malcolm D. Lee, which accompanied them, and I have something of my own to say about them. Originally I was just going to tweet my feelings and be done with it, until I realized I had a bigger opinion than could be fit into a single tweet, and I didn't feel like rolling it out in a thread (although cheers to those who did, such as in this one from @Aileyn). Because yes, Lola Bunny herself is just a drawing; everybody posting "Calm down, son," is right in the strictest sense of that. But this isn't just about tits versus no tits on a cartoon bunny; the issues raised by her makeover extend far beyond that cartoon bunny into the real world, affecting real women, as well as other characters in pop culture, and how they, and concepts like sexiness and strength, are perceived by society.

          Before we go any further, these are the changes I'll be ranting about:

Lola Bunny, Then and Now

          And here's the director's justification for the changes:

          You see the problem here? Some people didn't, applauding Lee's decision to de-sexify Lola and pointing out to anyone who raised an eyebrow that she is, in fact, just an animated rabbit and why would you want an animated rabbit to be sexy? (The waters were also muddied by the repeated posting of an image of a very sexual Lola that many believed to be from the original 1996 movie, but which was in fact some furry fanart done of the character and posted on various forums.) But "some people" also missed the point entirely. Lee says he wanted to "reflect the authenticity of strong, capable female characters." Well, who doesn't? Who doesn't want strong, capable characters of every stripe? But with that statement, Lee dismisses the '96 Lola as not being strong enough, or capable enough, to play to today's audience—why? Because she's wearing a crop top and has some curves? She was also a helluva basketball player, and more than able to handle herself on and off the court—anyone else remember her "don't ever call me doll" moment? Because I'm pretty sure Bugs does. 

Seriously. Just...don't.

          It's obviously a moment Mr. Lee missed, though, along with the rest of Lola's overall character and personality. The fact that he had to make her shorter, sturdier, and flat-chested in order for her to meet his ideals of a strong female character says a lot, and the fact that so many people are cheering this decision says a lot more. It's a mentality that's become a hell of a lot more prevalent these days, with feminists (both female and male) screaming about the hypersexualization of female characters and demanding that women in movies, books, and TV shows show less skin and more strength—a dismissive mentality that claims to be woke but actually circles back around to being sexist, and all in the name of feminism and equality.  

          A female nuclear physicist isn't any less smart or well-educated because she puts on heels and a miniskirt; brains and beauty aren't mutually exclusive, though they're often portrayed as being such (everyone remembers the cliché of the pretty girl who nobody realizes is pretty until she takes her glasses off, which as a glasses-wearing girl myself always ground my gears pretty goddamn thoroughly). Sexiness and strength, the two traits invoked by Lee in further comments on Lola, aren't either, but you'd never know it the way creators like him and others in the super-woke crowd are acting. He claims Lola Bunny's redesign came from him wanting to show "strength" instead of "sexiness," and in doing so he further entrenches the notion in the public's mind that they are, in fact, two different things and can't exist together, that outward appearance and a person's personality must march in a single kind of lockstep in order for them to be accepted as a strong, well-rounded, and capable character: If you're beautiful or sexy, you can't be strong, and vice-versa. This isn't an either/or situation, though—or, rather, it is because certain people have made it so, but it shouldn't be. 

          Nobody's saying a female character has to look and dress like a Bond girl to kick ass, but Bond girls don't kick any less ass just because they look and dress like Bond girls. But if a woman in a movie wears a backless dress with a long slit up the side and her hair done up real nice, or if an animated bunny has a few curves, a crop top, and tiny shorts, all the critics will whine and moan about how she was "unnecessarily sexualized" and how it took away from her character, never mind what she might have been accomplishing while she was dressed like that.  

          It reminds me of an idiotic experiment my teacher did in grade school, which I've seen other people mention online as well: the two differently-wrapped boxes and the lesson about character I think it was supposed to teach us. In case you never had to go through it, it went like this: My teacher brought two differently-wrapped boxes into the classroom one day, one wrapped in really pretty paper tied up with a bow and a ribbon and everything, and one wrapped in plain brown paper, and everybody in the classroom was asked to pick which box they liked better, the pretty or the plain, without knowing what was inside either one. I can't remember if anyone actually picked the plain box, but I know most of us, at least, picked the fancy one, and then the teacher opened them both up and showed the contents to us: Inside the plain box was a bag of candy (Smarties, I think, which was either supposed to be a metaphor to further hammer the point home or just because they were the cheapest candy the teacher could find), and inside the pretty box there was nothing. I'm sure you all can guess what the lesson here was supposed to be: You shouldn't judge people by their appearance because you never know what they're like on the inside—they could be smart, or funny, or kind, or whatever other keywords you're always getting tossed by teachers and guidance counselors in elementary school.  

          And at the time it seemed pretty harmless; I didn't think too deeply about it because we were always being taught helpful little things like that, and also because as far back as first and second grade I was just looking to do my time and get the hell out of school with as little fuss as possible. But as I grew up and actually started thinking about it, it started to bother me more and more, because what the hell, right? Intentionally or not, the adults who do that pretty-versus-plain game are also teaching us that while plain people might have more to offer than meets the eye, pretty people have nothing to offer, all that fancy paper and shiny bows on the outside and nothing inside. There should have been candy in both boxes, to show that both people who are and aren't conventionally attractive have more going on beneath the surface than what's on the outside. Boxes and bunnies and beautiful people—it all boils down to the same thing in the end. By saying he wanted to show strength instead of sexiness with Lola's redesign Lee is just playing the same game our teachers were back in grade school, saying that you have to trade one for the other in order to have a place in this world (and without even the benefit of handing out chalky fruity candy to sweeten the stupidity, to boot), and all the people, writers, and pop culture sites cheering this decision on are just helping to drive the lesson in ever deeper. 

          Not to mention that Lee's comments and mentality are sexist in an entirely different way as well (yay, double misogyny!). New Lola is shorter, less curvy, and flat-chested, which Lee says represents a trading in of sexiness for strength. This means, then, that in his mind, and the hive minds of those who champion changes like this, women who might be shorter, less curvy, and/or flatter-chested than your average pin-up girl aren't sexy and shouldn't be viewed as such. I don't know Lee personally and can't speak to whether any of these insulting viewpoints are intentional or if he, like many of his colleagues in the creative field and the media, actually believe they're doing the right thing, but that doesn't change the fact that they are disgusting, sexist, and offensive. This is not what we women want from our on-screen counterparts, or the people creating and portraying them.

          Yes, Lola is a cartoon bunny. But she's not just a cartoon bunny, at least not in this context. What happened here isn't female empowerment, no matter how much it's being championed as such. It's yet another example of the mentality that's pervading more and more of our culture that denounces women for being sexy instead of strong, as if they can't be both, that fucking either/or again.  

          I had no plans to see the new Space Jam anyway, both because it's yet another sign that Hollywood has completely closed its doors to new ideas and is content to just keep going back to classics that work well enough on their own and because LeBron James and most of the modern NBA are shills for China, a country that keeps a stranglehold on their citizens, has made common practice of violating civil liberties and fundamental human rights, routinely disappears journalists, doctors, and citizens who speak out against their dictatorial government, keeps Uyghur Muslims and other religious and ethnic groups in literal concentration and re-education camps, and recently decreed that homosexuality can be classified as a mental disorder. But even if I'd been screaming for this sequel this would've kept me far, far away from it, and not just because, as one meme so delicately puts it, Lola Bunny no longer has "BIG OL HONKERS." It's because of the comments that accompanied the redesign and the attitude that prompted it. Sexy can be strong and strong can be sexy, and it's about time society was reminded of that. Because that's not wokeness, or feminism, or even female empowerment. It's just plain common sense.