The redesign spurred what I am hesitant to call “controversy” from men online who were mad that Lola Bunny no longer exemplified their ideal basketball-playing, sexy animated bunny woman. “It’s important to reflect the authenticity of strong, capable female characters.”īut surprisingly-or not, if you merely consider the universe in which we live-not everyone agreed with Lee’s decision to remove a sex object from a kids’ movie. Lee told Entertainment Weekly that the sexualization of Lola Bunny in the original Space Jam was “not politically correct” and “unnecessary.” She isn’t turning any Looney Tunes into an ironing board. Her figure and her body language is not exaggeratedly feminine or sexy. The new Lola Bunny (voiced by Zendaya) looks more like an animated bunny in a practical basketball uniform than a pinup girl. In March 2021, a redesigned Lola Bunny for Space Jam: A New Legacy (in theaters July 16) made its debut in Entertainment Weekly. Hoop There It Is: How a Band With One Album Became the Sound of ‘Space Jam’ I Believe I Can Fly: The Oral History of ‘Space Jam’ She represents something burrowed deep in the male psyche. As it’s become clear, the original Lola Bunny represents far more than patriarchal animation. However, it should be noted that both Lola and Jessica-and even Jasmine and Elsa, and many other Disney princesses-have a slightly and perhaps accidental feminist layer to their no-nonsense, independent personalities, although it is masked by egregious stereotypical characterization.īut historical context alone doesn’t explain the actual phenomenon, the decades upon decades of real-life humans growing helplessly attached to, and helplessly horny for, a cartoon-and in Space Jam’s case, a cartoon rabbit. Lola Bunny and Jessica Rabbit were created from the male gaze for the male gaze, during a time when the entertainment industry assumed the majority of its audiences were white, straight, and male-even when it was obvious that those audiences were under 13 years old. The most notable, hypersexualized female animated character is Jessica Rabbit of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (being adjacent to rabbits is crucial for sexy cartoons, apparently). Disney adopted its strategy for female character design as early as Pinocchio in 1940: Cleo the fish has large doe eyes, curled eyelashes, and luscious lips, features that are still typical for the studio’s modern animated female characters from Aladdin’s Jasmine to Frozen’s Elsa. Women have been hypersexualized in the media for centuries, and that includes animation-going as far back as the 1930s with Betty Boop, a caricature of a Jazz Age flapper who resembles both a baby and a grown woman. After Lola dunks on him in their first meeting, Bugs Bunny-and I promise this is the only way I can put it- stiffens. Her pinup, Marilyn Monroe–inspired silhouette is exaggerated both on and off the court. Tweety, who is a baby bird, calls her “hot.” Lola’s features-like her bunny butt and her bunny boobs-are put into focus every time she’s onscreen. Lola has an exaggerated hourglass figure, wears short shorts (speaking from experience, these are not great for playing basketball) and a crop top (also not great for basketball). He is looking at the sexiest bunny he has ever seen. Bugs Bunny’s jaw drops and his eyes bulge. Sultry jazz plays as if Barbara Stanwyck just showed up in Double Indemnity. In Lola Bunny’s debut in 1996’s Space Jam, the blond-banged bunny bursts through the doors of the Looney Tunes gym.
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