Sunday, March 7, 2021

Tooniversary: Heaven Scent (1956)

 Pepe Le Pew resumes his unwarranted pursuit of Penelope Pussycat in Chuck Jones' 1956 entry, "Heaven Scent".

Things are a wee bit different this time. Penelope is on the run from some dogs, and decides to get even by purposely using a newly painted flagpole to paint a certain white stripe down her back & tail, which, of course, gets Pepe's attention.

Edit, 9/15/23: The video has been deleted. The only other usable copy has some Spanish over the opening titles. In its place is a title card. 


 The reason we bring this up? A New York Times columnist, one Charles Blow, pointed out in a tweet that Pepe presents a negative stereotype as a sexual predator, a stereotype that WB had assigned to overly amorous French males as a result.

The timing of Blow's tweet is just as curious, as NY Governor Andrew Cuomo has been bombarded in recent days with accusations of sexual harassment, dating back to his days working for the Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD). Without former president Donald Trump as a bogeyman for Cuomo to play off of in the press, he's now being recast as a villain himself.

As the old saying goes, and this applies to Penelope in "Heaven Scent", sometimes, you reap what you sow.

"Heaven Scent" gets a B.

2 comments:

Steven Dolce said...

Charles Blow is a hoe.

hobbyfan said...

Nice attempt at poetry, Steven. Blow's another one of these whiny media nannies with nothing better to do.