Speaker 1: On the Bedel Cast, the questions asked if movies have wouum,
Speaker 1: are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do
Speaker 1: they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef and best start changing
Speaker 1: it with the Bechdel Cast. Everybody, get up, it's time
Speaker 1: to cast. Now we got a podcast going down. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the Bechtel Cast. It's your chance. Here's some rants
Speaker 1: on the Bechtel Cast. Alright, alright, we have to keep going.
Speaker 1: Come on and cast, and welcome to the cast. Come
Speaker 1: on and cast if you want to. Caitlin, Jock Jams Durante,
Speaker 1: thank you. I love a good jock jam. Oh so good.
Speaker 1: If I'm having trouble getting started in the morning, I
Speaker 1: find a Spotify list of jock jams and I get
Speaker 1: to it. It's very effective, very good. Yeah, well, well,
Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. It's it's we've been waiting for.
Speaker 1: This day has been a long time coming. It's Space
Speaker 1: Jam days. We've been talking about covering it forever. We
Speaker 1: were originally going to wait until the sequel came out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but the sequel is just I mean maybe it's coming
Speaker 1: button and now who knows, you know where the productor
Speaker 1: it simply couldn't wait a moment longer. True. Um, this
Speaker 1: is the Bechtel Cast Our Feminist Movie podcast, in which
Speaker 1: we examine films through an intersectional feminist lens inspired by
Speaker 1: the Bechdel Test, but we we do a far deeper dive. Yeah,
Speaker 1: good grief. What's the Bechdel Test, Jamie? Well if if
Speaker 1: you recall, it is a media metric invented by Alison Bechdel,
Speaker 1: sometimes called the Beck dol wall Us Test. She's a
Speaker 1: queer cartoonist who invented this media metric that requires that
Speaker 1: to uh, female identifying characters that have names talk to
Speaker 1: each other about something other than a man for more
Speaker 1: than two lines of dialogue, female characters or just anyone
Speaker 1: of a marginalized gender, right, I mean her original with
Speaker 1: the version we use anyone of a marginalized gender speaking
Speaker 1: to each other about something other than you know, let's say,
Speaker 1: for this movie Bugs Bunny. Uh spoiler alert. Most movies
Speaker 1: don't pass, and this movie doesn't pass. No, ye, right
Speaker 1: up front, So I know it's like, well, I feel
Speaker 1: like we always like like do a big drum roll
Speaker 1: at the end, but now as time goes on, doesn't matter,
Speaker 1: not much. It doesn't like most likely no, most likely no. Okay,
Speaker 1: So that's the podcast today. Like we said, we're covering
Speaker 1: Space Jam. We have a wonderful guest. She is a
Speaker 1: writer for The Mary Sue. She is the co host
Speaker 1: of pbs is It's Lit. She has a great YouTube channel,
Speaker 1: It's Princess Weeks, It's towns Land and love Them see
Speaker 1: their Jam. I have been waiting for this. I I feel,
Speaker 1: I feel like to be able to cover Space Jam
Speaker 1: on the Back Deal cast is like my purpose in life,
Speaker 1: Like I feel like kill Manger in in Black Panthers,
Speaker 1: Like I've been trading my whole life for this. You know,
Speaker 1: I've your hero's journey has led to this. Here we are.
Speaker 1: This is the final challenge. It's finally here. And it's
Speaker 1: so funny that you bring up that this movie fails
Speaker 1: the beach Del test, because the first thing I wrote
Speaker 1: in my notes is like the only terrible things about
Speaker 1: Space Jam or that it doesn't pass the Back Deal test,
Speaker 1: And it opens within r Kelly song like those are
Speaker 1: those to me are like the un givable sins of
Speaker 1: this movie that I love so much. I'm like, yes,
Speaker 1: I started watching it and it was like, oh, oh no, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: and the other things as well. I'm so there's this
Speaker 1: is a not I mean, I guess not even surprisingly
Speaker 1: this is a dense text. Yeah, I was truly. I
Speaker 1: feel like as time goes on, I'm always it's always
Speaker 1: the movies. I expect to not have a ton of
Speaker 1: notes for that, I have like seven pages of notes
Speaker 1: for and then other movies like We the Vich I'm like,
Speaker 1: I have fourteen words about this movie? What is there
Speaker 1: to say? And yet our episode on that was over
Speaker 1: an hour and a half. Yeah, it's like I do.
Speaker 1: I want to live deliciously absolutely, but let's talk about
Speaker 1: capitalism and Space Jam? Like what is that? Because exactly?
Speaker 1: Oh it is so, I mean there's so, but like
Speaker 1: the layers of marketing. I mean, this movie is marketing,
Speaker 1: but the submarketing levels of this movie goes so deep
Speaker 1: it was it made me uncomfortable. But then I also
Speaker 1: was like, but it's still space Jam, right, So how
Speaker 1: uncomfortable could I get? It's the inception of like vanity
Speaker 1: projects because everyone's like, oh, because I was like looking
Speaker 1: at the older reason, They're like, what two weird concepts
Speaker 1: to mash together? And like, no, it's perfect because You're
Speaker 1: getting two very popular things to meet where they should
Speaker 1: never meet, and yet it made millions. Just worked in
Speaker 1: a way that people have been trying to emulate since
Speaker 1: it's so I feel like, if things had gone even
Speaker 1: a little bit differently, this movie could have been a
Speaker 1: total disaster, Like if Michael Jordan's career had gone a
Speaker 1: little differently, if the plot had I mean, the plot
Speaker 1: is nonsense. It's such a finely tuned like it. I'm
Speaker 1: so happy that it came together the way it did
Speaker 1: because it could have been such a disaster because it's
Speaker 1: it's adapted from two Nike commercials from the early nineties.
Speaker 1: What else is there like that? That's Hasbro. Hasbro's whole
Speaker 1: ploy was like, let's make toys and turn them into
Speaker 1: TV shows the spatial like, we can go beyond. We
Speaker 1: can take sneakers and the hip hop community's love of
Speaker 1: looking tunes and really fine tune that machine into a
Speaker 1: multimillion dollar operation. I and I do appreciate that this movie,
Speaker 1: like it does not go halfway and telling you exactly
Speaker 1: what it is. Because well, on the Post or Bugs,
Speaker 1: Bunny is first build. In the credits, he is second build.
Speaker 1: But the fact that these are the two main cast evers,
Speaker 1: and there is you know, they eventually credit the voice
Speaker 1: actor voicing Bugs Bunny, but it is Bugs Bunny who
Speaker 1: is sharing the It's I mean, it's a big swing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's great. It's like when the Downton Abbey movie, like
Speaker 1: didn't put the cat sin the trail. They just put
Speaker 1: the names of the characters from down to Nabby. They're
Speaker 1: like Robert Crawley, just like you sons it. But I
Speaker 1: was there, I was like, I will see Mrs Hughes.
Speaker 1: I want to know what she's doing. It's a miracle
Speaker 1: that this movie isn't the worst movie of all times.
Speaker 1: But it's so good. I'm very excited to talk about it.
Speaker 1: And I'm so excited that you're here to talk about it. Yes, Well,
Speaker 1: what's your what's your relationship with it? What's your history
Speaker 1: with it? For me? All right? So I was four
Speaker 1: years old when Space Jam came out, and I have
Speaker 1: loved it ever since. I've always been obsessed with Lola Bunny.
Speaker 1: I She's an icon to me and I just I
Speaker 1: just love it. It's my every time I'm sad or
Speaker 1: have like a really bad depressive episode, because I deal
Speaker 1: with a lot of that. I put on Space jam
Speaker 1: or just listening to the soundtrack, and it like sues me.
Speaker 1: It's like being swaddled by a film. And like when
Speaker 1: I was rewatching it, I really had to like turn.
Speaker 1: I was like, all right, princess, you have to like
Speaker 1: forget that you're in love with this product, forget to
Speaker 1: take off my nostalgia goggles and put on my like
Speaker 1: feminist Bechdel goggles and like, and I always had to
Speaker 1: be like, you know, I have notes, I have notes
Speaker 1: on that, but overall, I just I love this movie.
Speaker 1: I think it's it's a black film in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways, from like the soundtrack and the music choices,
Speaker 1: and just how you have Michael and like his beautifully
Speaker 1: melanated family and um and also like even though he's
Speaker 1: not in a lot his encouraging father who's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can go to school, you can be whatever you
Speaker 1: want to be. I just think that, like, you know,
Speaker 1: if you're gonna do like marketing vanity project the movie,
Speaker 1: those little bits of inclusion that are like in the
Speaker 1: weird subtext of the film are like make it worth watching,
Speaker 1: even with the critique lens on, Yeah, Jamie, what about
Speaker 1: what about you, what's your history with it? I also was,
Speaker 1: I think for when this movie came out. I love,
Speaker 1: I really liked this movie growing up. I've seen it
Speaker 1: a lot and then I like, remember I watched it
Speaker 1: with my cousins. I my mom was so like militant
Speaker 1: about certain cartoons and there was no like if a
Speaker 1: cartoon was too sexy, I couldn't look at it. So
Speaker 1: I would have to watch Space Jam at my cousin's
Speaker 1: house because there was too much like Rabbit koivish to
Speaker 1: watch it it my I can't really like track the logic,
Speaker 1: but that was I think what it was. It was
Speaker 1: like the bunnies were too horny, and so I couldn't
Speaker 1: watch it at home, but I could watch with my
Speaker 1: cousins because horny bunnies were okay at their house. So
Speaker 1: I watched it a lot on and off in secret
Speaker 1: growing up. But I haven't seen it in a long
Speaker 1: long time, like at least since high school, I think,
Speaker 1: And so it was really fun to rediscover it because
Speaker 1: since then, I like know a lot more about animation
Speaker 1: history and I'm like way more like I have a
Speaker 1: little bit better of a framework about like the history
Speaker 1: of Looney tunes, But at the time, I was just like,
Speaker 1: I want to see the Sexy Rabbits and they were
Speaker 1: kind of forbidden. So now you know, I'm an adult,
Speaker 1: I can watch sexy rabbits whenever I want, and so
Speaker 1: that's exciting for me. Um. But yeah, it was. So
Speaker 1: it was kind of funny too. It was when I
Speaker 1: think Caitlin and I we were texting about this, where
Speaker 1: it was like if someone had asked me two days
Speaker 1: ago to recap the plot of Space Jam, I would
Speaker 1: have gotten it completely wrong, like same like mon Stars
Speaker 1: versus Michael Jordan's, which is basically it, but there's also
Speaker 1: a lot of other stuff going on. Um, yeah, I
Speaker 1: love it. What about you, Caitlin. I was ten when
Speaker 1: this came out, so I was, I think, like the
Speaker 1: Target demo. Um, I loved it. I saw it starting
Speaker 1: at age ten, watched it a ton, but probably haven't
Speaker 1: seen it since I was eleven or twelve, So there
Speaker 1: was like a year or two that I was like
Speaker 1: watching it constantly and then I guess I felt that
Speaker 1: I had grown out of it and then stopped watching it.
Speaker 1: So I yeah, I haven't seen it in well over
Speaker 1: two decades, and really there's I remembered almost nothing, except
Speaker 1: there was one shot where as soon as I saw it,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh yeah, that it would have been
Speaker 1: like burned into my memory forever. And it's when Michael Jordan,
Speaker 1: when he first arrives in like Looney Tune Land, they're
Speaker 1: like doing like a metal medical examination of him, and
Speaker 1: one of the Looney Tunes looks into his ear and
Speaker 1: then you cut to like an animated like shot of
Speaker 1: the inside of his ear and there's like a paper
Speaker 1: clip in there, and I was like, and that always
Speaker 1: haunted me as a child, and I saw it again.
Speaker 1: I thought about that shot when I was watching it
Speaker 1: as well, because I was like, you know, Michael Jordan's
Speaker 1: is very like scrupulous about his image, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm honestly surprised it got past his pr team to
Speaker 1: be like, my the inside of Michael's ears has paper
Speaker 1: clip sending them was like he I guess that he
Speaker 1: was okay with that, right. A lot of the people
Speaker 1: in this movie really let themselves be really silly and
Speaker 1: it which surprised me. I was like, Wow, Charles Barkley
Speaker 1: really got into this performance. Charles Barkley his physical acting,
Speaker 1: pretending to forget basketball is really convincing it. That was
Speaker 1: Patrick Hewings whole, like I can't do Like they did
Speaker 1: a really good job for non comedic actors. I'm like,
Speaker 1: was Bill Murray giving you all tips on set because
Speaker 1: you guys were really doing quality quality vaudeville right there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was really that every I mean, and like I mean,
Speaker 1: athletes acting can be so all over the place, but
Speaker 1: it's like pretty consistently on point in this movie, Like
Speaker 1: it's Michael Jordan's kills it. Charles Barkley is like, I
Speaker 1: might disagree with that Michael Jordan is a little clunky
Speaker 1: because I was watching him he he's wouldn't but when
Speaker 1: he actually is having fun, you can tell. Because I
Speaker 1: just feel like if I compare this to like the best,
Speaker 1: the best has ever done with this kind of concept
Speaker 1: is like still who framed Roger Rabbit and like that
Speaker 1: was like acting with the cartoons and like Michael Jordan
Speaker 1: is acting at the cartoons and so but you know what,
Speaker 1: I expected a lot worse to be quite frank, watching it, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was like, I guess, I guess in the framework
Speaker 1: of athletes acting, I just like I wasn't expecting like
Speaker 1: Andy Circus green screen performance here, it was just like
Speaker 1: I was like, if the eyeline is hitting and there's
Speaker 1: like sort I was like, wow, amazing, the bar is low. Yes,
Speaker 1: but it's funny because I've watched Space Dams so many
Speaker 1: times in my twenties, but the last huge time I
Speaker 1: watched it was for like my twenty one birthday. I
Speaker 1: was like, I just want us to get pizza and
Speaker 1: drinks and watch Space Jam and Men in Black back
Speaker 1: to back. Like I was like, that's my idea of
Speaker 1: like a perfect birthday, and it was an excellent twenty
Speaker 1: first birthday. I was like, this is it and it
Speaker 1: went very well. What a great double feature? Yeah, truly?
Speaker 1: Should I do the recap? Yeah, let's just get into it. Okay,
Speaker 1: we'll get into this. This this uh classic Heroes Journey
Speaker 1: narrative tale as old as time, in which cartoon characters
Speaker 1: are about to be forced into amusement park servitude by
Speaker 1: aliens from outer space, and then they recruit Michael Jordan
Speaker 1: to help them play basketball because if they win, they
Speaker 1: will not be abducted by aliens. So that's why why
Speaker 1: did they almost get abducted by aliens? Well? Capitalism right,
Speaker 1: Like they're like, well, they're the way that bugs. Bunny
Speaker 1: like recaps their plight to Michael Jordan's. Once he gets
Speaker 1: into the Loony Tuns the world, You're like, that is
Speaker 1: kind of really bizarre. He's like, well they were they
Speaker 1: were small, so we were like we could probably do this,
Speaker 1: but then it turned out they got big, so now
Speaker 1: we're scared. Like he also explains the Steaks to Michael Jordan's,
Speaker 1: He's like, we're gonna be basically abducted into slavery, in
Speaker 1: which we will have to do stand up comedy every
Speaker 1: night and tell the same jokes over and over again gasp.
Speaker 1: And then we'll have a next Flix special that no
Speaker 1: one watches because Kenna gats people have dropped hers and
Speaker 1: everyone will be like, well that's actual content, not this
Speaker 1: lead tunes thing. Again. Good gree Okay, anyway, so the
Speaker 1: story opens with Michael Jordan's as a child. He's very
Speaker 1: good at basketball, and he's like, I'm going to play
Speaker 1: in college and then I'm going to be in the NBA.
Speaker 1: And then his dad is like, do whatever you want,
Speaker 1: you can do it, and then kind of like the
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan's legend, right, like that was how I learned
Speaker 1: about the Michael Jordan's legend was as portrayed at the
Speaker 1: beginning of Space Chap Yeah, that's exactly what happened. And
Speaker 1: then we cut two a five minute montage of him
Speaker 1: in the NBA, like under the credits, the opening credits.
Speaker 1: It is very long, especially as because the last dance
Speaker 1: just came out. I'm like, yeah, I know, I know this,
Speaker 1: and I know what happens after. I haven't have either
Speaker 1: of you seen it. I haven't had a chance to
Speaker 1: see it. I haven't finished it, but I started it. Um,
Speaker 1: I paused to watch this. I'm like, I don't want
Speaker 1: it to ruin my interpretation of Space Tom to know
Speaker 1: about Michael Jaman's gambling habits, well that I mean, it's
Speaker 1: a very generous documentary towards him, but it's really good,
Speaker 1: and the behind the scenes taste you get at the
Speaker 1: production of Space Jam is really fun, fun, all very
Speaker 1: pro Space Jam the documentary, Thank goodness. Um So, anyway,
Speaker 1: we he as an adult. He's in the NBA until
Speaker 1: he announces his retirement from basketball to play professional baseball. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: in outer Space, the head of an amusement part called
Speaker 1: Moron Mountain, a character voiced by Danny de Vito, Wayne
Speaker 1: Night and Danny DeVitto in the same movie My God,
Speaker 1: How did we get so lucky? Could we be so lucky? Um?
Speaker 1: He says, what is his character's name? It's Hammer, Smack
Speaker 1: or something. I just as what I called him. I
Speaker 1: was like, Dato, that's like, couldn't tell you. Wait now
Speaker 1: I need to know. Let me look at it. I free.
Speaker 1: He's so Mr swack Hammer. He's in the movie very little.
Speaker 1: There's at one point he's getting a massage at the
Speaker 1: basketball game, which I remember very clearly being like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: the villain is getting a topless massage at the basketball game. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's in it for like five minutes maybe. But um,
Speaker 1: but was Bunny so everyone hated her. But Mr whatever
Speaker 1: his name is, is like, we need new attractions at
Speaker 1: this amusement park. We need something wacky, something looney, We
Speaker 1: need the Looney Tunes. You're like, sure Mark Incorporated. Now
Speaker 1: back on Earth, Michael Jordan's is playing baseball. He's not
Speaker 1: great at it. He strikes out during his game. And
Speaker 1: then this guy stand a k Wayne Night is like
Speaker 1: the team's publicist, and he's like, Michael, let me know
Speaker 1: anything I can do to make you happy. I'll do
Speaker 1: I'll give you rides to places, I'll do your laundry.
Speaker 1: He's just there to support Michael. His name is literally yes,
Speaker 1: he's stand and he's a Michael Jordan stand. Dan have
Speaker 1: no choice but to stand. Also, this just occurred to me,
Speaker 1: but I think this is a rare example of a
Speaker 1: white character who only exists in the story to serve
Speaker 1: a black character, because normally it is the opposite base
Speaker 1: jam is woke. Um. So meanwhile, the Moron Mountain Aliens
Speaker 1: arrive at in Looney Tune World to try to abduct
Speaker 1: Bugs Bunny and his friends, and Bugs Bunnies like, you
Speaker 1: can't just do that. You have to give us a
Speaker 1: chance to defend ourselves, and the aliens are like, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course, we're reasonable, we'll do that. And then the
Speaker 1: Looney Tuns decide that they should challenge them to a
Speaker 1: game of basketball, as you do. And even though every
Speaker 1: Looney Tune is like, what's basketball? And then and then
Speaker 1: Bugs Bunny shows them a black and white video of
Speaker 1: basketball in the nineteen fifties and they're like, okay, we
Speaker 1: get it. And then we're not up to that part yet.
Speaker 1: But it's so funny because they're like, these are like
Speaker 1: tiny guys. And then when they do like the sizes
Speaker 1: for the loot is like at three foot four, and
Speaker 1: I'm just like, y'all are not sent it out here,
Speaker 1: like calm down, bugs, Like if you think of a
Speaker 1: live action reab it, if you think a rabbit that
Speaker 1: is three ft four, that is a gigantic rabbit. That's
Speaker 1: a hair. That's a hair. At this point, it's just
Speaker 1: like it's too big. But even relatively speaking in terms
Speaker 1: of relatively speaking in terms of basketball players, three ft
Speaker 1: two or whatever is still very short. But the whole
Speaker 1: logic behind the Looney Tunes wanting to play basketball is
Speaker 1: that they look at the aliens and they're like, well,
Speaker 1: they're so short and flimsy and small, let's play basketball
Speaker 1: against them because we're sure to win. And then that
Speaker 1: is the moment when you realize that an eighth grader
Speaker 1: wrote this screenplay. No, there's it is very funny to
Speaker 1: me that there are four credited writers on the screenplay,
Speaker 1: Like it takes four men to do. It's a really
Speaker 1: long commercial. Everybody there, we needed four people? Uh there?
Speaker 1: I loved Okay, a plot point that I forgot at
Speaker 1: the beginning is when the aliens get I forgot how
Speaker 1: they get big, and it's because they steal talent which
Speaker 1: is stored in a Spalding branded basketball, and the alien
Speaker 1: brings the basketball back into the stands and it's like,
Speaker 1: I did it. I took their talent. It's like a
Speaker 1: weird thing. Like so it's like the scouts of this
Speaker 1: corporation take these mostly black players, steal their talent so
Speaker 1: that they can get other corporations. And it's like it's
Speaker 1: like it's like it's like you don't know if it's
Speaker 1: like high brilliance or like high ridiculous. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: and this evil corporation is going to take all of
Speaker 1: their talent so that they can abuse other people and
Speaker 1: absorb more of it. And it's like it is the NBA,
Speaker 1: Like is it? It's so hard to tell what is
Speaker 1: completely sneaky brilliance and what is just a total mistake, Like, well,
Speaker 1: how are we going to get them big? Okay? They
Speaker 1: steal talent? Okay, So of the NBA players who get
Speaker 1: their talent stolen from them are Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing,
Speaker 1: and then three other people who I have no idea
Speaker 1: who they are, but if you wouldn't, he would probably
Speaker 1: know Sean Bradley, Larry Johnson and Muggsy Bogues. Muggsy Bogues,
Speaker 1: I know, just because he's like one of the little
Speaker 1: little players that like was really popular then and like
Speaker 1: as a and I knew it wasn't a real Knicks
Speaker 1: game because I couldn't or maybe I was looking for
Speaker 1: Spike Lee because he's always at New York Knicks game
Speaker 1: and I was like he maybe was like you can't
Speaker 1: put me in space, dam And I was like, did
Speaker 1: anyone ask him? Because what a cameo that would have
Speaker 1: been if like he's the one I know. It's like
Speaker 1: he should have been the one that like is like
Speaker 1: where the everybody loves Raymond wife is. I'm like that
Speaker 1: should have been Spike Lee's. He should have been there
Speaker 1: just being like, man, what's going on here? That moment
Speaker 1: with her is also so like I think it's it's
Speaker 1: definitely supposed to be funny, but it's very jarring. Her
Speaker 1: moment of like because she she's the one sitting next
Speaker 1: to the aliens when they steal the talent, She's like,
Speaker 1: I think someone's masturbating under their coat, and her husband's like,
Speaker 1: shut up and you're like her husband. Her husband played
Speaker 1: by Dan Castellanetta, who's famous for voicing a bunch of
Speaker 1: Simpson's characters, including like Homer, Krusty Barney, etcetera. So you know,
Speaker 1: it was nice to see his face on screen for once.
Speaker 1: I guess. He also filled in for Robin Williams in
Speaker 1: the Aladdin television show and in a Laddin The Return
Speaker 1: of Jaffar before Robin Williams came back for Aladdin and
Speaker 1: Nicking of Thieves, because I'm also an Aladdin expert, so
Speaker 1: that you get to two things I can do for you. Well,
Speaker 1: I didn't. I forgot that. Yeah, he didn't. He didn't
Speaker 1: come back. I wonder if Robin Williams also kept his
Speaker 1: talent in a basketball, oh or a lamp what? Personally,
Speaker 1: even though I'm not good at basketball, I keep my
Speaker 1: talent in a basketball just because it's a useful receptacle,
Speaker 1: keeps afresh. Um. Okay. So then the Looney Tunes and
Speaker 1: the Aliens start, I guess like they're kind of practicing
Speaker 1: for their upcoming game. But the Aliens, using the talent
Speaker 1: that they stole from the NBA players, transform into these
Speaker 1: giant athletic mon stars. So the Looney Tunes abduct Michael
Speaker 1: Jordan's while he's playing golf with Bill Murray and Larry
Speaker 1: Bird and they bring him to Looney Tunes Land. My
Speaker 1: favorite part is when after he gets absorbed in the
Speaker 1: hole and like Bill Murray is like, what kind of
Speaker 1: camera is that? He's like, don't point it at me.
Speaker 1: It's like the talents, which is the closest thing we
Speaker 1: get to them reacting at the sudden disappearance of Michael Jordan's.
Speaker 1: They're just like, huh, I wonder where he went. Maybe
Speaker 1: the cameras that had something to do with it. And
Speaker 1: then similarly, when Michael Jordan's shows up in Looney Tune Land,
Speaker 1: he's like what's going on here? Like like, no reactions
Speaker 1: from these people, It's confusing. I was trying to justify
Speaker 1: that too. I was like, well, we already know canonically
Speaker 1: in the movie he's a big Looney Tunes fan because
Speaker 1: he turns it on for his kids and he goes
Speaker 1: see and then he leaves, and so you're like, okay,
Speaker 1: so he wouldn't well you know, he's not. We don't
Speaker 1: have time. The movie is only seventy minutes long, right,
Speaker 1: which what a what a length of time that a
Speaker 1: movie could be. It's like, man, I missed those days.
Speaker 1: This is in two minutes and that's including like the
Speaker 1: longest credit sequence and the longest closing credits, like to
Speaker 1: five minute credit sequences at the beginning of and I
Speaker 1: Love It. Um Okay, So then Bugs is like, hey,
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan's you have to help us, And then they
Speaker 1: hold try outs for the Tune Squad basketball team, and
Speaker 1: all the Looney Tunes are terrible until Lola Bunny shows
Speaker 1: up to try out for the team to the queen
Speaker 1: and she's really good at basketball, and Bugs Bunny is
Speaker 1: like Hubba, Hubba, who's that? And we just have to
Speaker 1: breathe right past this for now because there's so so
Speaker 1: so much to unpack that we'll get into later. But
Speaker 1: then the tunes Um. There's a scene where they have
Speaker 1: to go and pick up Michael's basketball gear from his house,
Speaker 1: which is a scene I guess we needed, um And
Speaker 1: then you know, I was like, I like, you know what, sure,
Speaker 1: sure they have to do this great? Well, I will
Speaker 1: say this about this scene. So I had the Space
Speaker 1: Jam video game for a PlayStation, and this is like
Speaker 1: a thing that you do in the game. So this
Speaker 1: is like to me, it's like, this is just a
Speaker 1: sequence to like have the kids be with the looting twins.
Speaker 1: At the same time, it's our target demographic and they
Speaker 1: should maybe get one moment of glory. It's very constructed.
Speaker 1: I remember watching him like, so not to jump ahead.
Speaker 1: I'm like, so it takes fifty minutes for them to
Speaker 1: actually start playing basketball. They're so far set up in
Speaker 1: this movie, and I'm like, I don't want I didn't
Speaker 1: remember it taking this long for us to get to
Speaker 1: the to the to the basketball bits. It's also once
Speaker 1: we got to the basketball game, I'm like, there has
Speaker 1: to be more than one basketball game, but it's just
Speaker 1: the one, just one, just the one. There. The pacing
Speaker 1: in this movie is truly wild. Like I but Act
Speaker 1: one is fifty minutes long. There's no act too, and
Speaker 1: then Act three is like thirty minutes long. It took me.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until Michael Jordan's, in another brilliant acting moment,
Speaker 1: turned to the clock and he's like, there's ten seconds left.
Speaker 1: I was like, wait a second, is this the climax
Speaker 1: of the movie? And he says it so because he's like,
Speaker 1: you know, in a green screen room, and who would
Speaker 1: have prepared him for this moment. He doesn't say it
Speaker 1: with that much urgency. He's like, there's ten seconds. He
Speaker 1: just is great, there's ten seconds left. I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, the movie is almost over. I didn't realize.
Speaker 1: I thought that was a second game. I was wrong.
Speaker 1: I forgot. Well that brings us to the beginning of
Speaker 1: the game, where the Tune squad is ready to play.
Speaker 1: The game begins. Lola made the team off screen. She
Speaker 1: right the whole thing to talk about there no one
Speaker 1: else tried out right. Um. The Month Stars are beating
Speaker 1: the Looney Tunes pretty badly for like the first half
Speaker 1: of the game. Then during halftime Stan who has showed
Speaker 1: up Wayne Night, and he spies on the Monsters and
Speaker 1: he's like, oh, they're winning because they stole the talent
Speaker 1: from these NBA players. Of um, so that's a discovery.
Speaker 1: He also accepts this very passively. He's like, yes, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I guess I better go tell Michael Jordan that this
Speaker 1: is what's happening. And then he tells Michael Jordan, and
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan's like, oh, so that's what happened. To those guys.
Speaker 1: I guess we'll just have to go from there. The
Speaker 1: humans are very passive in movie. They're just like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: let's think of a solution. Here's not a moment of
Speaker 1: like what right. So they start playing again, and the
Speaker 1: Looney Tunes are able to catch up in the score,
Speaker 1: and now they're only two points behind. But Michael Jordan's
Speaker 1: says to the owner of the of Moron Mountain, who
Speaker 1: has been getting a massage presumably this whole time, says
Speaker 1: that if the Looney Tunes, if the Tunes squad wins,
Speaker 1: then the Monsters have to give their talent back to
Speaker 1: the NBA players. But if the Monsters win, they can
Speaker 1: of Michael Jordan's for more on mountain. Um, so the
Speaker 1: stakes have been heightened, tightened, the stakes very loud, and
Speaker 1: there's ten seconds left, nothing to everything. Michael jordan indentured
Speaker 1: servitude to save the single tear runs down here and
Speaker 1: you're like, that's right or do they keep referring to
Speaker 1: it in the movie slavery? So okay, Um, So then
Speaker 1: they play the last ten seconds. Oh um, a lot
Speaker 1: of people have gotten injured, so they need a fifth player. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Lola Bunny has required rescuing. We'll get to that. Bunny
Speaker 1: gets squished and then and then kissed. Wayne Night has
Speaker 1: been squished and then inflated, and now all Michael Jordan
Speaker 1: has to do is make his arm really long. Right.
Speaker 1: But first Bill Murray shows up again. Basically, thank goodness, um,
Speaker 1: he's there to day s x mockina the plot. This
Speaker 1: doesn't do much for high like changing the steaks, but
Speaker 1: he does show up just as the fifth body that
Speaker 1: they needed. Yes, it just feels good. And also he
Speaker 1: has a line. We're like, oh, yeah, they did just
Speaker 1: drop me in here, like I have connections. I was
Speaker 1: just like, it's like I love him. So so it's
Speaker 1: the last ten seconds Michael Jordan outstretches his arm all
Speaker 1: cartoonishly and they child will ever forget, Like it's not
Speaker 1: I mean it's I guess it's technically body horror, but
Speaker 1: for me it wasn't. I'm like, yeah, that's like superhero ship. Um.
Speaker 1: So he scores the game winning point, so the Tune
Speaker 1: Squad wins. The Monstars have to give their stolen power
Speaker 1: back um, but not before they kick their boss's ass
Speaker 1: um and then Michael Jordan brings the NBA players or
Speaker 1: talent back. He quits baseball and returns to basketball, and
Speaker 1: that is the story. So they're hearing Michael Jordan gives
Speaker 1: the NBA players their talent back. I mean, it's all
Speaker 1: the hero's journey, beat by beat. I mean nothing about it.
Speaker 1: Joseph Campbell could say anything about let's take a quick
Speaker 1: break and then we will come right back to discuss
Speaker 1: and we're back. Okay, Well where does start? Oh boy?
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, princess kick it off. No, before we get
Speaker 1: into like like the beck Deli parts, I wanted to say,
Speaker 1: what's interesting is that, like, so these are why Michael
Speaker 1: Jordan's quit basketball to play baseball in real life is
Speaker 1: because his father had died three months prior and his
Speaker 1: father had played minor league, I believe, minor league baseball.
Speaker 1: And that was like a whole way of him being
Speaker 1: able to like be close to him and like pay
Speaker 1: troopy to him. I mean, he was also terrible at it,
Speaker 1: and I appreciate that the movie shows that, like he's
Speaker 1: really bad that people just like him so much. Like
Speaker 1: good job, Michael, I mean you failed, but like you
Speaker 1: look so good doing it. And I just watching that
Speaker 1: part again, Like that opening sequence is like really sad
Speaker 1: and touching in retrospect that he chose to immortalize like
Speaker 1: his father's legacy in like a film for children that
Speaker 1: he probably made to show his own children. So I
Speaker 1: just think it's kind of had like a little bit
Speaker 1: of sweetness to um why he probably chose to make
Speaker 1: such a weird film. But he absolutely did not have
Speaker 1: to make this movie. No. So I learned, um when
Speaker 1: I was watching The Last Dance that because I was
Speaker 1: I didn't know. I mean I knew a lot, I guess,
Speaker 1: like what I had absorbed through cultural osmosis about Michael
Speaker 1: Jordan's career, but I didn't know like linear, like you know,
Speaker 1: the exact timeline until I watched the documentary and bass
Speaker 1: Jam comes at a like really interesting time in his career.
Speaker 1: Because I was like, why besides money, which we know
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan's is, like he has a lot of it,
Speaker 1: and besides legacy, I was like, is there any other
Speaker 1: reason that he did this movie? And I guess a
Speaker 1: part of it is that Warner Brothers like provided him,
Speaker 1: like he had a lot of stipulations in his contract
Speaker 1: of like shooting can't take up too much of his
Speaker 1: time because he was like retraining as he was shooting
Speaker 1: this movie. So Warner Brothers like provided him with his
Speaker 1: own like private basketball court to use throughout production of
Speaker 1: this movie. And like, I guess that I don't know
Speaker 1: that the documentary would have you believe that this having
Speaker 1: this private space and having this very flexible schedule, um
Speaker 1: was part of what allowed him to make a huge
Speaker 1: comeback because he was like this movie was shooting as
Speaker 1: he was kind of like relaunching his basketball career, which
Speaker 1: is interesting. I don't know. There wasn't a negative word
Speaker 1: set about Space Jam, and it sounds like everyone had
Speaker 1: the time of their lives and it was good bonding
Speaker 1: for everybody. It's just the whole Sychael and Bugs are
Speaker 1: best friends to this day. Yes, of course I love
Speaker 1: I Actually that makes me happy because because of Michael
Speaker 1: Jordan's reputation, you could think that he could have been
Speaker 1: I mean they could probably they might not have said
Speaker 1: it that he could have been a real diva on shed,
Speaker 1: but it sounds like that wasn't the case. And to
Speaker 1: like have it pull in so many other really famous
Speaker 1: and like in their prime NBA players to be like
Speaker 1: do you want to just be silly in like a
Speaker 1: children's movie for like a whole like twenty minutes. It's
Speaker 1: like it's it's That's one of the things I like
Speaker 1: about this movie. It doesn't take itself too seriously and
Speaker 1: like a lot of the things that were like are
Speaker 1: weird about it. I was like as a kid, I
Speaker 1: remember thinking like, oh, yeah, like I totally believe the
Speaker 1: Lily to just live like a billion feet below ground
Speaker 1: like and also like I don't know, I think about
Speaker 1: how like hell right, it's also implied that they live
Speaker 1: in hell, which means more on mountain is more on
Speaker 1: mountain heaven then, And I just can't help but wonder
Speaker 1: like if if I if something happened to me and
Speaker 1: like I got like I was pulled from the backdell
Speaker 1: cast and it's like, oh, you need to help the
Speaker 1: Looney Tunes, like you know, with an anime contest. A
Speaker 1: part of me would be like what the hell is
Speaker 1: going on? With A part of me was like this
Speaker 1: is kind of awesome, so I think I will do
Speaker 1: this roll with it. It's like if this is a
Speaker 1: fever dream, I don't want to be a waken from it.
Speaker 1: The Looney Tunes they came into Michael's life at a
Speaker 1: pivotal moment in his life, and he's like, all right,
Speaker 1: you know, everything happens for a reason, so here I am.
Speaker 1: It's very the secret the way he approaches the fun
Speaker 1: of this movie. It's like I manifested this, so let's
Speaker 1: just let it happen. I mean, so, I guess one
Speaker 1: of the more fun and bizarre and princess you've already,
Speaker 1: like we've sort of been talking about it already, is
Speaker 1: the fact that this movie, which it never I don't know,
Speaker 1: I'd never framed it this way in my head, but
Speaker 1: the more I was reading about production and then just
Speaker 1: watching it, You're like, this is a seventy five minute commercial,
Speaker 1: Like this is top to bottom a very effective and
Speaker 1: entertaining marketing ploy for so many things that I almost
Speaker 1: lost count. It's like relaunching the Looney Tunes into like
Speaker 1: the popular as I guess. It is a commercial for
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan's comeback. It's a commercial for the NBA. It's
Speaker 1: a commercial for five hundred different brands that they mentioned.
Speaker 1: It's like it's a commercial for so many things, to
Speaker 1: the point where the director, Joe uh Pitka, he's only
Speaker 1: directed two movies ever, and then he's directed five hundred commercials.
Speaker 1: He's a commercial director who has like all he's only
Speaker 1: directed commercials, including and music videos. Um so he's like
Speaker 1: a marketing guru. He's not necessarily like your traditional tour
Speaker 1: film maker. He has he had previously made commercials with
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan's he had directed a number of Michael Jackson
Speaker 1: music videos. Like he was an iconic marketer, and the
Speaker 1: fact that he's hired for this is like, well, this
Speaker 1: movie is like is selling you a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: all at once and people bought all of it. Like
Speaker 1: there's there's a there's a line where like stand goes
Speaker 1: to like, you know, put on your hande like if
Speaker 1: your nikes, get your gatorade, you know, eat yeah, And
Speaker 1: I'm just I know, and I'll get back and I'm
Speaker 1: just like and it came out so weirdly organically, but
Speaker 1: as an adult, I'm like, oh, that's so funny. But
Speaker 1: as a kid, I would like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I do the thing. And I've never eats before in
Speaker 1: my life, but i know I've seen him on boxes
Speaker 1: of wheaties, so I'm like, oh yeah, like he of
Speaker 1: course he would eat cereal with your face on it
Speaker 1: and It's like in retrospect, Wayne Night is just listening
Speaker 1: off various Michael Jordan's endorsement deals. You're like, oh, this
Speaker 1: was a business thing. And then they're also like, you know,
Speaker 1: if we're putting like you know, the Looney Tuns versus
Speaker 1: Disney cartoons, Looney Tunes are far sillier and far more aware,
Speaker 1: like self aware that they are cartoon characters that are
Speaker 1: owned by a company. But it's also very on display
Speaker 1: in this movie because there's that like a shot where
Speaker 1: Daffy Duck is showing that he has like a Warner
Speaker 1: Brothers tattoo on the grass, and then he kisses it
Speaker 1: and he's like, I love being property of the Warner
Speaker 1: Brothers company. You're just like this movie is so weird
Speaker 1: because it is so flagrantly pro capitalism, but it also
Speaker 1: seems to be making fun of it and critiquing it
Speaker 1: in moments. But then you're like, but is it I
Speaker 1: don't know, I don't know. It's weirdly pro union, like
Speaker 1: they brag up. Someone said like he's like it's like
Speaker 1: we're a cartoon union members discussion about what's gonna happen,
Speaker 1: and I'm like wow, like like wait, they have a
Speaker 1: union meeting in Hell where they live. There's also a
Speaker 1: moment where um ugs so something like, hey, you know
Speaker 1: all the like posters and lunch boxes and stuffed animals
Speaker 1: that have our faces on them, have we ever seen
Speaker 1: any money from that? And Daffy's like, not a cent,
Speaker 1: We're getting screwed. I was like, oh my gosh, but
Speaker 1: I love the Warner Brothers, the asked tattoo. I did
Speaker 1: not remember the asked tattoo shot and it really stuck
Speaker 1: with me this time around. And like, even to get
Speaker 1: into Looney Tunes Hell, you have to pass through a
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers logo, so branded on top of branded, on
Speaker 1: top of branded. It's like it is wild and it's
Speaker 1: a commercial for University of North Carolina. Yeah yeah, I
Speaker 1: watched them after every game and Michael's dad is like, wow,
Speaker 1: that's a good school at the very beginning, So yeah,
Speaker 1: good education their son. There are so many elements of
Speaker 1: essentially on display in this but it's just like a
Speaker 1: pure period of such flagrant spending and capitalism and like
Speaker 1: glorifying that, uh in a way that the movie is
Speaker 1: like I think that maybe that's what hits a little
Speaker 1: different for me, Like looking back on it is most
Speaker 1: movies that are really glorifying capitalism don't seem quite as
Speaker 1: aware of it as this movie repeatedly references that it
Speaker 1: is very aware that it is selling you something. And
Speaker 1: they'll break the fourth wall to sell you something. They'll
Speaker 1: have an ask tattoo to sell you something, and so
Speaker 1: it's like everyone is so aware of what they're doing
Speaker 1: because they're commercial directors. Like it's just I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's fascinating. There's nothing else like it that's just popular
Speaker 1: or long and has been so successful. Like I always
Speaker 1: said that like Spam is like a black movie because
Speaker 1: I feel like it does tap into that. Like hip
Speaker 1: hop culture loves Luony too. It's like Jay Z wrote
Speaker 1: a whole Bugs Bunny wrap and helped curate the soundtrack
Speaker 1: for this movie, and like that is like it's everyone
Speaker 1: loves it in that sense. But like I think like
Speaker 1: the black community and like the hip hop community really
Speaker 1: latched onto the aesthetics of this space. I like, I'll
Speaker 1: see like Bugs, Bunny, Hoodies, Taz, like Daffy, Like those
Speaker 1: characters are very much tied to that. And I think
Speaker 1: that even by like just putting Michael Jordan in a
Speaker 1: production of that just kind of shows how Michael Jordan's
Speaker 1: the public figure had sort of been elevated to this
Speaker 1: place of like success because I can't because even now
Speaker 1: I'm like, you know, the next time they made this
Speaker 1: kind of like crossover lud To movie, it was like
Speaker 1: with like Brendan Fraser at the end of his career
Speaker 1: and it didn't go well at all. Yeah, And it's
Speaker 1: like and it's like, you really can't imagine someone besides
Speaker 1: like a Beyonce with her now with her Disney stuff,
Speaker 1: being like a black celebrity being attached to like such
Speaker 1: a brand this popular, because like it's a risk for
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers too to be like, yeah, we're gonna make
Speaker 1: this a movie where like most of the people who
Speaker 1: are actually people in this are like black people, and
Speaker 1: like the black actors are hold most of the power
Speaker 1: um and and influence, and like you were saying, Caitlin,
Speaker 1: like that, Wayne Knight is completely his plot is completely
Speaker 1: subservient and dependent on whatever it is Michael Jordan's is doing.
Speaker 1: If Michael Jordan has dragged to hell by cartoons, Wayne
Speaker 1: Night must go to help to rescue him, like yeah,
Speaker 1: and then we've got like Bill Murray, who's just like,
Speaker 1: can I be in the NBA too, Like that's his
Speaker 1: whole thing. And then he's like, is it because I'm white?
Speaker 1: And they're like and they like Larry is white. He's like,
Speaker 1: Larry's not white, Larry is clear, funny the and and
Speaker 1: even like Bill Murray seems to sort of be playing himself,
Speaker 1: where like his whole persona is that I just show up.
Speaker 1: I'm just around, I'm at your wedding, I'm at your house,
Speaker 1: and so he's sort of like, I'm at space Jam.
Speaker 1: I'm in the movie playing myself. Why I don't know.
Speaker 1: So he's like also just doing Bill Murray. And doesn't
Speaker 1: he also play himself in zombie Land. I feel like
Speaker 1: there are several movies when he placed himself, but I'll
Speaker 1: say he did a much better, like when her britend
Speaker 1: Zombielane is a land where they're like they asked him, like,
Speaker 1: do you regret anything? And he says, garshield him like
Speaker 1: that's right because he knows Space dam is like up there.
Speaker 1: It's like the top ten of what he's done. No
Speaker 1: regrets truly, it is, so I mean, and and it's
Speaker 1: it's good to have Bill Murray in the mix for
Speaker 1: the green screen scenes too, because I feel like I
Speaker 1: found out that the people who are playing the monstars
Speaker 1: for for Michael Jordan to play against where people from
Speaker 1: ground lengs. They just put groundlings people in green screen
Speaker 1: suits and they're like run play basketball with Michael Jordan's
Speaker 1: and then so like a bunch of improv heads from
Speaker 1: the nineties were just running around like with Michael Jordan's.
Speaker 1: This is just something that happened, which they were the
Speaker 1: stand ins for the Looney Tunes, and then they hired
Speaker 1: pro basketball players to be to like be the standards
Speaker 1: for the month stars for the month Stars. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: for for like Lola Bunny was like a groundling in
Speaker 1: a green screen suit, and then Michael Jordan had to
Speaker 1: be like, wow, this girl has skills. Amen. Um, let's
Speaker 1: take a quick break, a quick time out, and then
Speaker 1: we will be right back and we're back. Uh. And
Speaker 1: we had just mentioned Lola Bunny, which is a good
Speaker 1: transition to talk about like the weird place that Lola
Speaker 1: occupies is like the token chick who's like invented to
Speaker 1: be the new token Lily Tune chick. And how like
Speaker 1: as someone who's always really attached and loved that character.
Speaker 1: I'm really interested to see what you guys have to
Speaker 1: have to say about her, because I I'm very well
Speaker 1: and dear to her. Oh and I was I mentioned.
Speaker 1: I want to say this. So the biggest reason why
Speaker 1: I love Lola, besides all the things that I think
Speaker 1: are like you know it can be problematic about her,
Speaker 1: is that there is something about seeing the only other
Speaker 1: good player on this basketball team is a female character.
Speaker 1: Because the w n b A had just formed in
Speaker 1: this movie came out and they wouldn't play another game
Speaker 1: until next year the year after this, and like you
Speaker 1: get the scene with like Charles Barkley like going up
Speaker 1: against those women and they like dominate him and they're like,
Speaker 1: you're a scrub, get out of here. And like Lola
Speaker 1: is like the most competent player on the team. But
Speaker 1: yet whenever I read like critiques of her, they're always
Speaker 1: like she's too sexy, and I just don't know. I
Speaker 1: guess it's because I don't really look at her and
Speaker 1: sexualized her instantly that I always was like, is that
Speaker 1: really like a problem with like her? Or is it
Speaker 1: just like that a lot of men of that age
Speaker 1: will just asside sex, two boobs, and then it's just
Speaker 1: like Okay, we're going to go from there. But I
Speaker 1: would love to hear what you guys think about it,
Speaker 1: because I know it's like one of those hashtag. I
Speaker 1: am also very attached to Lola because it's like and
Speaker 1: it's weird because I feel like, in like rewatching it
Speaker 1: for this recording, I'm realizing that I projected things onto
Speaker 1: Lola that maybe weren't actually there because she's not she's
Speaker 1: she's on screen for a total of five minutes. She
Speaker 1: doesn't come in until almost forty minutes into the movie.
Speaker 1: So I think that I like, because she is like
Speaker 1: the female character who is active, I projected so much
Speaker 1: onto her that like is sort of there, but also
Speaker 1: kind of isn't where I view her to be like
Speaker 1: really important in this moment where like you're saying princess,
Speaker 1: Like women's athletics are actually being televised at this point
Speaker 1: and they're actually like being spotlighted, but there's still a
Speaker 1: lot of like there was like a controversy see around
Speaker 1: this time where when like men were narrating stuff going narrating.
Speaker 1: I don't know how sports worket, but likeinggging during the Olympics,
Speaker 1: like they would only refer to women just using their
Speaker 1: first names and kind of infantilizing them and commenting on
Speaker 1: their bodies all the time. So it was like women
Speaker 1: were actually being shown, but they still weren't being treated
Speaker 1: with respect. And it feels like Lola kind of exists
Speaker 1: in that same space where she is like a gifted
Speaker 1: basketball player. She knows this, she is active and like
Speaker 1: asserting this for herself, but she's still presented so sexually,
Speaker 1: and I don't like it's hard because it's like that's
Speaker 1: not her fault. It fucks with my head, right because
Speaker 1: it's like, this is a female character who is created
Speaker 1: by five hundred men and and conceived for this movie.
Speaker 1: She did not exist in Loney Tunes Cannon prior to
Speaker 1: this movie. She was created to be on this basketball
Speaker 1: team so anything. So this is like there's no prior
Speaker 1: cannon for her, So she's very much a product of
Speaker 1: this exact time. And I do feel like I like,
Speaker 1: really I watched her introduction scene like four or five
Speaker 1: times just to just to catch everything, and I don't know,
Speaker 1: I feel like there are it has a lot of
Speaker 1: like nineties nineties like feminism about it. Because I feel
Speaker 1: like she is saying one thing and then like she's
Speaker 1: doing another thing where she's like there's that moment where
Speaker 1: she walks in and she's like, I wanna try out
Speaker 1: for the basketball team. Look what I can do. But
Speaker 1: then the way that she's animated is like she's moving
Speaker 1: in a way to like titilate other characters. It's just
Speaker 1: so it's really confusing. You can tell that they're very
Speaker 1: much pulling from Jessica rabbit um to like you know,
Speaker 1: with this movie format. I don't I love her so much.
Speaker 1: I love her so hard. Lola Bunny is the Megan
Speaker 1: Fox of Looney Tunes to me, because there's an element
Speaker 1: of like it's like the thing of like framing versus action. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then at the same time I think of, like,
Speaker 1: you know what the thing that buzz means. I remember
Speaker 1: one reviewer kept on like she's got bunny boobs, and
Speaker 1: I just kept thinking, like, why are you guys so
Speaker 1: weird about sexy female animals. I don't understand it because, like,
Speaker 1: like as someone who like I remember watching like the
Speaker 1: Lion King to Simba's Prime thing, and like Covu is
Speaker 1: kind of hot for like a lion, but I don't
Speaker 1: like sexualize him. Like in Gargoyles you have Goliath who
Speaker 1: was like a male anthropomorphic lizard person in a loincloth,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't distract you from like all the other
Speaker 1: things that that character does. It's like, obviously a hottie,
Speaker 1: but like here to do gargoyle things. And the thing
Speaker 1: about I think you hit on so well is that
Speaker 1: she is going to let that girl power like don't
Speaker 1: call me doll thing, but she also has to be
Speaker 1: an object of the lust for bugs, which is weird
Speaker 1: because you can tell her. She's like, oh, you're cute,
Speaker 1: but you called me a name that I don't like,
Speaker 1: so I have to like disrespect you to your face.
Speaker 1: And then he's like, I'm into it, which makes me
Speaker 1: respect bugs a little bit. But it is that, but
Speaker 1: it is weird because then later on she's the only
Speaker 1: character you see not get injured on screen. Yes, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: which bothers me more than her being rescued. But yeah.
Speaker 1: The way that cartoon violence is dealt with in this
Speaker 1: movie and the way that the female characters are designed.
Speaker 1: We've talked about this with animated movies before, where it's
Speaker 1: like the way that male identified cartoons can be designed
Speaker 1: almost in any way, and they can look super goofy,
Speaker 1: or they can be really tall, really short. There's any
Speaker 1: amount of body diversity that can exist within male coded cartoons,
Speaker 1: but when it's a female coded cartoon, that is not
Speaker 1: the case. It looks like a sexualized human woman period.
Speaker 1: And the violence is much the same. Like she's she's
Speaker 1: not squished in the way, like she's not treated the
Speaker 1: same rules of gravity don't apply to her. It's there's
Speaker 1: really nothing. She's not looney. It's a matter of like, yeah,
Speaker 1: like the same rules don't apply to her. I actually, okay,
Speaker 1: I kind of want to like take the few beats
Speaker 1: that she has in this movie, just sort of like
Speaker 1: beat by beat examine them because, like you said, Jamie,
Speaker 1: she shows up in the movie about forty minutes in
Speaker 1: for the first time because they're all the liney tunes
Speaker 1: are in the plot. Yeah, there's not so much exposition
Speaker 1: before this. They're in a gym preparing for the game,
Speaker 1: like they're all playing. They're all proving to be very
Speaker 1: bad at basketball, and Michael Jordan's says, has anyone around
Speaker 1: here played basketball before? And then lolad Bunny shows up
Speaker 1: and she says, I have bugs Bunny is immediately attracted
Speaker 1: to her. He has like hearts in his eyes. I
Speaker 1: have a lot to say about that too, because bugs
Speaker 1: Bunny is not like a hyper like sexual creature history right, like,
Speaker 1: but bugs Bunny wasn't like testosterone like super hetero over
Speaker 1: masculine eyes before this movie. It's just so anyways, sorry right, So,
Speaker 1: So he's patronizing in sexist to her because he says
Speaker 1: something like I want to play a little one on
Speaker 1: one doll, basically being like, want to go fuck me
Speaker 1: right now, please doll, please doll. And she's like, I'm
Speaker 1: about to just dominate your ass, right yes for the culture,
Speaker 1: because yeah, she's infuriated by this suggestion of his and
Speaker 1: her like you know, fire springs up in her eyes. Well,
Speaker 1: she says she's infuriated, but then the way she's framed
Speaker 1: implies that she is not infuriated. It's so confusing. It
Speaker 1: is like Megan Fox is the perfect comparison of like,
Speaker 1: like on paper, what mackay of Banks says is very
Speaker 1: oh cool, this is a motivated female character, but then
Speaker 1: the way you see her doesn't back that up. It's
Speaker 1: so confusing. There's like an identical moment in the first
Speaker 1: Transformers movie where like her sexist boyfriend, Megan Fox's sexist
Speaker 1: boyfriend says something like get in the car, a little bunny.
Speaker 1: I think he calls her a bunny, and then she says, like,
Speaker 1: you can't tell you how much I'm not your little bunny.
Speaker 1: So maybe a reference to Space Jam No, but you know,
Speaker 1: Transformers and Space Jam Alike proceed to really over sexualize
Speaker 1: her the rest of the time, and you know there's
Speaker 1: a we can talk about her character design more, but
Speaker 1: um back to back to the story beats. So she
Speaker 1: dominates him in basketball, proves to be the only good
Speaker 1: tune player. She leaves bugs says, oh, she's obviously nuts
Speaker 1: about me, and then Michael Jordan's, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: is like, that girl's got some skills and recognizing a
Speaker 1: woman's talent. Wow, that girl has skills, right, that's find
Speaker 1: that second incredible oscar skills. So she's only on screen
Speaker 1: in this scene for probably like twenty seconds, and then
Speaker 1: Tweetie Bird also says she's hot and also tweet doesn't
Speaker 1: have sex. Tweet doesn't believe in sex. Please. I was
Speaker 1: so disgusted Why that I was like me is a
Speaker 1: sexless character. You're just like, why is Tweetie horny? I
Speaker 1: didn't like a sexual icon. Tweet Bird did not need
Speaker 1: to be dragged into this, like just like just like
Speaker 1: let him be, let be whatever. That is of all
Speaker 1: the weird things that happened in that scene, that is
Speaker 1: the worst part for me is tweety Bird going, WHOA,
Speaker 1: she is hot. You're like, tweets this is I friend
Speaker 1: better from you? I thought you were an ally so
Speaker 1: then um as I think Jamie, it was you who
Speaker 1: mentioned that she off screen gets a spot on the
Speaker 1: basketball team. We don't see this. This has never made
Speaker 1: clear that she like officially makes the team, because the
Speaker 1: focus of the scene quickly shifts back to you know,
Speaker 1: bugs bunny sexual attraction to her, rather than her basketball skills.
Speaker 1: Although I do feel like, in an inadvertent way, I
Speaker 1: will give the movie a little credit by saying, you know,
Speaker 1: she has to be infinitely more skilled to be on
Speaker 1: the team than her male counterparts who do not know
Speaker 1: how to play basketball at all. But that falls into
Speaker 1: the there's this trope and I don't know what it's called,
Speaker 1: but it's basically when any narrative will have one main
Speaker 1: female character. She's surrounded by less only other men. What
Speaker 1: is it principle? Yes, yes, So she's shown to be
Speaker 1: super competent. She is usually very conventionally attractive um but
Speaker 1: ultimately never gets to do that much except you know,
Speaker 1: maybe have a few kick ass cool lady moments and
Speaker 1: then the rest of the movie will be about someone else.
Speaker 1: Like she falls squarely into that for me, And that's
Speaker 1: even in that Like I feel like there's a million
Speaker 1: versions of the like Lola Bunny entrance moment when she
Speaker 1: you know, like bugs Bunny is clearly not expecting her
Speaker 1: to be good at basketball, and then every you know,
Speaker 1: like a man on the court has to be like
Speaker 1: whoa she did thing like which happens all. I feel
Speaker 1: like it's most common in like action movies, where it's
Speaker 1: like what that mixed we need article we can't stop
Speaker 1: sighting for five years, where it's like I am a
Speaker 1: woman and I kick, and then when when she kicks,
Speaker 1: everyone goes, oh my god, she made a kick, And
Speaker 1: I guess she hangs out with us now because she
Speaker 1: made a kick. But mostly she'll just be you know,
Speaker 1: a love interest. Yes, but she's a really good basketball player.
Speaker 1: I know, and it a weird thing because like, when
Speaker 1: I think about the mostly male critics I've heard, like
Speaker 1: SKay Little, They'll be like, she's just an excessive character
Speaker 1: that like doesn't fit into the movie. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: she's on screen for five minutes, yet you have whole
Speaker 1: think pieces about how she ruined space jams for you,
Speaker 1: or like how she ruined Bugs Bunny. And it's like,
Speaker 1: I think it's fair to critique, as Jamie points out,
Speaker 1: like how they use Lola to sexualize bugs in the
Speaker 1: way it like I think he only had one other
Speaker 1: girlfriend before, named Honey Bunny, who basically just looks like
Speaker 1: really like Bugs Bunny but in drag. But like, overall,
Speaker 1: he's always like paying the seductress or something like it.
Speaker 1: In his own self is like a wacky character. And
Speaker 1: the only way they knew how to introduce a female
Speaker 1: character was to be like, well, she has to date somebody, um,
Speaker 1: And so you have this catch money two where like
Speaker 1: you can't spend a lot of time on this character
Speaker 1: that no one came to see, but you have to
Speaker 1: do enough to establish their presence. And because they have
Speaker 1: chosen to make Lola the girl friend, they have to
Speaker 1: spend one of her five minutes of fame in having
Speaker 1: a scene in which she gets rescued by bugs, which
Speaker 1: wouldn't even bother me as much because we'll get to
Speaker 1: in a second, it wouldn't even bother me as much
Speaker 1: if she had a wacky moment anywhere in between that, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: where it's like she is set up in this huge
Speaker 1: way where you hope that you're going to get some
Speaker 1: sort of b plot with her that is not the
Speaker 1: love story, but she doesn't get that. You know, most
Speaker 1: of the things that happened with her seemed to happen
Speaker 1: off screen. And then yeah, you get this big moment
Speaker 1: at the end where she has to be rescued by bugs.
Speaker 1: That was the moment where I realized, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: the rules of gravity that apply to the Looney Tunes
Speaker 1: are not extended to her for some reason. And then
Speaker 1: she has to go over to Bugs and say, you're
Speaker 1: the nicest guy I've ever met, and now I give
Speaker 1: you the kiss that you've earned by being squished, and
Speaker 1: then she kisses him, and it's it's just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: she deserved a better landing point than that, because we
Speaker 1: I do appreciate that at very least you get to
Speaker 1: see her like be very skilled. She contributes a lot
Speaker 1: to the game. She's like a big reason of why
Speaker 1: they catch up. She's like the second best player in
Speaker 1: the team after Michael Jordan's. Maybe she's even better than
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan's, right, I mean she can do she could
Speaker 1: jump much higher than him because she is a bunny.
Speaker 1: But you're right, especially because we established it, like they
Speaker 1: don't hurt for a long time, so it's not as
Speaker 1: if her getting squished would matter because she's gonna be
Speaker 1: fine because she's a cartoon character. And like that's and
Speaker 1: that's the like, there's a lot of things that I
Speaker 1: don't really have issues with with Lola, but that is
Speaker 1: the that is literally the only thing that I hate
Speaker 1: about how her characters can see is like, and even
Speaker 1: the rescuing, I don't I wouldn't mind, because I don't
Speaker 1: think that being rescued one time inherently invalidates like a
Speaker 1: female character's agency. But it's like it's because there is
Speaker 1: nothing else that shows that she has the same versatility
Speaker 1: of because they harmed the grandma, they harmed the grandma. Oh,
Speaker 1: we have no issue harming older women. Yeah, And like
Speaker 1: you know, the which was in there that she would
Speaker 1: absolutely get her ask kick. But it's like Lola's like
Speaker 1: the hottie, so she can't even like have like a
Speaker 1: weird uh boob like clamp like Jessica Rabbit did in
Speaker 1: that one thing. It's like it's like nope. And even
Speaker 1: the way she's like introduced in the game small forwards
Speaker 1: standing at a scintillating three ft two like they're just
Speaker 1: like a heart throb of the hoops. I like, I
Speaker 1: want to give the movie credit and be like they're
Speaker 1: commenting on how commentators treat female athletes, but absolutely, there's
Speaker 1: no way that's the truth. That's how people were commenting
Speaker 1: on female athletes at this time. And the same thing
Speaker 1: with her. I mean, granted iconic. Did I google Lola
Speaker 1: Bunny crop top just to see if they're so available
Speaker 1: in my area today? Yes, But her uniform is, let's say,
Speaker 1: perhaps different from everyone else's, and like the reasons are
Speaker 1: and and it's it is like that thing where I'm like,
Speaker 1: I love the uniform, I want it, but it's there
Speaker 1: for a very specific reason. I like a lot of
Speaker 1: like nineties female heroes that we were kind of brought
Speaker 1: up with. There's some real, like good at the core,
Speaker 1: and then the way the plot treats this character is
Speaker 1: generally not fair. I don't blame like Lola Bunny for
Speaker 1: any way that she's treated. It's the characters around her
Speaker 1: and the way that the story treats her that is
Speaker 1: my issue. And it's what I was looking up because
Speaker 1: this is I mean, I feel like, you know, creating
Speaker 1: a new Cannon Looney Tunes character is a huge opportunity.
Speaker 1: They have existed since the nineteen thirties, Like this is
Speaker 1: like over sixty years into a very you know the
Speaker 1: Looney Tunes have I mean, we can brush on it,
Speaker 1: but a very sordid history. Uh. And and there's you know,
Speaker 1: there's like this famous these famous eleven racist Looney Tune
Speaker 1: cartoons that have been buried. But then they were like,
Speaker 1: we're going to release it on DVD and then everyone
Speaker 1: was like, don't do that, and I said, okay, Uh,
Speaker 1: But the Looney Tunes have this whole like history going
Speaker 1: back all this time, So introducing a new character is
Speaker 1: a huge opportunity to make a statement and like do
Speaker 1: something new and different, and it doesn't really go that far,
Speaker 1: especially when like the most recognizable and familiar Looney Tuns
Speaker 1: characters are all male. H there aren't many female leaning
Speaker 1: Tuns period, like I think. I think even with Tiny
Speaker 1: Tunes when they had that show, they only had like
Speaker 1: I think one or two female characters, and it was
Speaker 1: like a female elm or Flood type and then like
Speaker 1: another like proto Lola Bunny type. It goes back to
Speaker 1: like those Anita Sarkisian videos from ten years ago, where
Speaker 1: it's like just making the MSS version of an existing
Speaker 1: male character throw a bow on her head and now
Speaker 1: she's now we have another character, and which was like, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, Bugs Bunny's original girlfriend. At least Lola Bunny
Speaker 1: is an original character. And then I did a little
Speaker 1: bit of reason because I was like, what is Lola
Speaker 1: done since Space Jam? This is a topic that I've
Speaker 1: excited to get into because I have like I'm very so,
Speaker 1: I'm very new to this. I did not know a
Speaker 1: ton about the second iteration of Lola Bunny, but it
Speaker 1: is fascinating and very telling. Where So she is brought
Speaker 1: back in in a big way for the Loony Tune Show.
Speaker 1: This time she's voiced by Kristen Wigg and her character
Speaker 1: is somehow stripped of agency significantly significant. Yeah, where I'll
Speaker 1: just read off her character description as opposed to her
Speaker 1: personality and space Jam. She has portrayed as a scatter brained, indecisive,
Speaker 1: gabby young rabbit who tends to obsess over bugs, whom
Speaker 1: she referred to as bun Bunny. She is very dedicated
Speaker 1: to achieving goals, but oftentime tends to forget what she
Speaker 1: was doing. Like it's just she is portrayed as being
Speaker 1: obsessed with bugs and he has no interest in her
Speaker 1: and he tells her to go away all the time.
Speaker 1: It's like what, I can't even tell you how this
Speaker 1: infuriated me because I would see male critics that hated
Speaker 1: Lola Bunny and Space h and be like the Litte
Speaker 1: Tune Show fixed Lola. They finally made her Louie, and
Speaker 1: so I went to go And this is why I
Speaker 1: don't trust people who don't like Lola for like that
Speaker 1: our men sometimes, because I'm just like, I can't trust
Speaker 1: you because your opinions are whack. Because then I go
Speaker 1: to like wash the show, and I'm excide, I'm like, okay, Lola,
Speaker 1: and then she's like obsessed with bugs Bunny, and so
Speaker 1: I was like, so was this the problem that you
Speaker 1: had with Lola that like she's the one who doesn't
Speaker 1: really care about bugs until like he does something for
Speaker 1: her that should make her care, because you guys seem
Speaker 1: to be totally fine with her just being like completely
Speaker 1: obsessive with him and like, oh, well, now she's wacky.
Speaker 1: I hated it, and I hated how I saw some
Speaker 1: people like finally because for me, in between that period,
Speaker 1: there were these comics with Lola Bunny where she was
Speaker 1: like a pizza delivery girl, which is like really weird,
Speaker 1: but I have one of them somewhere, and she got
Speaker 1: to be basically like a mischievous like bunny. He was
Speaker 1: trying to trick people, like I think she delivered some
Speaker 1: pizzas and they don't want to tip her, and she
Speaker 1: was like, oh, I want to torture you until you
Speaker 1: tip me. And I'm just like worker rights, yes, tipier
Speaker 1: delivery person. But like I was like, okay, So when
Speaker 1: they bring back Lola, that's how she's gonna be. That
Speaker 1: she's gonna be like an actually demoded Yeah, she's gonna
Speaker 1: be like a zany character that like is on the
Speaker 1: level of bugs. And then they just made her an
Speaker 1: obsessive girlfriend who like broke down bugs until he liked her.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, that's the kind of female that's usually
Speaker 1: like the opposite of the smurfet. There's always like the
Speaker 1: smurfet character that everyone wants to date, and then like
Speaker 1: the loser girl usually as pigtails that like really wants
Speaker 1: to a league character and they're like, not you, childhood friend,
Speaker 1: I want the other one. And I was just like,
Speaker 1: this is not how you were vamp a character that
Speaker 1: was kind of very male gazy. This is not the
Speaker 1: way to do it. It's it is, I mean, and
Speaker 1: it speaks to a lot of I mean issues at large,
Speaker 1: but also specifically an animation where it is just it
Speaker 1: is still so siss had white male dominated in so
Speaker 1: many ways that it and it has improved over time,
Speaker 1: but the fact that like sixteen years after this movie
Speaker 1: came out, that this character could somehow be forced backwards
Speaker 1: speaks to how there has not been a ton of
Speaker 1: progress in the animation space of how like really any
Speaker 1: non siss Had white Meryl coded character is treated, and
Speaker 1: it has possibly slid backwards in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: I was so disappointed to learn that I've never seen
Speaker 1: that twelve Looney Tunes iteration. Well, I would argue that
Speaker 1: that evolution of her character that we see over the
Speaker 1: years is hinted at by the end of Space Jam.
Speaker 1: And again, this is not a critique of her character
Speaker 1: so much. It is, as it is a critique of
Speaker 1: how the movie frames and treats her. But in the game,
Speaker 1: we don't see her play that much because there's you know,
Speaker 1: they have to give screen time to all the Looney
Speaker 1: Tunes and see all the little things that they get into.
Speaker 1: But there will be a few cutaways to you know,
Speaker 1: her dribbling or making shots and stuff. And then there's
Speaker 1: one moment in particular where one of the month stars
Speaker 1: is like, try to get by me, doll, and then
Speaker 1: she does get past him using her basketball skills, and
Speaker 1: she scores, and then she says, don't ever call me doll,
Speaker 1: which is the same exact thing that you know, bugs
Speaker 1: Bunny did to her, except she's about to fall in
Speaker 1: love with him, because the next thing that happens is
Speaker 1: like the he saves her, and then she's so enamored
Speaker 1: by being rescued and she's like, that's the nicest thing
Speaker 1: that ever then anyone's ever done for me, she kisses him,
Speaker 1: and then a little bit later in the movie, he surprised,
Speaker 1: he surprised, kisses her, but she's all like, hubba, hubba,
Speaker 1: I'm your girlfriend now, yeah, I mean for me, that's
Speaker 1: like es feminism is just catchphrase. Feminism is just repeating
Speaker 1: an aphorism that sounds empowering but actually isn't and then
Speaker 1: going and then kissing the male lead and going to
Speaker 1: the next scene. Well right, but that like, even over
Speaker 1: the course of those few scenes, like it feels to
Speaker 1: me like her character gets demoted because like again the
Speaker 1: focus shifts away from her basketball skills to being rescued
Speaker 1: by a male character kissing him. He's kissing her. The
Speaker 1: focus shifts to like their romance, and that's the last
Speaker 1: we see of her because even to do it, like
Speaker 1: my it is weird because I'm like, I also really
Speaker 1: like them together, because because i feel like I'm just
Speaker 1: a child and I'm just like they're cute. But I
Speaker 1: do like the one part in between that is like
Speaker 1: after she liked dunks on the monster, guy Buzz comes
Speaker 1: up to her and it's like nice shot and they
Speaker 1: high five, and I'm just like and I'm just like
Speaker 1: and I'm just like, and that is the moment where
Speaker 1: he respects women and then I waste But in between
Speaker 1: he was like, all right, I read bell hooks in
Speaker 1: between what happened, and I recognized that I respect you.
Speaker 1: And it's like so funny. It is like it's it's
Speaker 1: so nineties in the way it addresses like progress of yeah,
Speaker 1: very bare minimum and very catchphrasy, and I think it
Speaker 1: also says a lot and contextualizes Lola a lot when
Speaker 1: you're also considering that this movie is of commercial and
Speaker 1: not you know, necessary. I mean there it is very artful.
Speaker 1: It is there's a lot of amazing art involved, but
Speaker 1: it was you know, art wasn't the top priority in
Speaker 1: the production of this movie. It was it was marketing.
Speaker 1: And so I feel like it says a lot about
Speaker 1: the marketing of this time too, in the way that
Speaker 1: Lola is presented. Maybe if you're making an art house
Speaker 1: bugs bunny film, which god willing I would love to see,
Speaker 1: but like you know, Lola is created from character designed
Speaker 1: to character choices to every way she's presented is marketing,
Speaker 1: and so this also speaks to like what needed to
Speaker 1: appear on merchandise to sell at this time, and you
Speaker 1: know it was titties, it was rabbitty. You know, they
Speaker 1: did the thing and it's weird because it's too. The
Speaker 1: other thing I think is interesting is that like I
Speaker 1: found that, like when I would talk to my female
Speaker 1: friends at that age group that loved Lola, they just
Speaker 1: they loved her because she was a girl and they
Speaker 1: liked seeing a girl and environment. And I like, as
Speaker 1: much as I totally agree about like we should absolutely
Speaker 1: critique girl power feminism because it was like marketed so
Speaker 1: have like I like how this feminism is now, it's
Speaker 1: like it's just very easy. People will be like empowerment
Speaker 1: and it's like, yes, i'll give you money now. But
Speaker 1: I think what was always really telling for me, like
Speaker 1: even within that realm of critique, that the boys only
Speaker 1: ever saw her as sexual that I knew, and the
Speaker 1: girls were like, I like having a cool girl that
Speaker 1: plays basketball in this movie and her being hot was
Speaker 1: just kind of like, oh, well, female characters are supposed
Speaker 1: to be hot in animation. And I think it's kind
Speaker 1: of that Cash twenty two because now as an adult,
Speaker 1: I'm sitting here like I really like this character. I
Speaker 1: wish she hadn't been Michaeladin Transformers, where like she's clearly
Speaker 1: supposed to be empowered, and I don't even like, and
Speaker 1: I always say this as a black feminist, I don't
Speaker 1: care that she's a love interest of bugs or that
Speaker 1: like that's part of her character, because it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: Daisy is a Daisy is also a feminist queen, and
Speaker 1: she's often with Daffy. But I think that it's the
Speaker 1: fact that they clearly were are afraid to go all
Speaker 1: out with her character. They were clearly afraid to like
Speaker 1: make her be ugly, and they also didn't want to
Speaker 1: give her too much screen time because she's also hashtag
Speaker 1: like new kid on the block. So it's like you
Speaker 1: don't want to take away too much attention from like
Speaker 1: the true star of this movie, Daffy Duck, who is
Speaker 1: who remains unmatched. He has the best bars um. But
Speaker 1: it's like it puts it puts us in a place
Speaker 1: where like we have two extra critique things that were
Speaker 1: always supposed to be for us, but we're like made
Speaker 1: by a committee of like men, like what do what
Speaker 1: do girls want? And how can we just make boys tolerated?
Speaker 1: And then you get Lola Money, a super competent female
Speaker 1: athlete who also can be like a love interest. But
Speaker 1: I think is also an interesting thing in the context
Speaker 1: of like female sports, because female athletes are so hyper
Speaker 1: masculinized in real life compared to like Lolo, who is
Speaker 1: like hyper sexualized, and it's it's weird, it's not anything,
Speaker 1: but it's just interesting for me to see. But then
Speaker 1: you still have to make sure that we have a
Speaker 1: slow wet of her going like to the side so
Speaker 1: that you can see that she's got like bunny titties
Speaker 1: and like bunny and which cat facts is about to
Speaker 1: pay off. Finally, after all these years, if we la
Speaker 1: Bunny was animated to be and designed to be anatomically correct,
Speaker 1: she would have six ten titties. That crop top would
Speaker 1: have been lit. That would have been thrilling if they
Speaker 1: were like we have this ten titty rabbit entering and
Speaker 1: she's amazing at basketball. I mean, can you imagine how
Speaker 1: like how thrilling it would have been to be like
Speaker 1: this rabbit is not just a gifted basketball player, she
Speaker 1: has ten rabbit titties, like she what can't she do?
Speaker 1: I Well, here's some some thoughts from Space Jam animation
Speaker 1: director Tony her Phone said that Lolo was intended originally
Speaker 1: to be more of a tomboy, but the production team
Speaker 1: feared that she would appear to masculine, so the animators
Speaker 1: emphasized her feminine attributes. Quote unquote, I think we're in
Speaker 1: that quote. The use of the word tomboy is very loaded.
Speaker 1: I feel like when men in the nineties use the
Speaker 1: word tomboy, it the definition is a little skewed and
Speaker 1: there's like a little bit of subtext to it, and
Speaker 1: it has more to do with like, by tomboy, we
Speaker 1: mean not sexualized, like as opposed to the actual like
Speaker 1: use of the word in the ninety nineties. They're like,
Speaker 1: she would have looked like Tatum O'Neil instead of like,
Speaker 1: you know, kimpossible. They were like, yeah, we're gonna give
Speaker 1: her like a baseball cap that goes backwards. You know,
Speaker 1: she's going to have like a little like a like
Speaker 1: a like a band aid across her eye, just like
Speaker 1: the ham hardcore and then going at that. We we've
Speaker 1: talked about it a little bit, but just it is
Speaker 1: kind of frustrating where it seems like the nineties treatment
Speaker 1: on Bugs Bunny is also frustrating to me because bugs
Speaker 1: Bunny is I think kind of was, in retrospect considered
Speaker 1: to be at certain points pretty like progressive character in
Speaker 1: terms of like a cartoon character that played around with
Speaker 1: gender quite a bit and was not disempowered for playing
Speaker 1: around with gender, And so there was like there's a
Speaker 1: number of classic Bugs Bunny cartoons where he's in drag
Speaker 1: and he's basically a very empowered character in drag. He
Speaker 1: is not the butt of a joke. He is like
Speaker 1: using it like just because and he looks hot and
Speaker 1: it's exciting, and there's like that whole Waynes World quote
Speaker 1: of like were you ever like titilated? But like what
Speaker 1: is the what is the quote? I think it's did
Speaker 1: you find Bugs Bunny attractive? When he put on a
Speaker 1: dress and played a girl bunny? Like it was iconic
Speaker 1: that this character played around with gender. It even gets
Speaker 1: mentioned in um the documentary disclosure about like how trans
Speaker 1: people saw that representation on screen and to some degree
Speaker 1: and in some cases like felt empowered by that. And
Speaker 1: so for the like relaunch a Bugs Bunny to be
Speaker 1: the opposite of that and to be so intensely heterosexual
Speaker 1: coded to the point where he like is like kind
Speaker 1: of selling that character out in a kind of bummer
Speaker 1: way where it's like there's already so much established cannon
Speaker 1: that this is like a gender nonconforming character. And then
Speaker 1: they again kind of like rolled that back, much like
Speaker 1: they did with Lola Bunny later on, like it would
Speaker 1: have been so much fun if they had done like
Speaker 1: a Jesse James thing from Pokemon, and like, I know,
Speaker 1: that's like another new lay tune show where Lola is
Speaker 1: more like Bugs in terms that she's more of a
Speaker 1: mischievous character than like boy crazy. Look. Yeah, so I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go watch that later. And it's like the same
Speaker 1: voice actress from is that like the HBO Max like
Speaker 1: the New Ones? I think, so it looks that's what
Speaker 1: it looks like. Or let me, I have little Wikipedia's
Speaker 1: in front of me, so I don't know what I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't know it came out. Oh yeah, it came
Speaker 1: out from like UM twenty. I'd never heard of it. Um.
Speaker 1: But apparently she's a lot more like she has more
Speaker 1: tune qualities and she's more designed to be like she's
Speaker 1: more boxing and design, so she looks more like a
Speaker 1: tune UM, but she's got more of the autonomy and
Speaker 1: agency she had from space jam does she have ten titties? Though?
Speaker 1: She didn't have ten titties though, but they all But
Speaker 1: it was funny because I was like, when I was
Speaker 1: watching it, I was thinking, this is the first time
Speaker 1: I've ever seen Bugs and Daffy were pants, Like they're
Speaker 1: just out to the out and about um, but this
Speaker 1: time they had to wear pants. But I would love
Speaker 1: them to have Lolo play with gender too, Like it'd
Speaker 1: be so cool if they went on on a date
Speaker 1: but both in drag Warner Brothers hire me, I'm giving
Speaker 1: you free ideas for space. But yeah, I I agree.
Speaker 1: And I think it's also I think the thing about
Speaker 1: bugs in that iteration what I've kind of noticed from
Speaker 1: what I think a lot of like sis men feel
Speaker 1: about bugs that they like that he's like he's like
Speaker 1: an ultimate male type, you know, like he's smart, he's
Speaker 1: clevering it a situation like and I think that a
Speaker 1: lot of people, a lot of dudes I saw, were like,
Speaker 1: there's no way that bugs would be like whipped by
Speaker 1: some girl. And I'm just like, I don't know why
Speaker 1: you care so much, dude, Like I mean, like I don't,
Speaker 1: I just it's so it's but I also agree it's
Speaker 1: weird that they like picked Bugs to be the one
Speaker 1: to have a girlfriend, when Daffy is thirsty every day
Speaker 1: and when that boy love to have a sip of water,
Speaker 1: Daffy was like canonically the horny ist, and so like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, yeah, bringing Daphne Duck more free material? Right,
Speaker 1: all this free material? Or just stop like girlifying existing
Speaker 1: male characters and create a female character for once. But
Speaker 1: that is sometimes too much to ask, and so I'll
Speaker 1: stop asking, We'll just start creating. There's also, I mean,
Speaker 1: there are It is very worth mentioning that there are
Speaker 1: several women appearing in the live action section of the
Speaker 1: Space Jam. Michael Jordan has a his wife played by
Speaker 1: Teresa Randall. He has a his mother, and he has
Speaker 1: his daughter. So they all appear, and do we meet
Speaker 1: his mother or we we meet someone's mother? I think,
Speaker 1: I think, I think that woman is like their housekeeper.
Speaker 1: I thought that she was assumed that she was his mother.
Speaker 1: Oh that's on me, Okay, I know she's the one
Speaker 1: who's like making dinner for them as they're getting home. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I also assume that was like a housekeeper. But I
Speaker 1: they don't specify. They don't make it clear. So that's yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess we just really don't get to look into
Speaker 1: what's going on there. But there are there are a
Speaker 1: few female characters that that are mostly at the beginning
Speaker 1: of the movie with Michael Jordan's and then they come
Speaker 1: they come back at the end. I mean, I wish
Speaker 1: that they had gotten more screen time. They're based on
Speaker 1: obviously like Michael Jordan's real family, uh and and people
Speaker 1: in his life, but they're not given much to do
Speaker 1: in this case too much to another thing that's too
Speaker 1: much to us, because Michael Jordan's dragged to hell. Right. Um.
Speaker 1: There's also that scene where after the NBA players have
Speaker 1: lost their talent, they are being sort of like medically
Speaker 1: and psychologically evaluated. Um. And there's a scene where Charles
Speaker 1: Barkley goes to play basketball with a bunch of women
Speaker 1: and um because and he plays against them and he
Speaker 1: doesn't have his talent anymore, so he can't play. They
Speaker 1: like embarrass him on the court, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: And later when he's talking to it, right, I like it.
Speaker 1: But then when he's talking to like a psychologist later
Speaker 1: he says something like and then this girl five foot,
Speaker 1: nothing blocked my shot. And the whole implication that scene
Speaker 1: was even a bunch of girls could beat Charles Barkley.
Speaker 1: So it's still it's sexist, is what is happening there?
Speaker 1: I agree, I mean I was, I guess reading that
Speaker 1: scene a little generously of him saying like, I'm one
Speaker 1: of the best basketball players in the world. Why did
Speaker 1: a bunch of twelve year old beat me? But I
Speaker 1: do agree that there is like a gendered element to
Speaker 1: it as well. It is very satisfying to see them
Speaker 1: beat him at basketball, and I think it's I think
Speaker 1: I thought about that the same way you did, Jamie,
Speaker 1: because they show they show them being very vigorous players
Speaker 1: and like a little bit that you see before Charles Barkley,
Speaker 1: like when he's watching them, they're like really like going
Speaker 1: at it, and I'm like, oh, so these are like
Speaker 1: good street ballers, you know. And I definitely thought he
Speaker 1: was just like she's so tiny, She's so small, Like
Speaker 1: it's I understand. And then the psychologist is talking to
Speaker 1: Patrick Ewing and he's like, are you having trouble performing
Speaker 1: anywhere else in your life? Basically like does your dick
Speaker 1: still work? And which is like I'm like, it's like
Speaker 1: the psychiatrist relaxed. But then also Patrick Ewing was like, um, yes,
Speaker 1: my dick works. It's like no, yeah, that's a very
Speaker 1: different movie. And he's like, I would actually like to
Speaker 1: talk to a doctor about that. Thank you. Like, And
Speaker 1: there's a part where Charles Barkley he's praying. He's like,
Speaker 1: I'll never sleep with Madonna. I'll never go out with
Speaker 1: Madonna again, and which is how I learned that that
Speaker 1: even happened. I was like what, And Moby's like, Muggsy's like,
Speaker 1: you think I'm trying to dispect my mama And he's like,
Speaker 1: I didn't say that, you did. He's like, but I
Speaker 1: love my mama. It's such a weird sequence. Like the
Speaker 1: sports side is very I mean in in the real
Speaker 1: and the animated world, the sports world is hyper masculine
Speaker 1: and and and like not very attempting to question that.
Speaker 1: And I feel like it's very of its time in
Speaker 1: that way, where like the masculinity of professional sports is
Speaker 1: not really called into question in any way. Besides Lola
Speaker 1: Bunny in this movie, which I was not extremely surprised by.
Speaker 1: I honestly wasn't like me because it's seen it, and
Speaker 1: also because it's I wasn't expecting this movie to uh
Speaker 1: challenge that very much, especially because it's a movie that
Speaker 1: is like starring Michael Jordan, who was like so of
Speaker 1: this like hyper masculine, hyper disciplined sports moment and so
Speaker 1: well that brings me to talking about the monsters, and
Speaker 1: there is like a masculinity component to it. But I
Speaker 1: also can't help but feel and and Princess tell me
Speaker 1: your thoughts on this. But the monsters are coded black, right,
Speaker 1: they definitely get more like stereotypical urban aesthetics and like
Speaker 1: how their mouths are designed, like they get the kind
Speaker 1: of like, um, I always call them the like minstrel
Speaker 1: outline of when you like hyper like line the lips
Speaker 1: to make them look darker, and like some of them
Speaker 1: start using kind of a a V like language, except
Speaker 1: for the one that stole the talent from a white guy,
Speaker 1: who just becomes like adobe white dude, um, like the
Speaker 1: Charles Barkley one. Like they all like you heard the
Speaker 1: Dream Team where the Mean Team was like like who
Speaker 1: you guys didn't sound like that before you have this talent? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So they definitely urbanized them because I think that they
Speaker 1: like the audience can like understand the codification of that
Speaker 1: of like, now they're dangerous because before they were like
Speaker 1: nebbish and tiny, but now they're like big urban street ballers.
Speaker 1: So now we've got to be afraid. And I also
Speaker 1: become kind of hot not gonna like that green one.
Speaker 1: I was like, he's kind of cute and that's my favorite.
Speaker 1: And I was like, that's a good shade of green
Speaker 1: on him. I was like, I was in for it,
Speaker 1: but I'm trash, so which it is. I mean, like
Speaker 1: and and this is because we're talking about space jam primarily,
Speaker 1: like I won't get too into this, but given the
Speaker 1: history of Looney Tunes and race, I mean, it goes
Speaker 1: back to the early nineteen thirties, so for our listeners,
Speaker 1: feel free to look it up and and do the
Speaker 1: math on how they've treated. But there's been a number
Speaker 1: of deeply racist Looney Tunes cartoons that have been buried,
Speaker 1: and so for you know, just seeing the evolution there
Speaker 1: in character design and then seeing that early Looney Tunes
Speaker 1: animators like Chuck Jones, who I get is like, oh,
Speaker 1: I guess along with tech savery like the iconic Looney
Speaker 1: Tunes guy hated Space Jam and how a lot of
Speaker 1: issues with it. It speaks to the I guess, I
Speaker 1: guess just like the slow update of a franchise, and
Speaker 1: like calls into question, is it possible to effectively update
Speaker 1: a franchise that was started so long ago? And like
Speaker 1: what are the I guess stumbling blocks in attempting to
Speaker 1: do that? And I feel like some of those are
Speaker 1: kind of really pushed against in in Space Jam. And
Speaker 1: it's also interesting because like as you kind of touch
Speaker 1: on like lue Tune's design, just like making Mouse is
Speaker 1: like rooted in minstrelsy. So you basically have these two
Speaker 1: kind of like two kinds of black codifications combating each other,
Speaker 1: featuring like the biggest black athlete at the time featuring
Speaker 1: in it. And it's this weird hodgepodge of like how
Speaker 1: at that time, at that time, like in the nineties
Speaker 1: kind of like the pinnacle of like black urban cool
Speaker 1: really being elevated in like mainstream pop culture, which is
Speaker 1: why I think those choices were made. And like why
Speaker 1: Bugs Bunny himself is so popular in so many different
Speaker 1: like places, is because he also can adapt that coolness
Speaker 1: because like Mickey Mouse was never cool, but like Bugs
Speaker 1: Bunny very much has. Yeah, but Bugs always had like
Speaker 1: a swagger about him, and I feel that that comes
Speaker 1: from them very much emulating the popular culture and vibe
Speaker 1: of an era, and that usually is a black vibe,
Speaker 1: you know, and even like even with the drag culture,
Speaker 1: like you know, a lot of that comes from like
Speaker 1: black queer environments and like so I think even in
Speaker 1: Space Jam they can't help but like, all right, well
Speaker 1: they're not going to be scary if they're not a
Speaker 1: little bit black coated. Yeah, ke Um, I wanted to
Speaker 1: bring up um. Wayne Knight's character is constantly fat shamed.
Speaker 1: Basically every moment that he's on screen, He's is made
Speaker 1: to seem just like this bumbling, smelly, clumsy like Douf
Speaker 1: the giant fart joke is like, even as a kid,
Speaker 1: I find it uncomfortable. I was like, this is weird
Speaker 1: and this is even like a little like I mean,
Speaker 1: this is a little bit as side comment, but the
Speaker 1: fact that even somehow Wayne Knight is subject to the
Speaker 1: same gravity laws is cartoons and still Litla Bunny isn't
Speaker 1: is very straight Like he could be squished, Yeah, he
Speaker 1: could be squished, but Lola Bunny can't be squished, Michael
Speaker 1: Jordan gets turned into a basketball and bounced around by
Speaker 1: the monstars, but Lola Bunny can't. Like she's just too
Speaker 1: delicate and too feminine to have any sort of cartoon
Speaker 1: I'm not that I'm advocating for like violence to be
Speaker 1: done against her, but like that's the whole thing about
Speaker 1: Looney Tunes. It's cartoon violence and get physics is inherent
Speaker 1: to Looney Tunes. And they don't feature any women, right,
Speaker 1: And it's like she's an athlete, like she would be
Speaker 1: used to getting hurt, and i mean, like again, it's
Speaker 1: like it's like they have get it, you know, they
Speaker 1: have for like we need to have a care at
Speaker 1: female cattery that does the thing. But then they forget
Speaker 1: like female characters trained, they get hurt, they get more injuries.
Speaker 1: Like Lola Bunny was a cheerleader, she would have gotten more,
Speaker 1: you know, injuries than any of these basketball players because
Speaker 1: chilian is the most dangerous sport around. And it's like
Speaker 1: it's it's like it's so frustrating because like and you're
Speaker 1: totally right about way Night, which is weird because it's
Speaker 1: like Elmer Fudd is not skinny, Like there's so many
Speaker 1: like fat characters and like differently kind of big is
Speaker 1: right there. He even coming into the defense, he's just
Speaker 1: like doing like you know, I'm just like dishonor. And
Speaker 1: then I wanted to bring up something that you discussed,
Speaker 1: Princess in a Merry suit piece that you wrote about
Speaker 1: Space jam merch Care to talk about that? Yeah, So,
Speaker 1: like I tend to only want to bude space jam
Speaker 1: merchandise with low La on it, and so frequently she's
Speaker 1: left out or she's like pictured not in costume, or
Speaker 1: like she's like I remember like Forever twenty one was
Speaker 1: having like a huge Space Jam culcution. I was like, yes,
Speaker 1: I'm about to just have like you know, number ten
Speaker 1: Lola Buddy crop tops all day. I was like, that
Speaker 1: would be obvious to have for a site that is
Speaker 1: mostly frequented by women and from folk and other people
Speaker 1: who are from presenting, And yet everything was like Taz
Speaker 1: Daffy Bugs, Michael Jordan's and I'm like, but the second
Speaker 1: best player on the tum squad is Lola Bunny. So weird,
Speaker 1: there's so little merged to the point where like I
Speaker 1: was looking at this up merchandise that features her from
Speaker 1: this era is like worth a lot of money because
Speaker 1: they didn't make a lot of it, and those that
Speaker 1: did became very you know, valued by certain types, myself included.
Speaker 1: And like, there isn't a lot of merch of her
Speaker 1: from like that era where she's like in her outfit,
Speaker 1: and even now if you try to find like Lola
Speaker 1: Bunny like pins or anything like that, they're all very
Speaker 1: hyper sexualized and you really can't find anything. It's really
Speaker 1: upsetting because I do genuinely love that character. I don't think.
Speaker 1: I went to like some fan con and I had
Speaker 1: someone draw like a little bit of fan art of her,
Speaker 1: because I'm like, I want to be able to own
Speaker 1: one piece of non sexy Lola Bunny fan art in
Speaker 1: my lifetime. Um, But yeah, she doesn't get a lot
Speaker 1: of merchandise. And even when even when she was in
Speaker 1: other things like Baby Looney Tunes or Lunatics Unleaked, which
Speaker 1: was like this weird futuristic show that featured like Lexi Bunny,
Speaker 1: who was like the future version of Lola, there wasn't
Speaker 1: a lot of merch for her there either, because just traditionally,
Speaker 1: people don't make out of merch for girls when it
Speaker 1: comes to those kind of toys and when you know, well,
Speaker 1: only boys play with toys, didn't you know exactly? And
Speaker 1: so like it doesn't surprisely, but it upsets me deeply
Speaker 1: because I just really it was just like a really
Speaker 1: frustrating double edged sword too, because we like it is
Speaker 1: pretty clear that Lola Bunny was created to be merchandized,
Speaker 1: and then for her to not be merchandise when she
Speaker 1: was created to be merchandises, like, well, then why are
Speaker 1: we doing this? Like if you're not going to merchandise her,
Speaker 1: then why we're all those very specific decisions made. It's
Speaker 1: just like it's very confusing that and like the picture
Speaker 1: that you presented in the piece that you wrote had
Speaker 1: it was like a glass, like a drinking glass that
Speaker 1: had Lola Bunny off to the side in like plain clothes,
Speaker 1: not in her uniform, even though she's the only Looney
Speaker 1: Tune who's any good at basketball, Like, why would she
Speaker 1: not be in uniform like front and center. It reminds
Speaker 1: me of like when you get like Mulan merchandise and
Speaker 1: she's never in her warrior outfit? Would she wears the
Speaker 1: majority of the movie? Why do I have a long
Speaker 1: haired Mulan doll. That's not what she looks like like
Speaker 1: it's it's it's absurd And I don't even know why
Speaker 1: they put her in that outfit because that's not an
Speaker 1: iconic outfit her. You in aform is the iconic outfit
Speaker 1: that she wears that Jamie herself even had to try
Speaker 1: and like, where is it? I would wear it in
Speaker 1: the house like it's a it's a look, and yet
Speaker 1: they don't market that at all. Mm hmm. It's yeah,
Speaker 1: it's so frustrated. Its like even today, when I went
Speaker 1: on Etty and searched a little Bunny, I hesitate to
Speaker 1: share with you the results I found because it was
Speaker 1: mostly uh T shirts of yeah, a bugs bunny having
Speaker 1: sex with a little bunny on a shirt, which was
Speaker 1: not what I wanted. I was hoping more for just
Speaker 1: a shirt, just a regular shirt with no sex happening
Speaker 1: on it. Harder to find than you would think. Uh
Speaker 1: so there's that. I lost that gud A little bit earlier,
Speaker 1: I was when we were talking about Looney Tunes history.
Speaker 1: I also wanted to quickly bring up a character who's
Speaker 1: very majorly sidelined in this era of Looney Tunes and
Speaker 1: has been off and on sidelines and regarded in a
Speaker 1: number of ways, and that is Speedy Gonzalez is on
Speaker 1: the team at different points. I don't know if you
Speaker 1: ever really get to hear him speak at length at
Speaker 1: all in this movie. But that's like another example of
Speaker 1: Looney Tunes character who is built on racist stereotypes, who's like,
Speaker 1: I guess whose significance has been kind of argued back
Speaker 1: and forth over the years, because Speedy Gonzalez is a
Speaker 1: character who has been reclaimed in many ways but also um,
Speaker 1: you know, criticized rightfully so in many ways, to the
Speaker 1: point where there was a feature film starring Speedy Gonzalez
Speaker 1: in production as recently. And it's just with a franchise
Speaker 1: that goes back this far, the process of claiming and
Speaker 1: disclaiming a character goes back so much. And in the nineties,
Speaker 1: is at this point speak Gonzalez? I think that they
Speaker 1: were the franchise didn't know how to handle him or
Speaker 1: what to do with him, so they were like, well,
Speaker 1: he's here, but he's not speaking, so is that okay?
Speaker 1: Like it's just such a bizarre moment for this franchise
Speaker 1: in with the changes they choose to make and then
Speaker 1: the things that are left over from fifty years ago
Speaker 1: that they don't quite know what to do with, and
Speaker 1: so they just sort of do nothing. Meanwhile, like the
Speaker 1: like the date Raby Peppy Lap, you can still have
Speaker 1: like two speaking it's like canceled Peppe. Canceled Peppe, Like
Speaker 1: so why why? Yeah, the fact that he got a
Speaker 1: line right after the Lola Bunny scene, You're just like
Speaker 1: this is unjust rights, Like this is gross. I don't, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't. I hate him so much. It's just like
Speaker 1: he's such an annoying character. Funny thing I heard is
Speaker 1: that in France his dub voice is in Italian. Oh
Speaker 1: that's funny. That's so funny. Shame They're like, we do
Speaker 1: not claim Peppe. Yeah, he's not ours. We will not
Speaker 1: stand for this slander. I love it, but I will
Speaker 1: say after watching Knives Out Foghorn Leghorn, his voice was
Speaker 1: so funny to be because all I could hear was
Speaker 1: like Chris Evan's going like what is this c S
Speaker 1: I KFC and I oh, good time. Parkhorn Leghorn, who.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I've ever mentioned this on the
Speaker 1: pod before, Probably we've it's existed long enough. But my
Speaker 1: high school my first boyfriend ever. We broke up. He
Speaker 1: broke up with me for the saxophone, and then years
Speaker 1: later I saw him again and he was exactly the same,
Speaker 1: but the one difference was that he had bicep tattoo
Speaker 1: of foghorn leghorn, and that was the one different thing
Speaker 1: about him, and that I have no update on him
Speaker 1: since then. He got a fog horn leg horn tattoo. Um,
Speaker 1: So you know, I guess still culturally relevant in the
Speaker 1: last ten years. It was such a huge tattoo. I'll
Speaker 1: never get over the shock of being like, oh, no,
Speaker 1: one's expecting a full bicep the end. That's bonkers incredible. Well,
Speaker 1: it sounds like a dodge a bullet by getting broken
Speaker 1: up with. I was gonna say this, like, you don't
Speaker 1: need that. I don't know. I didn't. It turns out
Speaker 1: I didn't need that in my life. Um, but there
Speaker 1: it is. Um. There's another Okay, we talked about this
Speaker 1: on our Who Friend Roger Rabbit episode that's on the Matreon. Um.
Speaker 1: But there's a moment and this is I feel like,
Speaker 1: very common in specifically movies that combine live action and
Speaker 1: animated stuff. But I think this is also just a
Speaker 1: general animated trope where a male character will kiss another
Speaker 1: male character and it's meant to be this like, ha ha,
Speaker 1: isn't isn't it so funny and wacky that I'm kissing you?
Speaker 1: But then the recipient of the kiss, while understandably is
Speaker 1: not happy and it should be because it is a
Speaker 1: surprise kiss that they did not consent to, is usually
Speaker 1: instead played as like a queer phobic like, oh no,
Speaker 1: I just got kissed by a man, But is it okay?
Speaker 1: Because it's a cartoon and it's just like this weird
Speaker 1: thing that happens in this movie when Bugs kisses Michael
Speaker 1: Jordan's upon like immediately upon seeing him because he's like
Speaker 1: if I wasn't real, could I do this? And then
Speaker 1: just lays lays one on him. He's like I don't know,
Speaker 1: and they're like, why why is this here? Yeah, it's weird.
Speaker 1: I got of who from Roger Rabbit as soon as
Speaker 1: I saw it again because I was just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: they do that a lot, because even at the end
Speaker 1: when uh, I forget the male character's name, but when
Speaker 1: he kisses Roger back, it's supposed to be this moment
Speaker 1: of like Roger's like what just happened. Like it's like
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, that isn't fun. I shouldn't be surprised
Speaker 1: kissing people. Um, but yeah, it's just it's a very
Speaker 1: interesting thing that is so part of like that era
Speaker 1: and like so part of like what people didn't really
Speaker 1: understand about like that being a thing that you shouldn't do.
Speaker 1: And it's only ever framed as doing a thing that
Speaker 1: you shouldn't do when it's two men, you know, it's
Speaker 1: never ever like it was like the same sex thing.
Speaker 1: It's like surprise kiss like you know, or like it
Speaker 1: was two women, it's like surprise kids, you know. But
Speaker 1: like when it's two minutes, like yikes, because Bugs surprise
Speaker 1: kisses Lola at the end and she's like habbah habba,
Speaker 1: showing like and it's like, no, you didn't. You didn't
Speaker 1: consent to that kiss. Does oh I have a question.
Speaker 1: When Lola kisses Bugs Zach also count as a surprise
Speaker 1: kills I feel like that could easily be classified as
Speaker 1: a surprise kiss. Yes, because they're in the middle of
Speaker 1: a basketball game. There's not killing basketball. You put that
Speaker 1: romance on the on the side. Yeah, So just all
Speaker 1: the kissing in this movie shouldn't have happened because it's
Speaker 1: it's three surprise kisses in a row. I mean, the
Speaker 1: thing is like, I have no that I like. I
Speaker 1: there's a lot of ways to come at it, and
Speaker 1: and we've almost been talking to for two hours, so
Speaker 1: I won't go, which is longer than the movie. But
Speaker 1: there is like I don't want to completely say that
Speaker 1: Lola Bunny should be de sexualized, because I feel like
Speaker 1: there is, Like Princess was saying earlier, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of de sexualization of female athletes that is equally sexist,
Speaker 1: and like, if you are an athletic fem you can't
Speaker 1: be a sexual being as well, and that's an equally
Speaker 1: unfair thing to have forced upon you. Of like total
Speaker 1: if you are athletic, it's inherent that that is all
Speaker 1: you can be. It sounds so complicated, but you just
Speaker 1: need to strike the same balance that you would for
Speaker 1: most male characters and that's all you would need to do. Um,
Speaker 1: But this movie it doesn't quite do that. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it's not so much that I like if the
Speaker 1: fact that she has written primarily to be a new
Speaker 1: love interest of Bugs Bunny, like that is not I
Speaker 1: don't love that, but the fact that they end up
Speaker 1: in a romantic relationship together, like whatever. I'm fine with that,
Speaker 1: Like if they like each other, if they admire each
Speaker 1: other's basketball skills, whatever, fine. It's more that the nature
Speaker 1: of the kissing, which is just like three non consensual kisses,
Speaker 1: is what I take most issue with. But you know
Speaker 1: that's still well. That brings me to a quote from
Speaker 1: another Mary Sue piece from Maddie Myers entitled Hay Space Jam.
Speaker 1: To give Lola Bunny the respect she'd serves this time,
Speaker 1: says quote. The way she is in Lila Bunny I
Speaker 1: was framed taught kid me a pretty depressing lesson about
Speaker 1: what it takes to be accepted by a group of guys.
Speaker 1: If you're lucky and if you're hot enough, maybe you'll
Speaker 1: get to date one of them. Unfortunately, I know that's
Speaker 1: a lesson that I internalized very early on in my life,
Speaker 1: the idea that male male validation was the only thing
Speaker 1: that really mattered as opposed to winning games and excelling
Speaker 1: at my chosen hobbies. It's a lesson that took me
Speaker 1: years to unlearn. Unquote. So that's kind of the whole
Speaker 1: thing with with Lola Bunny again, like as a character,
Speaker 1: isolating her character is like, she's a great character. A
Speaker 1: lot of young girls saw her and looked up to
Speaker 1: her and and found a lot of value in her
Speaker 1: character rightfully, so like she was the only good basketball
Speaker 1: player on the team aside from Michael Jordan's. But the
Speaker 1: way that she is framed by the story, like the
Speaker 1: story doesn't like her and and then she's her character
Speaker 1: suffers as a result. So and I agree. I did
Speaker 1: hear that for Space Jam two that they have brought
Speaker 1: in some w NBA players, So I'm hoping that that means, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was, I remember hearing something about that, So I'm
Speaker 1: like hopefully. And Lebron James has been very good about
Speaker 1: supporting female athletes, so I feel like he definitely wouldn't
Speaker 1: want to produce a movie that was like token woman
Speaker 1: in this era, Like I don't think. I think that absolutely.
Speaker 1: If they don't do Lola right in Space Dam two,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be like, it's gonna break my heart so bad,
Speaker 1: like that'll be that'll be ruining my childhood. I wonder
Speaker 1: if she'll get the Oh my gosh, I don't even
Speaker 1: remember her name, which tells you how important this character is,
Speaker 1: but the one female character in the Toy Story franchise
Speaker 1: made her like yeah and to History Story four. She
Speaker 1: I wonder if she'll if, like Lola Bunny will get
Speaker 1: the bo peep in Toy Story for treatment. We'll find out,
Speaker 1: I guess whenever that movie comes out. You can keep
Speaker 1: the crop top. But I just want her to have
Speaker 1: like some real shorts this time, like some like you know,
Speaker 1: knee high, knee length. I think we need to, we
Speaker 1: need to. We need her to have like knee length shorts,
Speaker 1: knees top eight of them are exposed um them, we're
Speaker 1: covered up at the top. I mean, yeah, I I
Speaker 1: hope that the question mark um iteration of Lola Bunny
Speaker 1: is you know. I I feel like at this point, yeah,
Speaker 1: with with Lebron involved and with how far hopefully we
Speaker 1: have come, since there will be more to see and
Speaker 1: more for Lola to do and reclaim. And I mean
Speaker 1: it is interesting this this uh, this franchise is like
Speaker 1: entering it's ninetieth year and it still evolving, which is
Speaker 1: pretty I mean, there's not a lot of franchises that
Speaker 1: you can follow for that long and track growth. So
Speaker 1: I'm excited to see what what she does next? Exactly?
Speaker 1: And yet and somehow we managed to talk nearly two
Speaker 1: hours about a seventy seven minute that is the that
Speaker 1: is the power of space Jam, that it edited, that
Speaker 1: it has capitalist messages, anti capitalist messages, it's pro union.
Speaker 1: It's like weirdly to nineties girl power, but also reinforces
Speaker 1: nineties sexism, all in just under ninety minutes. It's like,
Speaker 1: it's they don't make them like that anymore. Well, it
Speaker 1: does not. We set already does not pass the Bechdel
Speaker 1: test to female characters don't interact at all. Well, his
Speaker 1: wife and his daughter, his daughter and his daughter interact,
Speaker 1: but it is not shockingly only about Michael Jordan's right, Yes,
Speaker 1: I forgot about that, and yeah, the very brief moment
Speaker 1: there um, and then I think, like his wife and
Speaker 1: his housekeeper or his mother, We're not sure. Um. I
Speaker 1: think also interact with each other, but we don't know.
Speaker 1: Do we know any of their names? I don't. I
Speaker 1: think like it is her name, Sheila. I feel like
Speaker 1: they say her name once, but I don't remember. I think,
Speaker 1: and I think they say the other woman's named too.
Speaker 1: But it was funny because when that scene happened, I
Speaker 1: was like, will this be the scene? And it's not.
Speaker 1: But it's about food. But it's about food, and all
Speaker 1: I could hear is women be cooking because she's making
Speaker 1: because she's like making something with like collar greens and something.
Speaker 1: And I'm just lating. That does sound good? Women be cooking?
Speaker 1: It's yeah. Unfortunately, on the live action side, there's there's
Speaker 1: not much happening for women, And on the animated side,
Speaker 1: it's complicated. Are we are we at the nipples? Girl?
Speaker 1: Are we there? Yeah? Ten rabbit nipples. I'm gonna give
Speaker 1: this like a half nipple. Well, maybe I'll give it
Speaker 1: one nipple for Lola Bunny. Is she very tokenized? Is
Speaker 1: she hyper sexualized? Is any of that her fault? No?
Speaker 1: But you know she's at the mercy of these four
Speaker 1: male screenwriters, whoever the hell We've got a Leo, we've
Speaker 1: got a Steve, A Timothy, and a herschel Um who
Speaker 1: wrote this movie and had an opportunity to introduce an
Speaker 1: interesting female loony tune character into the cannon, and they
Speaker 1: did to some extent. Because Lola is awesome again if
Speaker 1: you just isolate her, but the movie, the way she
Speaker 1: is framed all the more that she gets to do
Speaker 1: in the movie, all the more screen time she has
Speaker 1: doesn't do her any justice. And then, just like with
Speaker 1: Charles Barklay's comment of like, you know, I was beaten
Speaker 1: by a bunch of girls like I don't, this movie
Speaker 1: doesn't respect women. Um. The fact that it's a of
Speaker 1: the live action characters, that it's a predominantly black cast
Speaker 1: is worth noting. That's not common for a hugely mainstream
Speaker 1: movie as this was that made over two million dollars
Speaker 1: at the box office, and this whole franchise, including merchandizing,
Speaker 1: which again does not include a little of Bunny enough,
Speaker 1: is estimated to have made something like six billion dollars
Speaker 1: since the movie was released. A lot of croptops. So
Speaker 1: you know, there's pros and there's cons. But you know,
Speaker 1: from the lens of intersectional feminism, I can't say that
Speaker 1: it does very well. So one nipple and um, I'll
Speaker 1: give it to a little of Bunny. Okay, this is
Speaker 1: maybe over over rely generally, I I'm cutting this movie breaks.
Speaker 1: Maybe it doesn't necessarily deserve, but I'm going to go
Speaker 1: for one and a half and maybe I want I
Speaker 1: almost want to give it it too, because I feel
Speaker 1: like we've we've touched on this throughout the episode. The
Speaker 1: fact that there is a female athlete icon at least
Speaker 1: for young girls to project onto, was not a small
Speaker 1: thing at this time. Is she hyper sexualized, yes? Is
Speaker 1: she not on screen enough? Absolutely not. But I do
Speaker 1: feel like a female athlete who is extremely competent and
Speaker 1: is confident. In spite of the fact that that is
Speaker 1: really only appears in one scene. It seems like the
Speaker 1: cultural legacy of this movie. It doesn't feel like there
Speaker 1: was just one scene because um, like, girls of this
Speaker 1: generation projected so much onto her, because what else was
Speaker 1: there at this time to project onto? You had basically
Speaker 1: Disney princesses who were like, had really no agency that
Speaker 1: much at all, because it Mulan hasn't come out at
Speaker 1: this point. So I so, I I I'm being overally
Speaker 1: generous to it, But I feel like Lila Bunny does
Speaker 1: bring a lot to the table. Having a predominantly black
Speaker 1: live action cast was a huge thing at this time,
Speaker 1: and I just, I mean, maybe I'm giving it extra
Speaker 1: points for nostalgia doesn't deserve, but I'm going to give
Speaker 1: it one and a half. I also, it's also worth
Speaker 1: mentioning that Um, there is. There are predominantly, as usual,
Speaker 1: white men behind the camera for this movie, but there
Speaker 1: is a black writer credited on this movie. Um, oh,
Speaker 1: where are my notes? Oh? No, I have too many
Speaker 1: notes because I feel like it is Timothy Harris who
Speaker 1: is at the black writer on this movie. He is
Speaker 1: the writing partner. It's like two male writing partnerships that
Speaker 1: wrote this movie. So it's Timothy Harris and Herschel weinrad
Speaker 1: great uh and then Leo bien Venudi and Steve Rudnick
Speaker 1: are the two teams. Leo and Steve also wrote Santa
Speaker 1: Claus shout Out, and Timothy and Herschel also wrote Trading Places, Kindergarten,
Speaker 1: Cop and Twins. So now we know why Danny DeVito
Speaker 1: is there. So there. I mean, it's I honestly, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, so there there is a black writer
Speaker 1: on this project. Is it proportional representation? Absolutely not. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I just I love this movie and
Speaker 1: I'm probably giving it too much credit, but I'm gonna
Speaker 1: give it a nipple and a half and I'm giving
Speaker 1: them both to Lola Bunny because we gotta get her
Speaker 1: to ten. So Princess um give her seven point five
Speaker 1: and give them up for seven point five nipples. I'm
Speaker 1: definitely gonna I think I'm gonna be a little bit
Speaker 1: more your generous and Jamie I gave it to, I
Speaker 1: thoughtfully gave it to both of them. Are Lola's nipples. Um.
Speaker 1: But I think for me, the thing that I was
Speaker 1: thinking about in context of like female athleticism is like
Speaker 1: the all only other movie I remember that featured like
Speaker 1: a female athlete in this way, whereas the priority was
Speaker 1: like loving basketball that came out and like in two
Speaker 1: thousand and I feel like when I think about what
Speaker 1: it meant for me to have like a Lola bunny
Speaker 1: doll when I was a kid, and like, even rewatching
Speaker 1: that movie today, I was like, there is something about
Speaker 1: the way that she just was so effortlessly cool that
Speaker 1: meant so much to me. And I think when I
Speaker 1: think about even now, the way like and even a
Speaker 1: Lola is not black, the way I've seen black girls
Speaker 1: attached to that character, the way I've seen like that happened,
Speaker 1: especially when you think about how the w n b
Speaker 1: A talks about women, treats women, how underfunded they are.
Speaker 1: I think, even though she doesn't get enough screen time,
Speaker 1: it does mean something to have a competent female athlete
Speaker 1: in a movie who gets to be a love interest,
Speaker 1: because that kind of thing de sexualizes you in a
Speaker 1: way that's very like queer phobic and misogynistic. At the
Speaker 1: same time, it's like they're like, oh, she must be
Speaker 1: like a lesbian, as if a that's a bad thing,
Speaker 1: like shout out to her. But I think that the
Speaker 1: tricky things that Lola is like a made by committee
Speaker 1: design character, and so like that's why it can't be
Speaker 1: like more than two. I love it that it's a
Speaker 1: black movie, I love the music in it, and I
Speaker 1: hope that Space Jam two does better. But I think
Speaker 1: in terms of like the legacy of what Lola has
Speaker 1: meant to a lot of people is still a good thing,
Speaker 1: and that's why I'm bumping it just lightly up to um.
Speaker 1: But I also agree that, like I'm probably giving it
Speaker 1: a lot of nostalgic credit because literally this movie has
Speaker 1: like genuinely saved me from like the worst like times
Speaker 1: in terms of depression. It's like, my sweet smot Daffy
Speaker 1: remains undefeated. He has he's so funny, he's so funny.
Speaker 1: I just I love him so much. And the only
Speaker 1: character in this movie that appears in drag if only
Speaker 1: for a second. Yeah, because he's doing like a little
Speaker 1: runway fleeting moments and he looked great, you know, like
Speaker 1: that we can pull off a wig um oh Looney
Speaker 1: Tunes look incredible and drag. Yeah, it's like that's kind
Speaker 1: of well. Princess, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me. I was like
Speaker 1: when I got that, when I got the d M,
Speaker 1: I was like, I think. I was like, I was like,
Speaker 1: my time is come finally, I think. I think. When
Speaker 1: you asked me, I responded blank. I was like, Google play, Yeah,
Speaker 1: by us, you're featuring Luda Chris Well, we'd love to
Speaker 1: have you back anytime, so this will happen again. Thank you.
Speaker 1: That means so much. But thank you so much for
Speaker 1: having me this. This was so much fun. I turned
Speaker 1: off my fans for this, and I don't feel like
Speaker 1: I switted at all, even though I absolutely have so much.
Speaker 1: I love you guys much. You have clean audio, and
Speaker 1: everyone listening please follow Princess's work. I've been binging your
Speaker 1: YouTube channel. It is so fucking good, Like, just get
Speaker 1: into it, listeners. If you're not already into it. Yes,
Speaker 1: and tell us where we can find you and where
Speaker 1: what anything you want to plug? Yes, I am at
Speaker 1: Week's Princess on Twitter, no spaces and it's Week's w
Speaker 1: E E K E s um. And then on YouTube
Speaker 1: my user name there is Molina Pendulum because I was
Speaker 1: sixteen when I made it and I don't want to
Speaker 1: change it. And my last video was about Gone with
Speaker 1: the Wind, so you know, super topical, casual, you know,
Speaker 1: just have a little it's about the book though, because
Speaker 1: I'm not sitting through that movie for another four hours,
Speaker 1: like because it's too long. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: having me, and let's go and jam. Well, welcome, Welcome
Speaker 1: to the Jam, to the Jam. As always, there, may
Speaker 1: the Jam be with you. We should rebrand as the
Speaker 1: Jam Cast. Yes what if? Oh no, punch Up the
Speaker 1: Jam is our new I'm just kidding. You can follow
Speaker 1: us on social media on Twitter and Instagram at Bechtel Cast.
Speaker 1: You can um subscribe to our Patreon aka Matreon. It's
Speaker 1: five dollars a month and it gets you to bonus
Speaker 1: episodes every single month, including our entire back catalog of
Speaker 1: all the bonus episodes, with which is like around seventy
Speaker 1: now um seventy bonuses, so if you're if you're running
Speaker 1: out of content, there's there's plenty more to go through
Speaker 1: on the Matreon. You can get our merch at t
Speaker 1: public dot com slash the Bechtel Cast get all year.
Speaker 1: And we have new designs coming in the store soon
Speaker 1: because I'm going to make them soon. So guess what,
Speaker 1: They'll be there soon as soon as I make them,
Speaker 1: which will be soon, so look forward to that soon. Incredible. UM,
Speaker 1: thanks for listening, and UM, come on and slam and
Speaker 1: to the jam, and welcome to the jam. Come on
Speaker 1: and slam if you want a jam. Bye