In the past few years, and especially in the past several months, "cancel culture" has reached new heights in America-or; perhaps I should say new lows.
It seems nothing is safe from the vicious attacks carried out by the leftist "culture police," including children's cartoons.
One of the left's most recent targets has been the overly-invasive and hopelessly romantic French skunk from Looney Tunes, Mr. Pepé Le Pew. His unsolicited affection towards Penelope Pussycat has caused the feminists of Twitter to accuse him of "perpetuating rape culture."
While that statement alone is laughable in and of itself, it only becomes more absurd the more you begin to unravel the argument in its entirety, as is the case with most of these campaigns to cancel culturally relevant people, brands, and media.
For the sake of this article, I will mostly be focusing on Pepé Le Pew, since the reasoning for trying to cancel him seems to be based on the argument that the behavior of his character plays into a greater cultural issue, rather than on mere offense to the people canceling him.
Firstly, let's state the obvious but conveniently ignored aspect of this discussion. Pepé Le Pew is not and has never been portrayed as a noble character or good role model. His behavior is meant to be laughed at not because giving out unwanted physical affection is a trivial matter but because Pepé makes a fool out of himself frequently attempting to do so. He fails to successfully get Penelope to reciprocate his feelings no matter how hard he tries. If there is any lesson to be learned from Pepé's Lew Pew's actions, they're ineffective and make him look embarrassing.
And let's not forget that he is a smelly skunk that no one wants to be around.
Somehow, though, the "culture police" concluded that rather than being a ridiculous and off-putting character, Pepé Le Pew has been responsible for fueling America's alleged "rape culture" for the past 75 years.
While I don't personally buy into the ignorant notion that we have what could be classified as a "rape culture" in this country, rape does, unfortunately, take place all too often.
However, to say that such disgusting events are somehow the result of people watching Looney Tunes is absurd. I don't think Ted Bundy became the monster he was because he watched Pepé Le Pew at some point in his life. As if something clicked in his brain the moment he saw a cartoon skunk throw his arms around a resistant cartoon cat, or as if it caused him to believe his actions were morally acceptable.
To attribute such a serious issue to such a minuscule concept as a silly cartoon is insane. Looney Tunes is not what creates rapists within our society. Such depraved individuals carry out these horrendous actions towards others because of exactly that-they are; deprived individuals.
These deprived individuals didn't watch a cartoon show and suddenly transform into a monster. Regular men (women can be rapists too, but feminists generally focus specifically on men) are not born rapists until someone "teaches them not to rape."
The fact of the matter is that rape will still exist whether Pepé Le Pew does or not. Even scrubbing him out of existence will do absolutely nothing to put a stop to the occurrence of rape.
As long as the human race exists, so will rotten human beings, and as long as rotten humans live, so too will harm and wrongdoing; this is the reality many of these idealistic leftists refuse to accept. At the same time, their lives would have little meaning if they didn't have something or someone to fight against constantly.
Rather than search for any real solution for stopping rape from occurring, such as encouraging more firearm training and ownership, leftits believe that this problem can simply be talked away. All we have to do is tell men not to rape, and someday it will never happen again.
Encouraging women to take common-sense safety precautions and to be held accountable for their safety, on the other hand, is misogynistic and will do nothing to help.
Indeed Ted Bundy would've never gone on his evil spree had someone told him not to rape and murder people, right?
To take a look at the larger picture here, "cancel culture " rarely puts a stop to the issues the perpetrators of this phenomena attribute to whatever it is they are "canceling." Sure, it may have started with the good intention of holding people accountable for their actions, but it has quickly spiraled into the stuff of dictatorships, carelessly and viciously attempting to destroy the lives of strangers over everything from legitimate mistakes made decades ago to mere disagreements over political views.
Those who partake in cancel culture participate in bullying and harassment with the pretense of being an activist. Let's not forget that this behavior has its toxic roots in some of the most brutal totalitarian regimes throughout history. "Cancel culture" is blatantly anti-American and anti-democracy.
The "culture police" mob issues are more often than not exaggerated or only problematic to them personally. The left will twist or water down any and every term they can to stick it on someone or something and make them a problem worth "canceling." Suddenly a differing opinion has become "racist", "misogynistic", or "homophobic".
As long as they look like righteous members of society, it doesn't matter to them. Virtue signaling is what drives them in most aspects of their lives.
"Canceling" people or cartoons, for that matter, does absolutely nothing positive for society. Instead of doing anything to weed out any real issues we are facing, "cancel culture" in itself has become another real issue to add to the pile.
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About the Author:
Erin Fitzgerald Adair is a political commentator known as @Always.Right on Instagram. She attended college for Political Science and History, formerly hosted a weekly podcast, and recently worked on a congressional campaign. Erin is a “Cav Kid” from Georgia who now splits her time between there and Florida. She is passionate about advocating for gun rights, free speech, and our constitutional liberties while speaking out against abortion, censorship, and cultural marxism.
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