Today, a friend of mine innocently sent me a video of Kirsten Wiig's Lola Bunny character on the new Looney Tunes cartoon series crazily serenading the calm and reasonable seeming Bugs Bunny (WTF, Bugs is the one that is supposed to be nuts!).
My friend overheard the song in the background when her 6 year old son was watching the new series and had two reactions: 1) this is so inappropriate to be showing on a kids' show and 2) this is hilarious.
Here's the link she sent me:
http://www.vulture.com/2011/07/kristen_wigg_bugs_bunny_looney.html
Where she found humor--and I could see the humor the writers were trying to appeal to--I was super annoyed. I hesitated and then went ahead and replied:
OMG that was horrible! I know I'm getting on my misogyny soap box, but how is it okay to feed kids the message that women expressing emotion are automatically crazy!
"Bitch be crazy" is a phrase that every girl or woman has to worry about every time she disagrees with someone. Women who are assertive = bitch be crazy. Women who are aggressive = bitch be crazy. Women who are actually crazy = bitch be crazy. In practice, all these varying types of personalities/mental states are made equal with the shorthand "bitch be crazy."
Lola Bunny is actually crazy in this video, as in, out of the norm, not mentally stable, not representative of how the vast majority of women behave and think. There are as many if not more guys who are way crazier (and more violent and dangerous and actually need restraining orders against them) than there are women; yet, will we see a crazy stalker bugs bunny video? Probably not.
As an aside: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/jan/25/facebook- sheryl-sandberg-gender- stereotypes
p.s. I love the concept of the re-imagined looney tunes, but the message of this song made me sad. :( Also sad that no one else in the comments section seemed bothered by this.
p.p.s. My first instincts when writing this email was to temper my language/reaction because I was worried that my "assertive" response would be taken simply as "bitch be crazy." sigh. :/ And yet I still felt the need to apologize for pointing out misogyny...
p.p.p.s. Today is the 200th birthday of the original assertive funny lady, Jane Austen (her humor is subtle, but a riot once you put it in context). http://msmagazine.com/blog/2012/12/16/happy- birthday-jane-austen-five- feminist-footnotes/
