Rampaging rabbit furries. Credit: DENIS LOVROVIC/AFP/ Getty

We’re hovering on the cusp of spring. The air is warmer, green shoots are growing, birds are building their nests. It’s the beginning of that season in which animals and humans alike feel the sap rising.
The idea that we’re meant to be at it like rabbits at this time of year goes all the way back to ancient myth. And yet we’re not. We can blame it partly on lockdown, which effectively banned sex between anyone not cohabiting. But in truth, this unhappy situation hasn’t so much prised horny young people apart, as exaggerated a divide that was already growing.
Covid hasn’t just heightened economic problems; it’s leaned heavily on existing social fractures – including what has been called the “sex recession”. And a fresh recent front in the ever-expanding culture war – concerning rabbits – sheds some light on that.
Lola Bunny was the extremely pneumatic cartoon star of the 1996 sport fantasy Space Jam, who wore a crop top and high-riding shorts that left little to the imagination. She was very much on the same page as The Caramel Bunny, a wide-hipped, long-eyelashed cartoon bunny from the mid-1980s, who was voted one of the top three sexiest cartoons of all time.
Between then and now, though, something changed radically. Lola has been reincarnated as a considerably less sexy bunny for the Space Jam sequel. The new film’s director, Malcolm D. Lee, has said the previous design was “not politically correct”. He added: “This is a kids’ movie, why is she in a crop top? It just felt unnecessary, but at the same time there’s a long history of that in cartoons. This is 2021. It’s important to reflect the authenticity of strong, capable female characters.”
The redesign has prompted a level of culture-war reaction out of all proportion to the seeming triviality of redrawing a 25-year-old cartoon character. The two sides have lined up in their standard formations, with Slate laughing at the conservatives for complaining, while millennial men who loved Lola the first time round clocked up millions of YouTube views slamming the change.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
Subscribe