Valentines Day Promotion Using a Repeat Sex Offender

This is me being incensed with AT&T's new Valentines Day themed phone commercial featuring one of the most notorious male chauvinists to ever be animated - Pepé Le Pew. It begins with Penelope the Pussycat just finishing up after having painted her backside and tail with the classic white stripe of a skunk when her new phone (which I'm not promoting here) chimes, announcing a received text message. Then her heart begins to beat wildly in typical cartoon fashion after having read the message from her long-time stalker and repeat-attacker. The promotion is meant to be subtle and simultaneous. Firstly reminding the would-be customer that the holiday which is the commercial embodiment of romance is fast approaching, that the object* of your affections is expecting a gift, and finally that they have just the product for you! Regardless, their cute artifice has thoroughly failed to impress me. Instead I'm left thinking, What the fuck?

Their marketing ploy rests upon the hope that the general audience does in fact remember these cartoons, and that they hold some degree of nostalgia for them. But concocting an ad featuring mutual affection between Pepé and Penelope undermines the premise of the majority of the classic cartoons. Because in reality Penelope was not a starrey-eyed lover of Pepé, but rather a victim. Usually first of some unnamed character or element which prompted her to disguise herself as something other then a cat, and afterwards of Pepé himself. Episode after episode Penelope's will was overpowered as she was grabbed, restrained and fondled with her displayed reactions ranging from annoyance to horror. That's what's commonly known as sexual assault.

Despite that, Pepé Le Pew is widely recognized as a symbol of romantic love. With AT&T's commercial only furthering the despicable notion of Pepé as a "charmer" and "ladies-man" rather then a sexually aggressive criminal. I won't feign bewilderment at why we promote the complete and utter disregard to womens autonomy to our children in the disguise of something benevolent and sweet, it's merely one more brick in the wall of patriarchy. I am however still extremely miffed that nobody at AT&T had the good judgment to let the "amorous" meme in question die out.


* and I do mean object.