Chuck Jones | Rabbit Seasoning / 1952

pronoun trouble

by Douglas Messerli

 

Michael Maltese (screenwriter), Chuck Jones (director) Rabbit Seasoning / 1952 [7 minutes]

 

Elmer Fudd is on the loose again, gun in hand, ready to kill a rabbit, even though it’s actually duck season. But this time Daffy Duck has made sure, through a maze of signage to point Elmer directly to the duck.

    Unfortunately for Daffy, he’s unable to convince Elmer to kill the rabbit given Bugs Bunny’s quick manipulation of pronouns, a bit like the “Who’s on first joke.” First of all, Daffy is furious about the stupidity of Elmer who can’t even recognize Bugs as a rabbit. But then it quickly moves in linguistic nonsense. “Shoot him now,” shouts Daffy. “You keep out of this,” intervenes Bugs, “He doesn’t have to shoot you now.”

      “He does so!” proclaims Daffy, who turns to Elmer demanding he shoot “me now.” Obviously it ends with a cartoon figure shot in the head. This continues for some time until Daffy becomes wise to the pronoun switch, describing it as “pronoun trouble.”

      But soon Elmer is after booth of them, the two hiding out together in Bugs’ tunnel while they decide what to do, Bugs, always smarter than Daffy suggesting he take a look to see if their enemy is still in place. And of course he is, forcing Daffy to receive one of the many brutal blows of the gun which might have killed many of a less cartoonish duck.

      This time there seems no way out of the situation, until, of course, the often cross-dresser Bugs decides to pop up as a well-shaped female reading a book. Elmer, ever the fool, is immediately allured by the young woman and attempts to introduce himself to her, despite Daffy’s attempts to make him aware of the transformation. But Elmer insists, “Isn’t she wovely.”

     Out of sheer honesty Daffy demands Bugs tell him who he is. But the now quite seductive rabbit in drag turns to his enemy and suggests, “Yes, I would just love a duck dinner,” Elmer once again, for perhaps the 10th time, shooting poor Daffy in the head.

      Daffy now mockingly apologizes to the sexy female for suspecting his gender, kissing Bug’s hand before grabbing his wig and revealing the rabbit’s “true” sexuality.

      The always clever Bugs admits his deceit, suggesting “Would you like to shoot him now or wait until you get home?” At which point Elmer and Daffy walk off to his house as if they were suddenly a couple.

      The results, however, are inevitable, as once more Daffy Duck is shot “to death” with his cry out to Bugs: “You’re despicable.”

       As I have several times commented, in the 1950s Chuck Jones and so many others found a remarkable way around the code against any homosexual representation by presenting their cartoon figures as confused and duplicitous about their gender. Long before scientists began to recognize that same-sex behavior existed outside of the human species, the numerous cartoon creations of the 1940s and 50s made it clear that animals also shared in sexual and gender behavior that paralleled the human LBGTQ community.

 

Los Angeles, July 20, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (July 2024).