Lola’s barely in this film, but she still manages to hit all of these notes to a tea. There may or may not even be a side-plot where she agonizes about balancing her own femininity with her enjoyment of a supposedly masculine pastime. These are all slight variations on the same type of problem: the idea that a woman heroine in a male-dominated pastime has to be not only good, but exceptional, in order to “hang” with the guys … many of whom are pretty mediocre. I’ve personally dubbed it “The Cool Gamer Girlfriend” trope in the past, at least when it comes to media about “gamer girls”. Gone Girl‘s Amy Dunne calls this the “Cool Girl” trope in media analysis, this type of character arc has been referred to as Trinity Syndrome and the Smurfette Principle. When I got older, I noticed that sometimes there’d be a similar type of girl character in “nerd” films, too … and she’d often share a lot of the same qualities as Lola Bunny. I looked to characters like Lola Bunny, and like Icebox in Little Giants, for comfort and validation. It didn’t take me long to figure out that being competitive wasn’t considered an attractive quality in a girl, though. Although I was too short to be much good at sports, I engaged my competitive spirit in other ways, with pastimes like videogames and LARPing and tabletop assortments. I remember exactly why I related to Lola so much, growing up. She’s barely in the film at all, and what little she does do gets undermined by the narrative framing … but I’ll get to that in a minute. In the actual film? Eh … there’s a couple minutes of that-total-in a film that lasts an hour and twenty minutes. In my mind, she was the most important player on the team, scoring most of the baskets and wowing all of her colleagues and fans with her talents. I also somehow ret-conned the entire film as having been about her. Yep, that’s how bad Lola came off in Space Jam: I’m willing to settle for hope-crumbs.ĭon’t get me wrong when I was a ten-year-old girl, I absolutely friggin’ adored Lola Bunny. James has spoken out about feminist issues before, and although Trainwreck may not be a bastion of feminist thought, I’ll take the crumbs of hope for the moment. Part of why I’m hoping LeBron James signs onto the project at this point is that I’m hoping he can help out with the one terrible aspect of the original film: the characterization of Lola Bunny. I wanted to double-check and see if Space Jam, a film that charmed me when I was ten, would hold up. That’s exactly what I did last night, myself. Just pop in Space Jam once and see if it hooks ’em. Quality kids’ films are few and far between, which is why even modern-day kids still give a crap about Buzz Lightyear. Space Jam may have come out 20 years ago, but hey, so did The Lion King and Toy Story. I’m not even worried about the fact that modern-day kids “don’t know who Bugs Bunny is,” or whatever. Personally, I’m not worried about James’ acting abilities. Much of the fan discussion of the potential film has revolved around whether LeBron James can carry the role it’d be hard to top Michael Jordan’s charismatic rendition of the straight man contrasted with a well-known collection of self-described “looneys.” James’ recent cameos in the Amy Schumer-fronted Trainwreck seem to have offered him some credibility he’s willing to appear in a rom-com and joke around about Downton Abbey. Rumor has it that LeBron James will star, although he hasn’t confirmed. Come on and slam, and welcome to the Space Jam 2 sequel buzz that swooped in out of nowhere, like an alien rocket-ship on a mission to steal entertainment from the past in order to capitalize on nostalgic millennials’ wallets.
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