Looney Tunes' Bugs Bunnyis quite possibly the greatest character ever created. Mickey Mouse is more iconic, but that’s mainly a function of his role as the mascot for a massive multinational corporation. Beloved figures like Homer Simpson and Ash Ketchum have left undeniable marks on pop culture, but they’re essentially human characters who happen to exist in animated series.
Bugs, on the other hand, is definitively acartoon. Every aspect of his character is rooted in this reality; his fearlessness, his flexibility, and his invincibility all spring from the essential qualities of animation. Anything is possible from moment to moment, everything is arranged to assure his success, and he moves through his world with infallible confidence in this.
A Wrong Turn at Albuquerque
Bugs Bunny has been a towering figure in pop culture for more than 75 years now, and numerous writers, animators, and producers have taken a crack at the character in that time. What we think of as Bugs Bunny, though, was fully formed very early on.
Animation directors like Bob McKimson, Friz Freleng, and, especially, Chuck Jones defined the character and made him the carefree, wisecracking rascal that we still know him as today. The 1930s and ’40s were the early days of animation (Mickey Mouse, for example, was created in 1928), and Warner Brothers was encouraging Jones and company to first find, and then push past the limits of what the new art form was capable of.
The results were staggeringly inventive. Kinetic, dynamic, and high-energy, the early WB cartoons defined what a cartoon is. Then, into the borderline chaos of theLooney Tunesuniverse, they dropped a point of immense, unshakable nonchalance: Bugs Bunny.
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Drawing heavily from the stage persona of Groucho Marx, with vaudevillian one-liners like, “Don’t take life too seriously. You’ll never get out alive,” Bugs was always two steps ahead. Preternaturally calm andfourth-wall-breaking, Bugs views his fellow cartoon characters with a sort of bemused contempt. He knows that whatever rules they think are governing their universe, they’re all flexible and contingent, and they certainly don’t apply to him.
What’s Up, Doc?
In fact, it’s this existence beyond the rules of his universe that most defines Bugs Bunny. His disrespect for the rules of the world he inhabits has a hint of anarchism in it, as when he tells Yosemite Sam, who’s acting as a prison guard: “Eh, you wouldn’t be so tough if you weren’t wearing that uniform.” Bugs is not beholden to them, or anyone who is portrayed as a bit of a sucker. His is a lawless existence, and it seems charmed beyond all reason. It’s not hard, then, to imagine that maybe we might all be well-advised to take up the same approach.
Anarchists aren’t the only ones with a claim to Bugs’ subversive energy, though. Jones, Freleng, and other Warner Bros animators had a keen interest in the fine art movements of time, to the point that individual frames of their cartoons could easily pass for abstract expressionist paintings. So it should come as no surprise that, especially through his Groucho Marx lineage, Bugs hasa bit of a surrealistin him.
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A key part of Bugs’ appeal to adults, in fact, owes to the cleverness with which he warps the reality around him. Bugs’ schemes and diversions such as the famous “Duck Season — Rabbit Season” bit, or when he points out that “this defies the law of gravity, but I never studied law,” do not follow the rules of our world, but they do have a strange kind of logic to them.
Tricks and Tricksters
Bugs Bunny’s behavior, whether it’s heroic or anti-social, including his fourth-wall breaking, gender bending, and language games, all come down to one principle characteristic: Bugs lives in this world, but does not adhere to its rules. In this way, he resembles nothing so much as the trickster figures seen throughout world mythologies.
A trickster figure is a character archetype found in many cultures andmythologies around the world. They typically use wit, cunning, and deception to achieve their goals. Because they operate outside cultural norms, tricksters are often disruptive and unpredictable, a direct affront to the assumptions of their culture and all the ideas we take for granted, often without even realizing that they are not universal or inevitable.
Examples of trickster figures from various cultures include Loki from Norse mythology, Anansi from West African folklore, and Coyote from Native American folklore, and like these figures, Bugs revels in his own freedom from social norms. Witty and clever, he revels in outsmarting his opponents, particularly Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, and other antagonists who stand for more traditional structures.
Bugs often uses trickery and deception to get what he wants and to protect himself, and like other trickster figures, Bugs Bunny challenges authority and societal norms, for better or worse. In this way, we can see that Bugs played a small but key role in the Americana of the 20th century and the major cultural shifts it experienced; it’s a role that we could use a little more of right now.
