Kinks, Kids, and Bunny Girls: What’s the deal with all these Lolas?

“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.”

In 1955 we had Nabokov. In 1970 we had Ray Davies. In 1996 we had Looney Tunes. In 2021 we had a sex panic because a cartoon rabbit was no longer sexy enough. We have generations of men who have created characters and portrayed them as objects for sex, fulfilled or futile, and named them ‘Lola’ or derivatives therein. There is something about that name – Lola – that when you come across it in any kind of media you know there’s something dark and sexy about that girl. Across a century the name’s ‘meaning’ has remained the same – so what is it about Lola?

The origin of the name Lola is from the Virgin Mary: ‘our lady of sorrows’ is ‘Dolorosa’ in Latin and ‘Dolores’ in Spanish. ‘Lola’ is a diminutive of ‘Dolores’. Perhaps there is a something Catholic, or racialised Hispanic, in the name which makes people see it as a vector for sexy. Perhaps there is an inherent joy in the Madonna / Magdalen complex that compels people to put sexy on a name derived from the virgin mother. It could be that all these women were created for their appeal to men to be their sole defining characteristic are all all named after the Nabokov original? It would suggest a truly dark interpretation of ‘Space Jam’ if that were the case. Perhaps it is, as Nabokov suggests, simply the way the name sounds that makes people want to believe that Lolas are sexy, feisty, and dark. The truly strange thing about the name is not simply the perceived sexiness of its holders – that in and of itself would be noteworthy, but not perhaps interesting, in the same way that ‘Karen’ and ‘Tarquin’ evoke certain characteristics defined by socio-economic background or age. The truly interesting thing is, to me, that the desire in Lolas is so often forbidden or taboo. Not merely Nabokov’s child (and, I cannot stress enough, Lolita is thirteen in the book), but furry attraction and sex work are articulated by pop culture Lolas also. I am loath to put these into the same category, as Lolita is a book quite clearly condemning attraction to children told in the voice of somebody who cannot see how monstrous he is and the makers of Space Jam so clearly wanted to make Lola Bunny a sex object, yet somehow they find themselves intertwined in pop culture.

If all these Lolas are named after Nabokov, then it is probably Stanley Kubrick to blame. Although ‘Lolita’ was a pretty instantaneous hit, it is a notoriously complicated book, and Nabokov himself was aware of the power in the images he created, denying film rights for years. It was in the poster for Kubrick’s film that Lolita with the lollipop and the heart-shaped sunglasses was born, an uncomplicated image of youthful sexuality that takes the gaze of the book – it is through Humbert’s eyes as narrator that the story of Lolita is told, after all – and, in translation to traditional male-gaze cinematography, loses the impact of the condemnation Nabokov carefully drew in his book. This echoes the experience of another Lola: last year’s furore at the re-drawing of Lola Bunny to be less sexy shows just how tied up in the language of the male gaze the idea of Lola is. Kubrick’s ‘Lolita’ was controversial, and not especially successful, but through the film it has become part of the pop culture language, and a shorthand employed by both women and men for a particular type of girl, and its iconic imagery lives on.

Ray Davies might not have been directly inspired by Nabokov – and indeed, the more I learn about Davies, the less I think he was – but he was almost certainly aware of Kubrick’s take on the story from eight years before he wrote his Lola. Despite a lack of connection to Nabokov, Davies gives his listener a surprisingly similar breakdown of the sensory qualities of the name by splitting up the letters and spelling out the word as the main hook of his song. For a band whose name referenced an edgy side of sexuality and therefore sought to ally them with a sexual culture outside the suburban (even if it was, in fact, for their fashion sense that they got their name, and Ray Davies ‘never liked it’), The Kinks are in fact reinforcing the traditional male gaze in their song. They use their Lola to portray attraction to trans-feminine or gender non-conforming femininity as rage-inducing and a challenge to manhood, one which is ultimately thwarted by the narrator. The band have gone so far as to disavow their own connection to the song and attempt to shame their manager, saying that it was his experience that inspired the song rather than their own and suggesting that, rather than enjoying his experience with Lola on its own terms, it was only because he was drunk that he ‘let it happen to him’ or ‘didn’t notice’. The Kinks build on an existing Lolita and add to the mythology, making Lola a figure of non-standard sexuality and adding dimension to the idea of Lola as a sex object. Their Lola is not simply precocious and learning about sex, she is using her powerful sexuality to ‘trap’ men – she is a siren, and she only exists (as trans women, and women in general, are perceived to) for Davies’ narrator to desire, and violently reject. His domination over Lola, and his portrayal of her as simultaneously desirable and wrong, adds the darker side to Lola that we see as a part of her expression going forward.

And so it is that we come to the bunny. Although in twenty-six years there were plenty of Lolas, they have often been counter-cultural, or French (which, in itself, could be an expansion of this essay – why does Lola resonate so much in France?) no Lola again hit the zeitgeist and became synonymous with the name until Space Jam. Lola Bunny is a minor Looney Tune who was created for the movie, in which she is a tomboy flavour of a manic pixie dream girl whose only traits are ‘one of the boys’ and ‘hottie’. Her role in the film is to become Bugs Bunny’s girlfriend, because in conventional filmmaking there has to be a love story, even in a film as packed with plot and chaotic as Space Jam. There is no growth or development from Lola during the course of the movie, and her very first entrance hits all of her character beats, simply being repeated over the course of the movie instead of creating new interactions. Despite this, since the film’s release, Lola has become a fan-favourite character and appeared in multiple iterations, from fawning Bugs fangirl to a little kid with an interest in sports. Lola has no age and could be read as a full-grown adult or a voluptuous teenager, the hot alt girl from high school who chose basketball over cheerleading, as the viewer wishes. Her catchphrase of “Don’t ever call me ‘Doll’” even harkens back to the origins of the name – Dolores – and perhaps even the passage from Lolita, quoted from the top.

Undoubtedly inspired by Jessica Rabbit, whose role was to parody Betty Boop, hand-drawn women in early 20th century advertising, and the conventional sexuality presented by Hollywood, with Lola Bunny we have an anthropomorphic animal who is coded as sexy through everything from the way other characters react to her to the way she moves; but Lola takes on the sexy traits without the critical eye of a post-modern cartoon, giving Space Jam watchers an animated take on the 90s male gaze ideal. Pandering to the male gaze alone, however, does not a Lola make: it is her temper, and the fact that the creators use her bunny anatomy (long ears and a fluffy tail), as well as a cartoonish femininity, to position her as sexy to the audience as well as the characters, that give Lola Bunny the hint of kink, passion, and challenge to masculinity that makes her a Lola and not a Jessica.

Female-focussed stories that explore the same non-standard sexual attractions tend to be placed more solidly in the real world. Stories like Wuthering Heights, Pretty Baby, Whip It, or Hustlers, which focus on the same ideas of sexuality transcending race, gender norms, age, or including sex work, but which also have female creative voices involved or responsible for the making of them trend towards realistic storytelling and generally include believable consequences, which are perhaps elements of the female gaze. It is telling that careers like Andrea Arnold’s, which arguably contains exclusively stories of Lolas and Lolitas, do not include the comic-book sexuality of a Lola Bunny or the aesthetic sensibility of Lolita – and that Arnold’s characters do not have glamorous or sexy names. Although these girls in the female gaze do try to appear older and are every bit as flirtatious and precocious as the named Lolas in the male-gaze filmography, they are not portrayed as especially good at it, or finding happiness from it. Perhaps, then, a core element of a Lola is a feminine sexual power. This sense of power is not commonly adopted by women looking into the same ideas, meaning that they do not choose to create a Lola – explaining the lack of the name in female-led media. That is not to say that women do not connect with this Lola ideal: the most prominent vision of Lola is in rap.

Arguably female rap, especially in the US, has retained a male gaze, even as the rappers themselves gain more power and influence in the industry. Whilst this idea infantilises sexualised female creators like Megan Thee Stallion and Doja Cat, suggesting that it is their sex appeal rather than their inherent talent that got them to the top, and that their choices cater to what men, rather than they, want, it is telling that it is a female rapper – and a white female rapper – in this environment who has explicitly embraced the idea of the Lola.

Iggy Azalea’s Lola is a ‘psycho’ who is presented as somebody whose ‘bad behaviour’ men will hate to love. For Azalea, Lola is a character for whom the power in her sexuality is the non-standard sexuality itself, whose femininity is wielded like a weapon rather than an incidental aspect of her she is aware of – and this femininity is as cartoonish as Lola Bunny’s, using makeup and plastic surgery to create herself as hyper-feminine. This female-created Lola shares the imagery of Nabokov’s Lolita, and almost certainly some of her trauma (she ‘drowns in tears but keeps on shining’ and ‘all [her] nights are sleepless’), but asserts her place in the world through the femininity she embodies. This Lola is still created as a part of the male gaze – the song is, after all, about what a heterosexual man can expect if he chooses to date her – but, like the original Lolita playing at her sexuality to learn what she wants before it is taken from her and corrupted, Azalea’s Lola enjoys the process and advertises her femininity as an asset, connecting her worth to male attention. Just as much as the other Lolas, Azalea has created a character who exists only as a sexual being in a male gaze world, without any further aspects to her personality, but her portrayal of the troubled nature of existing as a Lolita is coupled with a revelry in the identity which goes some way to returning to Nabokov’s question: what happens to women who grow up in this world? What happens to Lolita when she grows up? This one is not a teen mother who dies. This Lola enjoys her trauma and learns to wield her power.

Lola has become a stock character in popular culture – something akin to Baba Yaga in folklore, sharing traits across stories but freshly interpreted anew each time. Will Baba Yaga help our mythical hero or try to eat them? Pass her trial to find out – and learn how the author feels about adventuring women or upper-class heroes. Is Lola somebody you can be attracted to? It depends how her portrayer feels about non-standard sexuality, kink, or heterosexual culture – and it will be clear from the text how you are supposed to feel. Perhaps Lola is a grown-up Lolita? She certainly shares being concocted purely of and for the male gaze, and takes on the play-acting Lolita does to explore her sexuality, without the criticism or consequence that comes with the Nabokov original. Lola is a name with a cultural history that conjures up images of a certain sort of woman, and it is through this kind of fictional nominative determinism that we can begin to understand how our culture views and commodifies that sort of girl.

On This Topic:

• Lolita Podcast was informative, heartbreaking, and something I think anybody with femme experience will connect with. I can’t recommend it enough.
• There are more Lolas! The showgirls from Barry Manilow or Jacques Demy, Fassbinder’s seductive young sex worker… there really is something about the name Lola.
• Would a real-life Lola or Dolores feel compelled to grow up like her fictional counterparts? That would potentially be nominative determinism.

To-Do:

• Go part-time in my PhD
• Book a spot for brunch with B and dinner with my dad
• Write the Lana stan’s perspective on Lolita ideation in LDR. I have so much to say about Lana – feel free to commission my book on her.

Today’s Culture:

• Cycling along Lower Thames Street on my new commute is shining fresh light on some gorgeous architecture for me
• Having a solid workplace community for the first time in years is fantastic
• Grenade protein bars are fuelling my days, my late-night library visits, and my bicycle riding