Revisiting these shows now is a terrible idea. The writing and animation were poorly done, rushed throwaway stories more interested in selling merchandise than actually putting out quality stories. However, the premises of these shows were often pretty creative science fiction and fantasy plots. It wasn't all space-age police forces saving the universe, or transgalactic warriors in disguise. Sometimes we got to watch villages of friendly stuffed animals doing good things. I bet you can guess my favorite show from the '80s......
Smurfs, of course, fit right into this blog's theme. Think about it: they are small (3 apples tall), live in the woods, are communal, are all dudes (have you seen a female gnome?), and wear pointy hats. Smurfs are very gnome-like. It would not surprise me to learn that gnomes were the inspiration for this property to start with.
Here are some things I learned while researching smurflore....
1. Smurfs are Belgian. which is like being French, only more manly. The dude who created the smurfs, Peyo, published them as a comic book. This proves again that everything cool comes from comics, like Batman, Opus the Penguin, Transformers, etc...
2. Peyo may have created the smurfs as a social commentary on Marxism. I'll write more about this in a second.
3. Smurfette is not the only female smurf. Apparently there is a second one called Sassette. I had no idea.
Of course, the fact that there is one female (two I guess) in a village of 100 or more men brings up all sorts of questions that are usually asked by perverts and people who think way too much about children's programming.
My answer to all that is... you're an idiot. First of all, the whole idea behind Smurfette is sexist to start with. She was created in the story by the evil sorcerer Gargamel to mess with the smurfs and bring them misery. Because, you know, what can bring more misery to a group of guys than one needy, annoyng woman? There is a whole bunch of stuff here for a feminist to go nuts over, like... in order to accept Smurfette, she had to first be physically altered by Papa Smurf from a brunette with a big nose, to a blonde with pleasant facial features including longer eye lashes.
Second, there are never any new smurfs. They don't seem to procreate, they don't need to, because they seem to never die. And really, it doesn't matter, birth and death are unnecessary to the smurf universe. These things wouldn't further the Marxist theme in any way.
Speaking of Marxist plots...
J. Marc Schmidt writes in Socio-Political Themes in Smurfs (an honest-to-God political science essay by some Aussie high school teacher),
"I am not accusing The Smurfs of being some kind of subversive kiddie propaganda - although if it was, would it really be that much worse than the spate of 'toyetic' cartoons of the same decade that only existed to sell plastic toys? In any case, this essay should be seen as the highest kind of praise. What other children's shows would address the issue of Marxism in such a way, and at such a pivotal point in the history of the Cold War? The Smurfs should be praised for using metaphor and the device of the fairy tale to introduce children to political themes. If Peyo was a socialist, however, he was obviously not the sort who had much time for the version of it practiced by the Soviet Union and other Eastern bloc police states. He was a utopian. There is a distinct lack of any kind of army or police in the Smurf Village. On rare occasions when it is necessary, they form their own civilian militia to fight off threats. Otherwise, it is the absolute opposite of the police state".
I think that sums up what I want to get across, without really doing it myself. If you watched the show yourself, you'd know that the smurfs lived in a communal situation, a kibbutz if you will, a hippie commune. Furthermore, everyone has a name followed by the name 'smurf', kind of like the Russian 'comrade' precedes one's name. Everyone in the smurf commune has a job, which defines them. Handy is the handyman, Painter is the artist, Farmer farms and Tailor tailors, Baker bakes, Poet poets and Grouchy grouches. Everyone works for the good of the group, they also all wear the same clothes (makes Tailor's job easy).
The fact that Peyo made them all male, I think, is more about highlighting the homogeny of the group, rather than any message of gender superiority. Basically, the themes of community, and equality are more important to Peyo than gender representation. Although, later on it appears to be necessary to introduce female characters in order to explore other plots and themes restricted by the lack of diversity. Hence, Peyo created Smurfette.
The Communist agenda can be best seen through the story of Finance Smurf. This smurf discovers commerce and capitalism (basically) and sets up the first bank of Smurfdom. To sum up... the entire experiment collapses, and the smurfs decide that the greed and misplaced value towards currency is not very smurf-like. Finance Smurf is never seen again.I found one of those local papers once, you know, one of those underground college-type magazine papers. It wasn't that remarkable. I cant remember what it was called. But there was a comic inside that was awesome. It was three panels long and had some guy walking through the woods. He looks down at his feet and says "ew" he has stepped on dead smurfs. An army jeep rolls up and the guy in the jeep tells him to watch his step. Those smurfs are patriots. They were trained insurgents sent by the government to invade and overturn Papa Smurf's communist regime. This cartoon was so cool, I ripped it out and kept it. But I couldn't find a copy to post here. You'll have to do with my discription. Apparently the fact that Papa Smurf wears red is way too much of a coincidence. He also looks like Karl Marx.
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