Smurfs: Agents of Satan or just Communists?

Credit: Nigel´s Europe and beyond

I grew up with French and Belgian cartoons: Spirou, Tintin, Johan and Peewit, Asterix, Lucky Luke...

And, of course, The Smurfs!

While some of the others can be read even by adults, The Smurfs is a typical cartoon for children. Apart from the original comic albums, there are the inevitable spin offs: toys, animated cartoons, and even some records. Apparently, there is even a smurf tie. More on that one later.

So who are the smurfs? If you've read the comics, you already know the answer: they are tiny blue creatures, only three apples tall, and they live in The Forbidden Country, which ordinary mortals can only reach with the aid of a magical flute. There are only 99 smurfs. Their village, Smurf, is situated close to a river, also called Smurf. And their favourite food is sarsaparilla (actually a real plant - as a kid, I assumed it was fictitious). They speak a weird language, where most verbs are replaced with the word "smurf". And yes, they are quite cool!

In many episodes, the smurfs are threatened by the evil wizard Gargamel, who needs to capture and kill a smurf in order to create an elixir of eternal life. Luckily, Gargamel doesn't know the way to Smurf Village. Other threats to the smurfs include the wizard's nasty cat Azrael, the Howlibird, and the Bzz fly, which stings the blue smurfs, turning them into black monsters. (In one episode, the fly eventually turns blue as a smurf, and becomes nice.)

For whatever reason, people have debated whether or not the smurfs are political, and if so, what politics they are suppose to represent. Adult people, obviously. The kids don't get it. About twenty years ago, conservative Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt was wearing a tie with pictures of Bamse, a Swedish cartoon character. This was something of a mishap, since the message of Bamse is vaguely socialist. The conservative youth league sent Bildt a smurf tie instead, explaining that the smurfs are blue (the colour used by the Swedish conservatives in their party logo) and individualist. I'm not sure whether Bildt ever wore the new tie. Besides, the young conservatives might have made a mistake themselves. While the smurfs seem individualist on the surface, they are actually very collectivist. Indeed, some people have seen The Smurfs as covert Communist propaganda! The smurfs work collectively, laziness is seen as a vice, and they are quite conformist. The non-conformist smurfs always get into trouble, and are eventually reunited with the collective. The smart and precocious Brainy Smurf (who spouts big specs, thus looking like "four eyes") is constantly beaten up by the other smurfs, who are anti-intellectual. Also, the Smurf Village seems to be a benign dictatorship, ruled by Papa Smurf. As a teenager, I occasionally joked that the smurfs must be Maoists! My peers didn't get the joke...

The smurfs are also incredibly sexist. The only female character in the original comic, Smurfette, is a creation of the wizard Gargamel, who wants her to seduce the smurfs and drive them mad. Eventually, Smurfette is forced to leave Smurf Village. Meanwhile, the smurfs create a fat and ugly woman who starts chasing Gargamel! (As a kid, I assumed that they turned the blond bombshell Smurfette into the ugly woman, thus making the story even more misogynist.) How these creatures procreate is a mystery, since they are all male. Unless I'm mistaken, in one episode, a smurf is mysteriously created out of a mirror image after a lightning bolt hits the mirror! Apparently, the American animated version of The Smurfs is more "PC". The black monster smurfs are purple, and Smurfette gets to remain in the village.

I mentioned above that the smurfs can be interpreted as Communist. When I chatted on the Amazon religion forum a couple of years ago, I learned that some Christian fundamentalists apparently take their hatred of the little blue midgets one step further. They accuse them of Satanism! The reason? The cat. Its name is Azrael, remember? Apparently, that's the Angel of Death in Christian mythology. Therefore... Well, you get the picture. (Any connection to the cat in the movie "The Fallen"?)

So what's the point of this review? Nothing, really. Just killing some time. And now, let's all smurf.