Saturday, June 1, 2013

THE SMURFETTE PRINCIPLE...

     What was Gargamel thinking when he created Smurfette? And yes, I know he stated his intentions but what I'm getting at is...how was it supposed to work? He clearly didn't think this through.

      The Smurfs are magical beings born under the light of a blue moon. They don't reproduce...not even asexually through budding like a hydra. They're utterly sexless and given how long they live, I can only guess that the reason Papa Smurf is called that is because he came upon more than one human (Homnibus maybe?) who referred to him as the father of the Smurfs he fosters. It was probably the beard...

      The Smurfs show gender types (Vanity and Hefty are extreme examples) but nevertheless remain sexless. They almost certainly lack reproductive organs because that's not how they come to be. I would imagine if they were ever shown speaking a language of their own that it would not have any gender reference (outside of maybe living versus nonliving things). I can only imagine animals and especially humans confused them with their two halves of the same whole thing going for them. If there were a Superiority Complex Smurf, perhaps that Smurf would think their kind to be better than the other forms of life because they have no need for such thing as separate halves and crude babymaking.
      So again, I reiterate, how exactly was Gargamel's plan supposed to work? His plan was flawed from the start when he assumed their species played under the same male/female rules most lifeforms obey. I know how it played out because I watched the cartoon: the writers clearly assumed all the Smurfs were dudes and had no qualms about the idea that a multi-hundred to possible multi-thousand year old society which has never had a Smurfette before would suddenly find itself full of pent up attraction for something they couldn't possibly even conceive.

      And yet again and again throughout the series the Smurfs are gaga for her.

      Maybe it was the hair... Some envy perhaps? :-)

      The only thing I think I could accept is that the attraction to and lust for Smurfette is not because she is a female Smurf, an impossibility as far as I'm concerned, but rather a Smurf not born like other Smurfs. She's unique and different because she was not born of the light of a blue moon. They're attracted to her rarity, not her femininity despite how the cartoon portrays it. Either that, Papa Smurf went a little overboard in his attempts to undo Gargamel's spells and made her irresistibly charismatic to the other Smurfs. At the moment I forget if Papa Smurf was relative immune to her "charms" or if he acted like he lusted after her too.

      Also, if Gargamel could create a Smurf, however stereotypically feminine, from a magic spell, why didn't he just make a bunch of them that way considering how interested he has been in turning them into gold and/or foodstuffs? Nothing in the spell used to make her seemed particularly expensive or difficult to obtain, unless the "hardest stone" for her heart was in fact a diamond, something Gargamel certainly would have difficulty affording...

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