Blue gnomes with white pants and a floppy pointed hat.
Smurfs may seem innocent.
But nothing is less true.
In a book from 2011, the French political scientist Antoine Buéno shows the true nature of these creatures.
The gist? Smurfs are totalitarian racists. Kind of Nazis.
First of all, the Smurfs have a dictatorial leader: Papa Smurf. They must hand over all of their possessions to him.
And then Smurfette has blond hair. A clear reference to the Aryan ideal of beauty.
Finally, there is Gargamel, the evil enemy of the Smurfs. Whoever studies his appearance, identifies a stereotypical Jew. And why else is his cat named Azrael?
I don’t want to burn my fingers on whether Buéno is right. In any case, I had never looked at the Smurfs that way before. 😉
One statement I do dare to make, is that you should watch out for Smurfs in your texts. To be precise: for what we call in Dutch ‘smurf words’.
Smurf words are generic words that can mean anything. They make your text abstract. Well-known examples are ‘to realize’ and ‘to facilitate’.
So please try to smurf an alternative for those kinds of words.
Regards,
Arnaud