Just a month shy of The Smurfs' cinematic premiere date, startling new information has come to light about the cerulean creatures: They are smurfholes. According to author Antoine Buéno's upcoming book Le Petit Livre Bleu (The Little Blue Book), Belgian cartoonist Peyo's Smurf Village is not a delightful commune of azure munchkins, but "the embodiment of a totalitarian utopia, steeped in Stalinism and Nazism." Oh! Wait until you hear what he has to say about the implications of Shylock -- er, Gargamel.
Whether you agree with the conspiracy metaphors at play here, some Smurfs creepiness is undeniable. Though the blue scamps became palatable cartoons on the '80s TV series, Buéno says publishers rejected Peyo's first Smurf comic strip in the late '50s because it was -- how to put this? -- jaw-droppingly racist.
As relayed by Todayxsm.com, Buéno says that Papa Smurf, the leader of the village, is an authoritarian figure, and that their lack of private property and collective-style economy is a clear nod to socialism. Meanwhile, their enemy seems Jewish: Gargamel, the monster that haunts the village, matches negative Jewish caricatures and his cat's name is Azrael, the French author writes, while Smurfette, for a long time the only female in the village, is a vision of aryan perfection.
Buéno, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, touched on what he perceives as their blue racism.
"The first comic strip, 'The Black Smurfs,' was intimately concerned with what you might classify as a racial threat," he said. "Because in that album, the smurfs are sick. And when they're sick, they don't turn purple or red or anything like that, they become black. And when they become black, they lose all trace of intelligence. They become completely moronic. And further more, they can no longer speak, they just go 'nyap nyap nyap.'"
The black part is indeed true; US publishers refused to publish the first Smurfs book for that reason, and years later, the sick Smurfs were recolored to purple.
I have trouble buying Smurfette as an aryan ideal. She looks like a raunchy photonegative of JWOWW to me. And of course, "sick purple Smurfs" are just as racist if you consider Prince and Minnesota Vikings fans a race unto themselves, but I'm sure the author gets to that.
Is there enough power in these theories to thwart the box office intake of The Smurfs' July 26 premiere? Did the presence of Katy Perry already scare you away?
· 'The Smurfs' are Racist, Anti-Semites, Antoine Buéno Suggests In 'Le Petit Livre Bleu' [HuffPost]