Do MGTOWers get their notions of modern romance from old Smurf cartoons? I’m beginning to think they do. As you may remember, the world of the Smurfs was an all-male bastion until evil Gargamel created the creature he called Smurfette from a mixture of
Sugar and spice but nothing nice…A dram of crocodile tears…A peck of bird brain…The tip of an adder’s tongue…Half a pack of lies, white, of course…The slyness of a cat…The vanity of a peacock…The chatter of a magpie…The guile of a vixen and the disposition of a shrew…And of course the hardest stone for her heart…..
Initially an evil, deceitful brunette, Smurfette was transformed by Papa Smurf into a glamorous (and less obviously evil) blonde. At which point Smurfs young and old began falling in love with her, supplicating themselves before her Smurfy beauty. Even Papa Smurf himself had the Smurfs for her, as you can see in the video above – even though, as her co-creator, he was basically her father. Ick. Sometimes Smurfette played her smurfy suitors against one another, inspiring them to even greater depths of supplication.
MGTOWers, and a lot of MRAs, basically see this as the basic paradigm of romance: men jumping through hoops to even get noticed by stuck-up women who need do nothing but exist in order to garner male attention. In the Smurf world, this was because there was only one Smurfette in a village full of lonely Smurfs. In the real world, in which men and women balance out more evenly, well, MGTOWers and MRA recreate the weird Smurfy imbalance by simply declaring most women undateable – too old (if they’re over 25 or 30) or too fat (with BMIs over 25). Hey presto! Now men, much like Smurfs, can compete against one another for the same small number of women, making almost everyone miserable in the process, especially themselves.
In Smurf world, of course, Smurfette is chaste and pure; she may kiss the boys but that’s about it. This hardly comports with the MGTOW notion that women are all slutty sluts, bedding down with every thug-boy and alpha male who makes their ‘ginas tingle, to use the peculiarly offputting parlance of the misogynist set. Natually enough, a few creative internetters have reimagined Smurfette as a Smurfslut. Warning: this video may destroy your image of Smurfette forever. This one’s worse.
Oh, and for an interesting discussion of the misogyny and apparent anti-Semitism of Smurf creator Peyo, see here.
Rule 34: no exceptions.
I have to admit, I like “‘gina” better than “vag'”.
Holy smurf. That’s smurfed up.
(Modest proposal: that all MRA trolls who come on this thread to post unrelated things about “HOW COME THERE’S NO MEN’S WNBA?” or whatevs be replied to in Smurf language. All asmurf?)
I asmurf that smurf.
seconded smurf
Holly – That’s a smurfing smurftastic idea!
Simply smurfy.
cf. the discussion of the Smurfs in _Slacker_
That’s a big ten-smurf there good buddy!
(Yeah, I can actually remember the CB radio craze of the 70s. God, I’m old.)
Yer wall-to-smurf and treetop smurf!
old too.
You take these things out of context. Smurfette’s manipulation is not a big deal IN A VACUUM, but we don’t live in a vacuum, we live in a misandrist society in which women are encouraged to spit on and step on and ignore omegas and betas and see them as objects. Therefore, Smurfette’s misandry is indicative of a WIDER CULTURE. THAT is the problem, not the cartoon show itself.
Therefore, Smurfette’s misandry is indicative of a WIDER CULTURE.
Would that be smurf culture or human culture?
It’s a REAL, HARMFUL human culture that leads to men being treated as second class (unless they’re Spartan alpha alphas or snivelling manginas), rampant misandry, male oppression which in turn leads to male depression, anger, and sadness. So yeah, I can understand why Smurfette’s misandry rankles.
Is papa smurf an alpha? Do the smurfs have their own smurf system?
What would a Spartan smurf be like?
MSAS, you are such a smurf. Don’t you get it that Smurfette was smurfed by a male author who was no smurfenist himself?
Instead of the Greek letter system (or Latin letter system, as Slavey would call it), the smurfs have a hierarchical system of sexual availability based on Sumerian cuneiform.
MRAL, I am at a loss to guess what you mean when you say that the character of Smurfette is indicative of a wider presumably misandronist culture. Smurfette is an embodiment of misogynist stereotypes about manipulative women. Pointing to the character of Smurfette as an example of misandrony is not unlike the post by a MRA deriding the evil of a woman from an Onion article.
But manipulative women are celebrated in our misandrist culture, because it grants women the God-given right to treat men however they want with no consequences. Thus, fucking men (especially omegas) over is seen as “funny”, thus Smurfette is seen as “funny” despite underneath just being a conniving alpha bitch.
Yeah, that Desdemona was one manipulative bitch. She even manipulated Othello into strangling her. Bitch.
The character of Smurfette written so that the viewer would see her as “a conniving alpha b*tch.” This is a portrayal of a woman written to conform to misogynist stereotypes. This is not a portrayal of an actual woman.
I thought there was another woman smurf that was a farmer. She was much more down to earth than the diva Smurfette. There was a granny smurf in one episode, too, but since she is beyond the smurf equivalent of age 25, she is out of the dating pool.
“the God-given right to treat men however they want with no consequences”
That’s interesting, because the last time I checked, God gave me the right to sit down and shut up, be beaten by my husband/father, be sold as a slave, bear as many children as my husband/owner desires, and be blamed for all of the evil in the world.
I do have some fun extra “rights” in our supposed “misandric” society. I can be blamed for my own rape! I can get yelled at by strangers on the street for not responding to harassment, for reacting to harassment, for failing to be currently smiling, and a lot of other things that boil down to existing while female.
Though you do have it hard MRAL, I mean, I’ve been reading your sob story for days – you’re slightly shorter than you’d like to be and have a slight physical deformity and have trouble getting dates. Woe!
Also SMURF YOU!
“Smurfette’s misandry is indicative of a WIDER CULTURE.”
I smurfing love this quote.
Kendra, I think they added at least one other female character later. My knowledge of the smurfs is not encyclopedic. Which is to say, I don’t really know smurf about it.
I actually watched Smurfs pretty regularly as a kid. There was a Baby Smurfette created at one point. She was a redhead. And Smurfette was all excited that they were going to get to be into fashion and makeup together but Baby Smurfette turned out to be mostly into playing in the mud and climbing trees – ya know, kid stuff 🙂