What Do You Think?

[Jojoking]

When smurfs were a lot more popular they were called a lot of things.
a lot of their life style called into question.
but racist was never one of the things i remember anyone calling them.

I guess people will use anything to try to get attention these days even if they have to stretch or bend facts out of proportion.




copied from:
http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/outrage-as-smurfs-called-racist-20110606-1foom.html


Outrage as Smurfs called racist
Henry Samuel
June 6, 2011


The Smurfs, the blue comic strip characters, are anti-Semitic and racist, treating blacks like moronic primates, a French author has claimed.

Antoine Bueno, 33, a lecturer at the eminent Sciences Po political sciences school in Paris, says the blue figures represent an "archetype of totalitarian society imbued with Stalinism and Nazism".

However, Smurf lovers have branded Mr Bueno's Little Blue Book "a disgrace" that "soils the legends of our childhood".
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Mr Bueno's work is described as a "critical and political analysis" that ruthlessly deconstructs the world of Smurfs, known as Schtroumpfs in French.

He concludes that the blue men created in 1958 by Peyo, the Belgian artist, whose real name is Thierry Culliford, are deeply racist.

The author backs up his claims by citing Peyo's first work - The Black Smurfs in French but which became The Purple Smurfs in the English versions for reasons of political correctness.

In the story, a Smurf gets stung by a black fly that turns his skin jet black, drives him insane and deprives him of speech. Soon the entire village has changed colour.

Mr Bueno says the story is clearly racist. When the Smurfs turn black, "They are reduced to the state of primitives who jump around and cry: 'Gnap! Gnap!' [Gnash! Gnash!] They lose all trace of intelligence and become completely moronic."

Mr Bueno, a speech writer for Francois Bayrou, the leader of the centrist Modem party, says the Smurfs are like white colonisers of the 19th century in the way they view Africans.

He also claims that the Smurfs' arch-enemy, the wizard Gargamel, is a classic anti-Semitic caricature of a money-grabbing Jew.

Mr Bueno writes: "Gargamel is ugly, dirty, with a hooked nose, fascinated by gold."

Papa Smurf, the village's elderly white-bearded leader, is portrayed as a dictator, whose red hat and trousers are a nod to Stalin. Smurfette, the only blonde female, created by Gargamel, to wreak havoc among his enemies is a misogynistic take on Aryan woman.

The book has sparked a wave of anger on the internet from Smurf lovers.

"What a disgrace to soil the legends of our childhood," writes Bibouille on the "Schtroumpfmania" website.

Another, called Anastasia writes: "It's not hard to find anti-Semitism in Shakespeare or Balzac." The author's arguments spring "from his own obsessions ... the hooked nose of a wizard is neither Jewish nor Goy, it's traditional for wizards," she wrote.

Such has been the outrage, the author said he feared for his physical safety and insisted he meant no harm.

"I love the Smurfs," he wrote on the Nouvelobs website. "I just wanted to explain that popular works teach us a lot about the society we come from.

"I am not accusing Peyo of racism himself, otherwise you can well imagine [his heirs] would have attacked me.

"However, I believe his work carries a certain number of stereotypes particular to a given society and era."

Others before him had come to similar conclusions, he said, citing an American critic who claimed Smurf was short for "Small Men Under Red Forces".

He said his work was serious but tongue in cheek. His critics seemed to lack "the slightest ounce of humour".

Thierry Culliford, the artist's son and the current head of Studio Peyo, said the accusations were "between the grotesque and the not serious".

The row comes at an unfortunate time for Hollywood producers, as the big budget film Smurfs is due for release in America in August.

The Smurfs are not the only comic strip to come under attack for racism. A Congolese resident of Belgium is trying to ban the Tintin series of books over claims it is "racist and xenophobic". His case reaches court in September.