Smurfette...Smurf-next-door or Smurfin around?

With the recent release of the Smurf movie, I began to think back to the good times, when life was simple...Saturday mornings were for cartoon watching and endless bowl of Fruit Loops. And one of my all-time favorite cartoon shows was the Smurfs and my favorite Smurf was Smurfette.


I wanted to be Smurfette with her long blond hair, mini dress and high heels (all things I did not posses at age five, matter of fact, I still don’t possess). Smurfette was so cool, everyone liked her, she lived in a village full of men and was the apple of Papa Smurf's eye. What more could a girl ask for?

But fast forward 30 years and I see Smurfette in a very different way. Maybe this is because I no longer have the naivety of a child or the fact I have a daughter myself...The fact is that now I question a lot of things going on in the Smurf village. For one, why is Smurfette the only female Smurf? I know Gargamel created her but why didn't Papa Smurf make other female smurfs. Of course much later there was Sassette but she was a girl compared to Smurfette. Maybe there is answer out there on the net now but back then the web didn’t exist and if you missed the episode, tough toenails.

And not only was she the only womanly Smurf but also the way she exploited this by the way she dressed: Short mini dress and high hooker heels and that voice...sultry, scratchy like she just smoked a pack of Camels after a long hard night working the streets. She was always whining to one of the guy Smurfs trying to get them to do things for her. Is this the behavior of a Smurf-next-door or was she really a manipulative Smurf trying to use her status, dress sexy and speak seductively to get what she wanted? My 37 year old gut says...yep, she was smurfin around.

Most importantly, what was her relationship with Papa Smurf? Was he just this old pervert Smurf who played a father figure in her life just to smurf her? And was she actually smurfin' Papa Smurf or leading him on like she did Brainy and Handy? I don’t think we will ever know the answer. And maybe I am just jealous. Maybe I wish I lived in a village with 99 male Smurfs and had long blond hair and could Smurf anyone I wanted. No matter now…I just have to smurf up…my kids love her.