Here’s Why Some People Think the Smurfs Are Jew-Hating Communists

Smurfette Katy Perry invades Czechoslovakia.Columbia Pictures; Wikipedia (Photo illustration by <a href="https://twitter.com/zainebmo">Zaineb Mohammed</a>)

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


The Smurfs 2
Columbia Pictures
105 minutes

Ever since The Smurfs—the Belgian TV and cartoon franchise—kicked off in 1958, the little blue creatures have gained an enviable international presence. The Smurfs have been on money. They’ve been featured in a UNICEF ad campaign in which the peaceful Smurf village is indiscriminately carpet bombed. And in summer 2011, the big-screen Smurfs adaptation, starring Neil Patrick Harris and Sofía Vergara, was a box-office hit; the Smurfs even got to ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange.

And with The Smurfs 2 hitting theaters this week, it’s a good time to revisit another important piece of the Smurf legacy: The lovable blue-skinned animals might also be rabid totalitarians and raging anti-Semites.

Before I get into the Untold History of The Smurfs, I’d like to make clear that The Smurfs 2 does not veer into too much political territory. At one point, one of the main human characters (played by Brendan Gleeson) is transformed into a talking duck by a powerful wizard. The duck lies to startled and confused bystanders and blames the situation on global warming. He then yells at them, “Buy a Prius!” Furthermore, Gargamel (Hank Azaria), the mean-spirited sorcerer and primary antagonist in the Smurfs universe, is driven by his desire for world domination and by his plot to throw Smurfs into his magic-harvesting concentration camps. (He’s Hitler with a magic wand.)

And that’s about as political as the new movie gets. But according to certain smurfologists, the franchise as a whole is riddled with bleak and disturbing politics—mainly, collectivist and racialist messages. This isn’t something dreamed up by Pamela Geller; these are actual academic and intellectual theories. For instance, Antoine Buéno, a lecturer at Sciences Po university in Paris, wrote a much lambasted book, published in 2011, about whether the Smurfs are anti-Semitic Stalinists. At this point, you’re probably rolling your eyes and thinking that some French sociologist was overthinking it. The Smurfs are so cute! How could they possibly be a family-friendly metaphor for Molotov–Ribbentrop? Well, here are a few of the bulletpoints that Buéno’s book offers, via the Guardian:

  • Smurfs live in a utopian society where individual initiative is rarely, if ever, rewarded. The Smurf village can be easily interpreted as a giggling caricature of a Marxist commune.
  • There is no money in the Smurf economy.
  • The Smurfs are ruled by Papa Smurf, a 546-year-old autocrat who resembles Karl Marx.
Papa Smurf and Karl Marx

It’s also been written that Brainy Smurf looks like Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky. YouTube ; Wikimedia Commons
  • The physical characteristics and profile of Gargamel—with his hook nose and unquenchable lust for gold—might as well have been lifted from anti-Semitic literature. Also, the name of the evil wizard’s cat is Azrael, which is the name of the angel of death in some Hebrew tales.
  • There’s the story of the Black Smurfs, in which one of the blue humanoids is stung by a bug, thus turning his skin black. He goes on a zombie-style biting rampage, which turns other Smurfs black, throwing the village into panic. Racial purity is sort of a thing with the Smurfs. Smurfette—one of the only two female Smurfs in all of Smurf lore—is viewed as an Aryan toon due to her blond tresses.

(Pop singer Katy Perry, who voices Smurfette in the two films, did not respond to a request for comment on portraying the Aryan Smurf lady.)

Two years ago—right around the theatrical release of The Smurfs—the Smurf-equals-Soviet arguments were rehashed by certain corners of conservative media. The Washington Times ran a piece titled, “Sure, they look blue, but are the Smurfs closet Reds?” which was picked up by Fox Nation, The Drudge Report, and National Review. The Washington Times article included this “quiz”:

So you, as a consumer of popular culture, can look at all of this and shudder at the revelation of anti-Semitic, commie Smurfs. Or you could simply chuckle at the notion, buy a ticket to the new Smurfs movie (although I’d strongly urge against it, on completely non-ideological grounds), and leave your childhood un-ruined.

On that note, here’s a short, tongue-in-cheek documentary on the allegedly totalitarian, far-left Smurfs:

The Smurfs 2 gets a wide release on Wednesday, July 31. The film is rated PG for unforgivable Smurfing. Click here for local showtimes and tickets.

Click here for more TV and film coverage from Mother Jones.

To read more of Asawin’s reviews and culture reporting, click here.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate