Ten Drunken Observations: The Smurfs were Communists
Welcome to a new feature on Notinhalloffame.com, where I, the Committee Chairman come up with random pop culture lists of drunken ramblings.
This is the kind of useless tripe that I excel at, though it did nothing to help me with high school English Class, nor did it impress any of the ladies, but as a middle-aged married guy, who still consumes alcoholic beverages that rivals anyone on Celebrity Rehab, I can say with full Joe Walsh meaning that “Life’s Been Good To Me So Far”.
After my M*A*S*H nonsense, I am going to switch over to the animated world and focus on the Smurfs. Roughly twenty-five years ago (damn, I’m old) I came up with the realization that those blue creatures had red tendencies as they were clearly Communists. I told that someone who I worked with, and he said, “Oh, you saw that online too?”
This was the internet’s early days, and I hadn’t saw that. Since that time, I have seen others who came up with the same conclusion. Basically, this was my long-winded caveat of saying that I apologize if I am not exactly breaking new ground, but in my defense, everything I am about to barf out now were my initial observations.
Without further ado, here are my ten drunken observations on how the Smurfs were commies.
1.All Smurfs lived in the same size mushroom house as everyone else. You have all seen mushrooms! You may think I am under a mushroom-like influence right now, but I swear it is only hops and barley. Mushrooms come in different sizes, but they had to find the one field where every one is the same size so nobody felt bitter about having a smaller house? Some of those Smurfs deserved bigger houses. Handy Smurf did all the work in designing those homes but he didn’t even create a basement in his own house, when surely, he could. Every house had to be equal, regardless of what you contributed to the society, so a load like Lazy Smurf, who did absolutely nothing gets the same reward as a superstar like Handy.
Sounds like Communism to me.
- Smurfs had one role that appeared to be designated for them early in life.Some of them weren’t particularly good at what they were assigned to be but if that is what you were, that is what you had to be for the rest of your life. Sometimes it works out, like Handy, who must have been excellent at Lego as a kid, really was adept at architecture and lived up to his name. Hefty Smurf really was the strongest and he seemed to be the only one who owned any weights so that one worked out but what of some of the others:
Brainy Smurf had a lot of inventions, but many of his plans backfired leading one to question how smart he was in the first place. Because, he was diagnosed as nearsighted early in life and had to wear glasses, he just adopted what was expected of him and he read a lot. Jokey Smurf had only one joke; the exploding box. He wasn’t funny at all! But, he had the distinct laugh, so it was decided for him that he was the prankster of the bunch, which sucked for the rest of the Smurfs, because he couldn’t make any of them laugh! Clumsy Smurf’s job was only to be a clutz. He might not be the most co-ordinated Smurf, but when you are told that all of your life it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If one of the other Smurfs helped him out and got him a hat that wasn’t one size too big, he might see better and not trip so much. They can’t do that, because that is what Clumsy is supposed to be, and changing his role, changes the society. Lazy Smurf got the best end of the deal. They expected him to do shit and he gets an equal share of everything.
Maybe it was Grouchy Smurf, because he was allowed to be an asshole and nobody begrudged him for it.
Sounds like Communism to me.
- Smurfs had no currency. Smurfs didn’t use the barter system.They all worked (or didn’t work if that was your designation). Capitalism didn’t exist.
Sounds like Communism to me.
- The Smurfs would sing while they work or marched and it was always the same happy upbeat song with a lot of “la-las” in it.This was telling the community to be “happy in their work”.Art isn’t exactly encouraged in Communist societies so of course you only hear them sing one song. There may have been Painter Smurf, but his art was only portraits, and it wasn’t very creative. Painter Smurf’s art glorified all things Smurfy!
Sounds like Communism to me.
- Smurfs had no traditional family structure.In later episodes, Baby Smurf was introduced after he was brought from the stork, so he had no actual father or mother.Presumably, none of the Smurfs do, so none of them are actually related.
Why is this important?
The father of Communism, Karl Marx was against the family unit and stated that it was the way that wealthy passed on their property, thus keeping the class system intact. Smurfs own no property and since they have no blood relation, they wouldn’t favor one over the other. This is why the Smurfs value Smurfdom above all, just like Marx intended.
Sounds like Communism to me.
- Independent thought wasn’t encouraged.As I stated before, Painter Smurf claimed to be artistic, but he wasn’t.With the exception of Papa Smurf (I will get to him later), everyone wears the same stock clothes of the same shaped white hat and white pants. Sure, they could dress it up a bit, but how many times do you see a bunch of Smurfs running around where you can’t distinguish between one Smurf from another. How many of these Smurfs were named “Random Smurf”?
Sounds like Communism to me.
- Communist Russia (and pretty much Russia now) was homophobic.Vanity Smurf was clearly gay.Going back to an earlier point, Vanity may have been a cute baby Smurf, but most of them all look the same and beyond a pink flower on his hat, could you really tell him apart from “Random Smurf”?
I will tell you what happened in the Smurf Village. Papa Smurf figured out early from his somewhat effeminate voice that Vanity might be interested in the other Smurfs in ways that weren’t considered “Smurfy”. I guarantee that you that what he did was hand him a mirror and convinced him that the only one he should love was himself. This caused a chain reaction where Vanity expressed self-love, and subconsciously repressed his homosexual feelings.
Oh, and yes when I mean self-love, I guarantee that the mirror wasn’t the only thing he held tight with his left hand.
Homophobia?
Sounds like Communism to me.
- The Soviet Bloc was not just known for its homophobia but for its hatred of the Jewish faith.Who hated the Smurfs? Gargamel. What did he look like? A caricature of the perceived “hook-nosed Jew”, Gargamel wanted to capture and kill all the Smurfs and eat them. He was viewed as evil, ugly and stupid. How hard is it to find a mushroom field that was clearly only a few miles from his house? Especially considering he actually did find it on occasion and couldn’t remember where the hell what it was.
Not only that, he had a cat named Azreal. Azreal? Isreal? Coincidence?
Sounds like Communism to me.
- Look at the politics in the Smurf Village.Why was it decided that Papa Smurf was their leader?Is it just because he is the oldest? That is not the worst reason as he is certainly presented as the wisest but who chose him? Did Papa Smurf win an election? How long has he been the leader? Can he be kicked out if he does something incompetent or gets dementia? If Papa Smurf passes on, or no longer wants to lead, who takes over? Brainy Smurf seems to think it is him, but would that happen? Papa Smurf seems to have no succession plan (that we know of) as most real world dictators seem to lack. It probably would be Brainy as he seems to kiss Papa’s ass the most but how many episodes ended with the other Smurfs kicking Brainy out of the village for being a condescending dipshit?
Once Papa Smurf dies, I predict total Smurf anarchy.
Sounds like Communism to me.
- The most obvious one of all is Papa Smurf.The elder statesman of the Smurf Village didn’t have to wear white, as he wore red. Hmmm. Red. It wasn’t just red but a very similar shade of the Soviet Flag. Papa Smurf had a nice bushy beard, very similar to Karl Marx. What Papa Smurf said was the gospel and it wasn’t questioned. He had absolute authority over the rest of the Smurfs and it was never questioned. It was considered Smurf Law. What more could legendary left-wing leaders long for? They wanted what Papa Smurf created.
Sounds like Communism to me.
This ends my second drunken list, and no worries as I have just restocked my fridge. Hopefully my third one isn’t one that is in twenty-five other corners of the world wide web.
Maybe the next one will only be replicated in twenty of them.