So, I already knew that plans for new Smurf movies were in the works, of course. That’s not a surprise. Though I suppose I may still be recovering from the news, a teeny bit. What I didn’t know was that—along with a resurgence of popularity and plans for their movie debut—the Smurfs will finally be getting some girls.

That’s right. For 50 years, Smurfette has been the only… well… smurfette in town. (How exactly did that… oh, nevermind.) But not any more!

Envisaged as secondary characters for a single cartoon album, the blue gnomes widely known as the Smurfs will celebrate their 50th anniversary this year with a movie deal and an invasion of new female characters.

[…]

“There have been dramatic changes in socio-cultural values in the past 20 to 25 years,” Hendrik Coysman, head of Smurf rights holder IMPS told a news conference on Monday. “One of these is girl empowerment.”

“So, there will be a greater female presence in the Smurf village and this will, of course, be a basis for new stories and this will probably turn upside down certain traditional situations within the village.”

I find this fascinating, actually. I mean, why now? After 50 years? Isn’t that part of what makes them… smurfy? How are they going to explain this sudden influx of womenfolk? Or will they just pretend that all those women had been there all along?

So many questions, and yet, so little real interest. I mean, these are smurfs were talking about. And this is the most thought I’ve given them since I was young enough to still be scared of Gargamel. Which is a little scary.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 15th, 2008 at 6:29 am and is filed under Movies, Retro. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.