MovieChat Forums > Smurfs (1981) Discussion > Why was smurfette a blonde?

Why was smurfette a blonde?


This always bothered me, but why was smurfette turned into a blonde?(i felt like it was sending the wrong message to kids) :/












"You and me, You and me, Nobody baby but you and me" - Blue Valentine

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Like what? That children shouldn't be blonde? What about all the naturally fair haired kids?

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Uh no idiot. More like blondes are the wanted/attractive ones..


















"B*tches, Leave." -Robocop

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[deleted]

I know what you mean. In the first episode, they cared little for her until she became a blonde.

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[deleted]

From a modern perspectice, that was indeed a weird message to teach children.
Some people have also expressed some valid criticism about Smurfette's origin story and called it sexist.
However, she was actually accepted by the male smurfs in the end.
Sure, Smurfette had to be turned into a pretty blonde before that happened.
But she would also have to improve as a person and become both nicer and smarter.
It is true though that Gargamel created a female smurf just to be an ***hole to the male smurfs.
It is made clear too that his Magic book was written by a huge misogynist.
Then again, Gargamel is meant to be the villain of the story.
So I don't believe that his views on women are supposed to be seen as right in any way.
We also don't know who wrote the Magic book and what his reasons for hating women could have been.
And the awful good blonde/bad brunette trope was common in pop culture as recently as in the 1990s.
Likewise, it is common to see its sister trope about blondes being more attractive than brunettes in older works.
And when you think about it that way, it is not so weird that Peyo saw it as as harmless back in 1966.
Still, it is notable that his wife hated Smurfette and was furious with him about this for weeks already back then.
(Their daughter has talked about that in an interview.)
He shrugged and said that nobody complained about that the male smurfs often were stereotypes.
The problem is that Smurfette was the only female smurf and could be seen as a stereotype about all women.
That is probably not what Peyo intended, but you will get a feeling of unfortunate implications from it.
So it sure was necessary to introduce two other female smurfs to counterbalance this in the TV show.

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