Ahhhh, the Smurfs... Lovable little blue creatures living the perfect communal life. When I was quite young they were extremely popular. They're making a comeback now it seems.

From Breitbart:

Smurfette is left for dead. Baby Smurf is left crying and orphaned as the Smurf's village is carpet bombed by warplanes _ a horrific scene and imagery not normally associated with the lovable blue-skinned cartoon characters.

These are the scenes being shown as part of a new UNICEF ad-campaign on Belgian television.
"It's working. We are getting a lot of reactions and people are logging on to our Web site," UNICEF Belgium spokesman Philippe Henon said Tuesday.

The Belgian office of the U.N. children's fund said it has decided to use the creations of late Belgian artist Peyo to shock a complacent public into backing its fund-raising efforts for ex-child soldiers in Africa.

The 20-second video commercial clip now being shown on Belgian TV aims to show that war can happen in the most innocent of places, Henon said.

"We get reactions from all over the place," said Henon. "People are shocked and want to know the reasons behind this cartoon image."

The appeal is meant to raise money for UNICEF projects in Burundi, Congo and Sudan, Henon said. However, due to its graphic and disturbing scenes, this cartoon is not for everyone. The advertisement is aimed at an adult audience and is only shown after 9 p.m. to avoid upsetting young Smurfs fans.

The video is peacefully introduced by birds, butterflies and happy Smurfs playing and singing their theme song when suddenly out of the sky, bombs rain down onto their forest village, scattering Papa Smurf and the rest as their houses are set ablaze.

The bombs kill Smurfette leaving Baby Smurf orphaned and crying at the edge of a crater in the last scene of the video and finishing of with the text "don't let war destroy the children's world."
It calls on viewers to donate.

UNICEF traditionally uses real life images of playing and laughing children but decided to change it for something that would shock people, Henon said.

"We wanted to have lasting effect of our campaign, because we felt that in comparison to previous campaigns, the public is not easily motivated to do things for humanitarian causes and certainly not when it involved Africa or children in war," he said.

Henon added that UNICEF would never cross the line and film real-life war scenes in its appeals.

The UNICEF campaign was launched Friday with the Smurf TV spot and will last until April.
"We see so many images that we don't really react anymore," said Julie Lamoureux, account director at Publicis, an advertising agency that drew up the campaign for UNICEF Belgium. "In 35 seconds we wanted to show adults how awful war is by reaching them within their memories of childhood."

Seems innocent enough but it really isn't. Lets have a good look at the Smurfs:

The Smurfs were / are used to generate buy-in to the idea of socialism. Don't believe it? Consider the following (taken from a web page titled "Smurf Communism"):

S.M.U.R.F = Socialist Men Under a Red Father

Take a look at the man in charge of the Smurfs, Papa Smurf. Is it just a coincidence that he wears a RED hat and RED trousers? Also notice the similarities in appearence between Karl Marx, the founder of the communist ideals, and Papa Smurf.

All of the smurfs look exactly the same (with the exception of Papa Smurf and Smurfette). They all have white hats, white trousers and are blue. This is just like the Marxist theory of a classless society where all men and women are treated as equals and are comerades.

Take a look at Vanity Smurf


Is he not a homosexual? Continually in the smurf society Vanity was put down. This was to indicate to the people that in communist dictatorships, homesexuality would not be tolerated.

Communism is built on the idea that no man is better or worse off than any other. Private buisness is disallowed and all workers work to benefit the country as a whole. In the Smurfs village all of the smurfs have their own individual jobs to do. No Smurf is regarded as being better than any other smurf. Every smurf has their own job to do, which benefits everyone in the community. Handy Smurf makes the houses for everyone to live in, Jokey Smurf keeps everyone happy, Brainy Smurf has a lot of technical knowledge. The Smurfs have no currency and every thing is shared equally between them. It is nearly impossible to tell one smurf from another. This demonstrated the idea of total equality and that every member of the society was as important as the others. Communists were often depicted as using violence as a way to sort out their problems and get what they want. In keeping with that portrayal the Smurfs have no qualms about using their "Magic Dust" to stop people aggressing against them or to retrieve an object which they desire.

Take a look at what Smurfs are portrayed in a positive light. Handy Smurf, the worker (which illustrates the rise of the working class to power) and Hefty Smurf, the soldier. Also look at which smurfs are portrayed negatively. Greedy, who eats too much, and Vanity, who contributes absolutely nothing to society.

Another of the Smurfs negatively portrayed is Brainy Smurf. He bears a striking resemblance to one of Lenin's high ranking officials, Trotsky.

During the 1920's Trotsky was exiled from Russia by Stalin to Mexico. The reason for this was that Trotsky's ideas conflicted with those of Stalin and other high ranking communists. Like him, Brainy Smurf too questions the smurf ideals and is one of the few unhappy smurfs.

The Smurfs biggest enemy was Gargamel, the representation of Capitalism in Smurf Land.

Gargamel wanted to catch the Smurfs in order to turn them into gold. Peyo wished to portray Capitalists as money hungry, greed-driven people whose sole purpose in life was the accumulation of wealth. Also note that Gargamel looks not unlike a stereotypical person of the Jewish faith. Under the communist regime (during certain time periods) Jews were persecuted for, among other things, their love of money. Also Azrael, Gargamels cat, was an indication of the communist belief that the American politicians were under the control of one overbearing greedy leader.

So what exactly is the UN saying with it's new commercial? That we shouldn't bomb the shit out of "peaceful" little blue creatures? Or that we shouldn't try to destroy socialism? You be the judge! As far as I'm concerned, I'll cheer whenever I see one of those little blue bastards blown to pieces...

Authors notes:

• Do I really believe that the Smurfs themselves were used to forward socialism / communism? I'm not sure. On the face of it, the idea has merit but I don't have enough information. It's fun to play every now and then though.

• Do I believe that popular media is used to forward the socialist agenda? Absolutely. Listen to CBC radio for a few hours... It's a process called normalization where you get used to and accept that which your exposed to all the time...