A reader writes:
I couldn't read this entry on deconstructing the Smurfs without thinking of one of the greatest scenes from Richard Linklater's "Slacker".
Above. Yet another theory:
Your post about the Smurfs' communist leanings reminded me of an analysis I've been working on for some years to explain why I found the Showtime series Queer as Folk so particularly loathesome.
The little insular gay community of Queer as Folk has plenty in common with the Smurfs' collective universe. Both exist in a world with extremely few women. Both employ dialogue that uses and re-uses the same name to define said communities as a poor excuse for wit. ("Smurf's Away!" "What are you, the gay Lucy and Ethel!" "Because I'm gay.") Both deal with the same two or three villains hellbent on the community's destruction. If Gargomel fulfills some anti-semitic fantasy, the one angry bullying jock and the one opportunistic congressman of Queer as Folk offer their own, less disturbing, but still overly-simplified external manifestation of a threat to the community.
My guess is that the ideology of Queer as Folk serves as a conscious, ill-thought-out attempt to create the myth of a gay community, with a vision of gay identity that can be comfortably defined and understood. In that it represents the totalitarian mindset that fears individualistic expression.
Another:
And on a more frivolous note, here's Donnie Darko on the Smurfs. "It just couldn't happen"…
The Dish 