Smurfing hell, the Smurfs are back!
by Chris Reed
The Smurfs are back, the Smurfs are back!
Actually they never seem to go away! Just when you think they’re dead and everyone has reached their senses they are back with their stupid blue and white skin and squeaky voices that use the word Smurf where other people use nouns and verbs (great for kids that one….). This time they’re back bigger than ever! There’s a trilogy of films being released, the first of which launches in September here in Asia.
This on top of a TV series, comics, books, a theme park (surely you would go mad at a Smurfs theme park?!), video games, a Smurfs Village that you can actually visit (yes really…), Smurfs on Ice (no really, please, stop, I can’t take anymore!). There’s probably an app not too far away……
They apparently have their own economy too in their own little Smurf village, I wonder if they have problems with rebel Smurfs rioting and Smurf bankers trying to bring the economies of the world down? Do you think they are red and white or black and white Smurfs to demonstrate the difference between good and evil?!
Bizarrely brand partners are lining up to be involved in them. Why? Surely they were biggest in the 80’s and therefore of no relevance to today’s generation except those sad 40+ who think the 80’s were the best decade in the world (I count myself in this…can’t get enough Wall Street and Duran Duran!).
Unicef teamed up with them. McDonalds and Kellogg’s have teamed up with them for the new films and there seems to be an enormous on line community desperately seeking out Smurf figures that can be gained by eating McDonalds and Corn Flakes! These people should really be locked up and made to watch the 80’series continuousely until they beg for forgiveness and voluntarily burn all their figures.
There is controversy though…there have been accusations that the Smurfs are actually packed with racial propaganda and are “the embodiment of a totalitarian utopia, steeped in Stalinism and Nazism”, or that the Smurfs are a metaphor for socialism and that the Smurf village represents a “Marxist Utopia. Sounds a bit like the Republican Tea Party to me…do you think there’s a connection between these new films and the US Presidential race in 2012….?!
Read more: http://chrisreed.brandrepublic.com/2011/08/16/smurfing-hell-the-smurfs-are-back/#ixzz1VAQn9zJB