Why one smurfette

If you go by its synopsis, the movie is about a previously unknown village of Smurfs hidden in a forbidden forest—but really, it's about Smurfette, and who exactly she is. The movie begins by pointing out the obvious: She's not intrinsically "clumsy" or "hefty" or good at baking, the way her single-attribute brothers are. So what's the one adjective or activity that sums up the blonde-haired lady Smurf? Various Smurfs offer ideas, but nothing works out.

Over the course of the film that follows, the question of what easy label to stick onto Smurfette slowly turns into a larger problem: Is she even a real Smurf? She was created by Gargamel, the wizard who wants to capture the Smurfs and drain their magic juices, after all.

In the episode "King Smurf," she spearheaded a mission to help Jokey escape from captivity in Gargamel's lair. On long treks through the countryside, she usually marched near the front of the line. She often suggested courses of action. She was tough, too. In "The Astrosmurf," she lugs around the huge propeller of a dismantled spacecraft. Smurfette's new spirit carried over into the printed comic, which is still in production. In an April story, "La Grande Stromphette," she even becomes the leader of the village.

But as some see it, as long as Smurfette is the only girl in The Smurfs , modifying her character is not enough. Then they could show good and bad, but variety, among female characteristics. She points out that in the recent J. She starts out as a very dominant character, but in the end, she's kidnapped by the horrible alien monster and has to be rescued by this boy who looks like he's about And it's very striking that [the others] represent this range of character types, but she is just everything female.

It's quite remarkable that there's only this one woman, and it's never equal. Beyond Gargamel's sarcastic remark about the to-1 ratio, the new Smurfs movie does try to address Smurfette's singularity.

In one scene, a human character, Grace, asks Smurfette, who's voiced by Katy Perry, why she's the only female Smurf. He cast a special spell and made me the Smurf I was meant to be. In the film, the "one girl" meme is also mined for emotional substance. She's basically everyone's favorite Smurf in the village. Smurfette was created by Gargamel , which explains her original position as the only female Smurf in the village. Gargamel created her to infiltrate the Smurf Village and create discord among the other Smurfs so they would destroy themselves.

He released Smurfette into the forest, where she was found by Hefty Smurf and taken to the village. Most of these events were orchestrated, as she used a makeup compact kit that was in actuality a transponder.

Smurfette used the makeup mirror to call Gargamel from inside her mushroom house, and he would instruct what kind of problem to cause in Smurf Village. It wasn't until she nearly flooded the village that she was put on trial for her misdeeds.

At this point the pressure and guilt got to her and she began to have second thoughts. She admitted to have been working for Gargamel, but repented and pleaded that she didnt want to be evil, so Papa Smurf agreed to transform her into a real smurf with a spell from one of his spellbooks.

When she returned, she was introduced as the Smurfette everyone knows; sporting blonde hair, heels, and a frilly dress. Though she wants to be a good person and fit in with the rest of the people in Smurf Village, she doesnt quite know how to adjust and be seen as normal; this is made worse when she recieves a final call from gargamel on her compact, who uses the fact that she was at this point in time, literally 'born yesterday' to set up a trap for the smurfs. Telling her he wants to give a gift to the smurfs knowing she clearly wants to be accepted by the others he instructs Smurfette to tell all of the smurfs she has a surpise for them by the great oak, and traps all of the smurfs in a wooden box just before Smurfette arrives.

When she does, she immediatly realizes the mistake shes made, and promptly dons a disguise after some thought; claiming she is 'the lone smurf', she runs Gargamel amock until defeating him. She then releases all of the captured smurfs, and is proclaimed a hero, forever earning her place in the village. Smurfette is deeply caring, emotional, and resourceful.

She loves herself and most everyone around her, leading her to be involved in almost everything that goes on. As observed on numerous occasions, Smurfette is clearly intelligent, cautious, and often will be the voice of reason in most situations; due to this, when put into a postion of leadership, she thrives. She is driven by the passion she has for her interests, the love she has for those around her, and her unwillingness to fail in general, constantly feeling the need to prove herself to those around her.

However, despite these things she is also very susceptible to depression and the feeling of isolation. She hates when people try to step in or act over-protective when she's trying to defend herself, as she's a very independent person with strong opinions she enjoys expressing. Smurfette loves her friends, animals, and nature; she could tell you the name of every flower in the forest and several facts about each one.

She passionately enjoys fashion and beauty something she often discusses with Vanity Smurf , whom can be surely considered her best friend and tending to her thriving flower garden. She hates messes and functions best in neat, well-kept environments such as her own house and has a low, low tolerance for cruelty; she sticks up for the underdog at all times, and doesnt have time for people who put other people down.

There have been many complaints over Smurfette's character. These complaints are mainly related to the fact that she was at one time the only female character in the series.

Detractors of the character also state that she portrays women in a demeaning way. She is therefore treated very differently in the village until her change. In a brilliant sequence that ran for weeks , she lampshaded why most animal characters are male. Are we asking girls to identify with a "little pig-rodent"?

Can she participate in a slapstick pie fight if depicting violence against females is taboo? Is she still her own distinct character if we have to put a bow on her head? Alison Bechdel's Dykes to Watch Out For was made as a response to the Smurfette principle as discussed in The Indelible Alison Bechdel , to force male readers to identify with the female characters, as women often have to identify with male characters.

Over the last several years, more male characters have appeared; one of the main characters, Sparrow, had a long-term relationship and a child with a man named Stuart. This may have also been her accommodating what has become to be known as The Bechdel Test in her own work. Aside from Hildegarde's little niece Echo, other female characters are extremely rare if not non-existent in the strip.

Eastern Animation. Noonbory and the Super 7 : Rosygury is the only female villain out of the six. In the spin-off series Pleasant Goat Fun Class , however, Tibbie is usually the only girl in the main group of goats. Played straight in the Empath: The Luckiest Smurf story series, since it's mostly based on the cartoon show , though the reason for the disproportionate number of male Smurf characters is that Papa Smurf's generation which consisted of both male and female Smurfs ended up having mostly male offspring, with only one female Smurf offspring, which turned out to be Sassette.

Black Mesa , the Fan Remake of Half-Life 1 , very deliberately added a lot of female scientists to address the imbalance of women in Black Mesa. The company claims to be an "equal-opportunity employer", but all of its employees seen in the original are men, except for the holographic assistant in the tutorial. My Huntsman Academia : Izuku and Tenya gender-invert this as they're the leaders and only guys on their respective teams, which each have three girls.

Ruby, however, plays this straight as the only girl on a team with three guys. The Bridge : Each of the core kaiju groups sent to Equestria only has one female. The Bolt Chronicles : Applies to Mittens in "The Survivor," a female cat who is friends with Petey and his circle of four male canine pals. In some versions of the myth, Atalanta was the only woman on board the Argo in Jason and the Argonaunts.

Some myths also state that Jason refused to allow a woman on the ship, which meant that Medea would be the only woman on the voyage back. The moon and sun of course aren't planets, so that changed to the nine planets at some point adding in Uranus , Neptune and Pluto , which was later demoted from planet status , with Venus being the only one left named after a goddess.

The next planet discovered was named Ceres, also female, upping the count to two Dwarf planets avert this. Of the five most recognized, three Ceres, Eris, and Haumea are feminine. Similarly, moons are more often female than male, with many of Jupiter's moons being named for his lovers but there's still some guys in there. The Taoist Eight Immortals , which represent people from different walks of life, contain one female member in the form of He Xian Gu, though the gender of Lan Cai He is usually ambiguous.

Some versions, however, up the number of female deities to three. The Eight Dharma Protectors are Buddhist wrathful deities of which only one is female. Red Hot in Banzai Run is the only female racer. Of all the patrons in Diner , Babs a caricature of Margaret Thatcher is the only woman. In Mr.