#The Smurfs and the Bratty Kid

[miithesillibunny]

The Smurfs(comic)Vietnamese version make me happy😭💖

[therobotmonster]

The majority of my choices can be read in the way they're categorized, depending on how far one chooses to stretch. The point is that all of them take willfully ignoring the context of the show and the audience to accomplish that.

A few examples:

Cosgrove isn't a cop in any way that matters. He's a grumpy father figure and comedic straight man that gives Freakazoid tips and/or distracts him from the job at hand.

Similarly, WHOOP, OWCA, Global Justice, whoever was issuing orders to Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels, and their like aren't in any way real espionage analogues, they're low-tier superheroes fighting G-rated James Bond villains. The nature of the team is just flavor text, an excuse for them to have wacky gadgets, a lot of resources, and free reign to travel to cool set pieces.

The "militias" are all just superhero teams with an emphasis on cool vehicles and laser guns instead of cool vehicles and capes.

He-Man affects the kind of aesthetics that would make you expect toxic masculinity, whereas in actuality he's gentle, friendly and moral to a nearly Mr. Rogersian level. Never threw a single punch at a living foe, had an episode where a literal demon (called that specifically) rejects evil because Orko taught him the power of friendship. Made by the LGBT-friendliest animation studio in the world at the time.

The Powerpuff Girls brutalize foes, even ones already defeated (Mr. Mime), and generally run the town in every meaningful way. Every complaint about the Paw Patrol applies to the Powerpuff Girls, except PPG used brutally violent overreaction as a regular joke, and Paw Patrol just dressed the dog that directs traffic in blue.

The Get Along Gang are narcs, not fascists. They're just the kind of goody-two-shoes suckups that were annoying to other kids. Angelica isn't a fascist, she's a bratty older sibling figure. Sodor has some stark elements but is mostly just the consequence of giving inanimate objects personas but still having them do the job of those objects.

None of the monarchies shown operate as actual monarchies do, inflict the kinds of horrors actual monarchies do, etc. The Little Prince is literally alone on his planet, his title is meaningless. In the She-Ra verse, being a Princess is basically being an X-Man.

Smurf village is a patriarchy only in the sense that the oldest dude is village elder. C'mon guys.

The thing is these shows are wrapped in a level of allegory that most adults are blind to. They aren't about what they're about, they're about the kids watching them.

The good guys are cooperative, friendly kids, the bad guys are bratty, mean kids and bullies. The authority figures are teachers and parents, the conflicts boil down to the kinds of clashes you have over board game rules or who gets to use the swings. They're just dressed up in a bombastic, fun candy coating.

And that's true of the Paw Patrol. It has as much to do with cops as D&D has to do with Satanism. The helpful traffic-direction pup just happens to wear cop colors because visual symbology. They're puppies who help out when things happen that are bad. You know, the helpers...

This kind of simplistic, go-for-the-gotcha in-group signaling "deconstruction" is stupid and toxic. It's just Leftie Cinema Sins, or worse, the satanic panic in a "I Heart Recycling" T-shirt.

I'd be less concerned about the dog-show, and more concerned about what kind of dude you're agreeing with. (link is to another branch of the thread)

[coconuttyglittersmurf]

The Smurfs Tales #1-3 (2021)

[yaminobean]

Ok.... I know how this looks..... And trust me, if you had told me years ago that I would be mixing an awesome show like metal family with something as polar opposite as the smurfs then I would have called you insane. But here I am, looking at it and honestly.... I don't hate how this turned out. It could be that I finally got a drawing tablet and stopped using my finger like a cave man. Or it could be that I actually improved as an artist over the years.... But I really like this. Not bad since this is my very first ship art. But like most things that I write, this idea attached itself to my head, didn't let go, and just started growing. I loved watching the smurfs when I was a kid and not because of the smurfs themselves. I loved the show for its villians. Scruple was my favorite to watch because he isn't necessarily evil. He's a kid

that was sent to some pretentious wizard school where he developed a bratty persona in order to survive the bullying from his peers. When we see him with Gargamel he is surprisingly more competent at schemes and actually has more potential for change. As a kid I honestly wanted to see scruples grow more and change as a character but it never happened and I moved on to other shows. Later on, while mindlessly stocking clothes, a question popped into my head. What if Papa smurf's smurfy potion didn't turn smurfette or Sassette good. What if it was just a way for papa Smurf to mold them into what he thought was good and it took out personality traits that he deemed "unsmurfy"

And it continues to grow from there. So if I do make this a full story let it be known that it will be a story about Sassette and Scruple and their very odd journey into learning about themselves and that family can come from the oddest of places.

[noendgame2]

Bipedal

Ariel: You two old scuzzes might have meant something once, but it’s all about me now. Do you think people read this blog to listen to the two of you? HA! It’s all about me. You are going to give me whatever I want, or I’m leaving this stupid blog for the cartoon network!

Alex: Aren’t you forgetting something?

Ariel: What? What am I forgetting Alex?

Alex: We own the cats.

CUT!

Chair scootches.

Ariel: Okay NEG, do you want to tell me what this is all about?

NEG: What do you mean?

Alex: C’mon Sweetie, making Ariel look like a total bitch when she’s the sweetest girl on Earth, what’s going on?

Ariel: I know what’s going on. Your sixty second birthday is coming up next week. You’re not feeling relative anymore. You think you’re not young enough, or not cute enough for today’s blogger, so you’ve been using Alex and me as surrogates, hoping someone will listen to you. Now you’re jealous and you want to destroy us. Is that right?

NEG: Do you know what it’s like to have a schizo-affective disorder? I’m allergic to all antidepressants and antipsychotics, because they were not designed for people like me.  I’m one of those rare people whose thermostats come unstuck when I take them. My weight, blood pressure, blood sugar, and who knows what else go out of control, and within a month I’m on the verge of death. So I got depressed this year and gained some weight. Do you know how it feels to have your blood sugar, or blood pressure, or something else to go out of control on a daily basis, and you just wait all day wondering if you should call the hospital? How do you think that affects someone with bipolar problems? It’s kind of hard to make plans about diet and exercise when once a week something you’ve done reaches out to kill you, and it’s Friday and someone is talking about the flowerbeds in the front yard, and you just want to scream. You don’t know what’s its like to have crippling agoraphobia, or social anxiety, or problems with facial recognition, or hallucinations where you spend thirty minutes arguing with a dying squirrel, or forgetting your ritalin so you get run over by a truck in the street, or stand in a bus terminal realizing you just had a psychotic episode and no idea who knows that, or what you just said, or if your going to get locked up again. Without medication I can’t even remember why I came into a room, and you think I’m worried about ratings? Are you kidding me?

Alex: Must be awful.

NEG: I do get to watch a lot of cartoons.

Ariel: Okay, so what do you want us to do?

NEG: You don’t know how grateful I am to have you here with me. Without you I would be dead, just like all my old friends. Thank you.

Alex: Sounds like a spaghetti and superhero night. DC or Marvel?

NEG: Batman?

Ariel: Too broody.

NEG: Ironman?

Alex: Too bratty.

NEG: Hulk?

Ariel: Too Brawny. C’mon Sweetie.

Alex: Isn’t Dr. Strange on Netflix? Let’s do some strange tonight.

Ariel: I concur. Remote,  stat.

Alex: Spaghetti noodles in t-minus fifteen minutes, mark.

Ariel: Switching from bitch mode to caring, friendly, smurf muffin now.

NEG: I don’t get an arm rest again, do I?

Ariel: You can have the footrest Honey.

NEG: Maybe we can do something else for the blog. Maybe a Cmen instead of Amen thing.

Alex: Maybe something with Dick and Jane.

Ariel: You mean like, “See Dick run.”

NEG: Or, “Dick has a blue ball.”

Ariel: Wouldn’t “Gee Spot, Dick has a blue ball,” be better?

Alex: Okay, waters on, and no, we are not going to add porn to our list of blog tragedies.

Ariel: I’ll get some wine.