I was pawing through the Internet the other day, avoiding work as I’m wont to do on a rainy Monday afternoon, and happened to read that the Smurfs had turned 50. While the half-century anniversary of those Belgian blue guys is decidedly “smurftastic” I can’t help but be panged at the news with an old jealousy I’ve nursed for nigh on 25 years.
One may recall from their childhood, or their ill-spent stoned adulthood, that the Smurfs are comprised of a town full of seemingly inbred blue creatures with boomerang-shaped heads and a penchance for all-white attire. Much has also been made of their thinly-veiled Communist tendencies, ranging from their groupthink behavior to their apparent sharing of collective wealth and goods, right down to their one, no doubt very tired female specimen.
While I could prattle on ad nauseum about this somewhat sordid arrangement, I’m far too sober to believe anyone would care for the dissertation, and so I turn my attention instead to my previously inferred envy toward my little friends. The jealousy in question stems from the Smurfs utopian arrangement, oft-seen in literature and fairy tales, of “each man to his calling, each according to its purpose” societal organization. The talents of every Smurf have been channeled into a respective career, that is to say, the smurf with baking tendencies has been allowed to be “Baker Smurf,” the metal-working artisan is given the title of “Blacksmith Smurf,” the art-minded blue Michaelangelo-type gets to be “Painter Smurf” and so on and so forth.
Sure, there’s no room for existential crisis in this arrangement, and we never got to see “Angst Smurf,” “Dead-beat Smurf” or “Strung-out Smurf,” but perhaps such blights on productive life were notably absent because such a system could not conceive of producing such characters. Everyone wants a purpose and a calling. Everyone wants to feel as if their talents are not only identified, but appreciated and put to use. And yet, throughout much of history, people have been shuttled into narrow occupational fields seldom befitting their true interests or skills. Now, perhaps more than ever, we have a wealth of options with which to eke out a living, yet the choices still seem painfully few and far between, particularly for those of us with creative tendencies.
And so I’m jealous. Painfully, gut-wrenchingly jealous of these elfin eurotramps and their perfect, little Socialist society. If I were a smurf I might very well be working as a writer from my mushroom-shaped home office instead of slogging through another day as a corporate drone in cubicle city. If I were a smurf I would know my place, would have my name, my very identity sealed by my talents, leaving me secure to pursue pastimes other than the never-ending job search, like avoiding Gargamel or trying to annoy Papa Smurf with my uppity feminist ideas. But I’m not a smurf. And I’ll get no smurfity perks. Heck, I’m not even Belgian.
Smurrrrrrf.
One may recall from their childhood, or their ill-spent stoned adulthood, that the Smurfs are comprised of a town full of seemingly inbred blue creatures with boomerang-shaped heads and a penchance for all-white attire. Much has also been made of their thinly-veiled Communist tendencies, ranging from their groupthink behavior to their apparent sharing of collective wealth and goods, right down to their one, no doubt very tired female specimen.
While I could prattle on ad nauseum about this somewhat sordid arrangement, I’m far too sober to believe anyone would care for the dissertation, and so I turn my attention instead to my previously inferred envy toward my little friends. The jealousy in question stems from the Smurfs utopian arrangement, oft-seen in literature and fairy tales, of “each man to his calling, each according to its purpose” societal organization. The talents of every Smurf have been channeled into a respective career, that is to say, the smurf with baking tendencies has been allowed to be “Baker Smurf,” the metal-working artisan is given the title of “Blacksmith Smurf,” the art-minded blue Michaelangelo-type gets to be “Painter Smurf” and so on and so forth.
Sure, there’s no room for existential crisis in this arrangement, and we never got to see “Angst Smurf,” “Dead-beat Smurf” or “Strung-out Smurf,” but perhaps such blights on productive life were notably absent because such a system could not conceive of producing such characters. Everyone wants a purpose and a calling. Everyone wants to feel as if their talents are not only identified, but appreciated and put to use. And yet, throughout much of history, people have been shuttled into narrow occupational fields seldom befitting their true interests or skills. Now, perhaps more than ever, we have a wealth of options with which to eke out a living, yet the choices still seem painfully few and far between, particularly for those of us with creative tendencies.
And so I’m jealous. Painfully, gut-wrenchingly jealous of these elfin eurotramps and their perfect, little Socialist society. If I were a smurf I might very well be working as a writer from my mushroom-shaped home office instead of slogging through another day as a corporate drone in cubicle city. If I were a smurf I would know my place, would have my name, my very identity sealed by my talents, leaving me secure to pursue pastimes other than the never-ending job search, like avoiding Gargamel or trying to annoy Papa Smurf with my uppity feminist ideas. But I’m not a smurf. And I’ll get no smurfity perks. Heck, I’m not even Belgian.
Smurrrrrrf.
1 comment:
That smurfing smurfs. You smurfed it.
Smurf you later...
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