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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 28, 2024

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Back when the internet was younger--but old enough to load png files in seconds--the edgy memes going around my Uni were the various adventures of Smurfette, mostly of the pornographic sort. In one, Smurfette is getting it on with Papa Smurf; in another, she's banging all her fellow Smurfs.

High art it was not. But it was definitely more than porn--that is, the art had a point besides causing sexual arousal. The shock of seeing a childhood character (and I did see Smurfs on TV) going triple-X adds to the humor, but the reason these memes featured Smurfette and not, say, Strawberry Shortcake is because Smurfette was such an obviously sexualised character in the first place, yet aimed at children. The porno memes took the corporate-stated premise of the Smurfette and instantiated the subtext that any adult can see was there all along.

For added amusement, Smurfette is La Schtroumpfette in the original French, which sounds like someone bowdlerised "strumpet" by translating it into French, then German, then back to French. But this appears to be pure co-incidence - Google translate can't find a French translation of "strumpet" that looks anything like "Schtroumpfette".