Bob Collins
Where does Rep. Marty Seifert come up with his quotes?
“”They had Denny Green time management,” he once said of the DFL budget talks.
“It’s like saying you’re pro-ag and then being anti-chicken,” he also uttered when talking about DFLers saying they’re “pro-job” and then taxing businesses.
We have a new entrant in the Seifert book of quotations today, courtesy of MPR reporter Tim Pugmire’s story on the GOP field of candidates in upcoming legislative elections.
“We are extremely proud that we will not be a Smurf village as we move into the election process where we just have one female walking around, but we are moving into the 21st century as a party and stretching out our reach as a party to as many people as possible,” said Seifert.
It’s remarkable political oratory that can send a writer to Google to enter the words Smurf trivia.
I had no clue while driving to work today that I’d be considering the socio-political themes of the Smurfs. Who knew, for example, that Smurf Village is merely a front for a Socialist society?
Papa Smurf represents Karl Marx. He is not so much the leader of the Smurfs as an equal revered by the others for his age and wisdom. He has a beard, as did Marx, and thus could conceivably be a caricature as well. And lastly, he wears red, which is the traditional colour of socialism. Brainy Smurf could represent Trotsky. He is the only one in the village who comes close to matching Papa’s intellect – he is a thinker. With his round spectacles, he could also be a caricature of Trotsky. He is often isolated, ridiculed or even ejected from the commune of the village for his ideas. And of course, Trotsky was banished from the USSR.
But what’s that got to do with the women?
In an ideal, sexist, patriarchal state, women are not a part of the community. They do not occupy the ‘public sphere’ of work and the outside world, and they certainly do not work. Smurfette’s main occupation seems to be standing around looking pretty, ie ‘being the woman’, although when it comes to problem solving, the producers have not, thankfully, made her a brainless bimbo. She is quite a bit sharper than the rest of the Smurfs, except of course, for Papa.
According to this particular treatise, however, in Smurf Village, heterosexuality is the norm. Tinky Winky take note.
