| Monday, October 10, 2005 |
13:28 - That'll show 'em
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/10/08/wsmurf08.xml
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Boy, I'm really not even sure what to think of this:
The people of Belgium have been left reeling by the first adult-only episode of the Smurfs, in which the blue-skinned cartoon characters' village is annihilated by warplanes.
The short but chilling film is the work of Unicef, the United Nations Children's Fund, and is to be broadcast on national television next week as a campaign advertisement.
The Unicef advert, which shows the Smurfs' village being bombed The animation was approved by the family of the Smurfs' late creator, "Peyo".
Belgian television viewers were given a preview of the 25-second film earlier this week, when it was shown on the main evening news. The reactions ranged from approval to shock and, in the case of small children who saw the episode by accident, wailing terror.
They approved this? You know, I once thought there was something about preserving the integrity of a given artistic canon, especially if the artist is dead and can't say yea or nay; this really feels like a first. I'm speechless.
The short film pulls no punches. It opens with the Smurfs dancing, hand-in-hand, around a campfire and singing the Smurf song. Bluebirds flutter past and rabbits gambol around their familiar village of mushroom- shaped houses until, without warning, bombs begin to rain from the sky.
Tiny Smurfs scatter and run in vain from the whistling bombs, before being felled by blast waves and fiery explosions. The final scene shows a scorched and tattered Baby Smurf sobbing inconsolably, surrounded by prone Smurfs.
The final frame bears the message: "Don't let war affect the lives of children."
It is intended as the keystone of a fund-raising drive by Unicef's Belgian arm, to raise £70,000 for the rehabilitation of former child soldiers in Burundi.
Philippe Henon, a spokesman for Unicef Belgium, said his agency had set out to shock, after concluding that traditional images of suffering in Third World war zones had lost their power to move television viewers. "It's controversial," he said. "We have never done something like this before but we've learned over the years that the reaction to the more normal type of campaign is very limited."
Yeah, well, lots of "art" is praised for it's being controversial these days. Often because it's awful, and there's no other way it would get any attention. Hey, art world? Remember when your goal was to create images that were, you know, pleasing to the eye? Is that even allowed anymore?
Though I guess if there's any lesson to be taken from this, it's an observation on how (if the UNICEF guys are to be believed) people in Western Civilization, particularly in Europe, are really that jaded about war and genocide and human suffering that these are the depths to which the shock-peddlers have to stoop. I don't think we're that far gone in this country, are we? I seem to recall some amazing numbers coming out of the fundraising efforts for the tsunami and Katrina.
But even if so, is it worth compromising cherished cultural icons like the Smurfs to make a political point? I doubt it. Especially since these things never work they way people think they will.
The advertising agency behind the campaign, Publicis, decided the best way to convey the impact of war on children was to tap into the earliest, happiest memories of Belgian television viewers.
Yeah, and in so doing destroyed those memories, just like everyone's halcyon sanctuaries will all eventually be sacrificed on the altar of Making You Think™.
Anyway, at least Tim Blair has a roundup of some people's appropriately incisive reactions. I guess at least that much good has come out of it.
Via Tom Gordon.
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Brian Tiemann
