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What do Inception, the Transformers,

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and the Muppets all have in common?

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They all suffer from a trope called

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the Smurfette Principle.

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As defined by TVTropes:

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In 1991 Katha Pollitt, a feminist essayist

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wrote an article for the NY Times

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because she was disturbed by the lack of

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substantive female characters

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for her young daughter to watch.

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She found that most of the programming

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aimed at young people

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had a majority of male characters,

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with just one female included in the group,

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she called this The Smurfette Principle.

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You’ve probably guessed by now

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that this trope was named after

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the only female smurf in all of Smurfville.

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Once upon a time,

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the Smurfs were an harmonious

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all-dude miniature civilization comprised entirely

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of kind good natured little blue dudes

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living out their cooperative-dude existence

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somewhere deep in their dude forest utopia.

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We’ve got Lazy, Grouchy, Jokey,

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Brainy, Baby, and Papa Smurf

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and all their Smurf buddies

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living out their smurfy existence

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free from any of those meddling, divisive,

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controlling, manipulative, mean women folk.

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But one day the evil wizard Gargamel

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decided on a devilish plan to sabotage smurfdom.

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And how will he do that?

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yes that’s right, by creating a female smurf!

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“That’s it, I’ll get them through their hearts,”

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“I will send them a Smurfette!”

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So Gargamel sent in Smurfette

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to cause divisions between

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the lovable blue creatures so he can capture

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and eat their tender blue flesh

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in a nice honey lemon sauce.

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Long story short,

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love and understanding won out

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when Papa Smurf worked some smurf magic and

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transformed Gargamel’s impostor

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into a real live smurf girl,

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“sexy” blond hair, high heels and all!

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Down in the 100 acre woods,

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we follow the adventures of

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Winnie the Pooh, Rabbit, Piglet, Eeyore, Owl

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and Tigger – all dudes of course…

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in fact there’s only one female character,

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Kanga, who shows up occasionally

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as the mother of little roo.

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Even Jim Henson didn’t seem too keen on the women,

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along side Kermit, Gonzo, and Fozzie the Bear,

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Miss Piggy was the only female muppet.

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We can even see the Smurfette Principle

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outside of programming aimed at young people.

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So for example you have George Lucas’

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original Star Wars trilogy where

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Princess Leia is the only principle female character

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in the entire galactic empire.

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If you’re like me then you are probably thinking

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there’s got to be something wrong, I mean,

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Star Trek has had a female captain,

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Buffy has saved the world from a demon apocalypse

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at least half dozen times,

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this trope has gotta be a thing of the past right?

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Ellen Page gets Smurfette’d in Inception as her character

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is the only female dream team member.

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Big Bang Theory has a primary main cast of brainy

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men plus the smurfette that lives across the hall.

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While there’ve been a small handful

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of female autobots in the Transformers universe,

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Arcee is the only regularly reoccurring

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female cast member and she only appeared in

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8 episodes out of the original series.

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She was set to appear in the 1st Transformers

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live action film but she was dropped and

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replaced with Ironhide.

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She did however appear in the second film

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Revenge of the Fallen

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which also happens to be one of the most sexist

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and racist films I’ve ever seen.

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This version of Arcee is either a hivemind

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with 3 different motorcycle components

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or the other two bikes are her sisters,

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it’s not exactly clear.

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But it doesn’t really matter anyway

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because they all get blown up at the end.

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Plus they only appear on screen

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for a grand total of exactly…

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“Follow us to the pillars — AHHH!”

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39 seconds.

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Even in most seasons of Jon Stewart’s

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the Daily Show there has been

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only one female correspondent at a time.

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The Smurfette principle is especially

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important to remember now because

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Hollywood is currently trying to remake everything

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and anything that we even vaguely remember

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from the 80′s and 90′s in an attempt

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to cash in on our collective nostalgia,

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you know, instead of maybe taking a risk

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on things that are new and exciting.

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We even have a live action Smurfs movie coming out.

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We’ve had 2 big blockbuster movies based on

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the Transformers, and sadly

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there’s another one on its way.

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The 2009 Star Trek reboot by JJ Abrams

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had Uhura as the only female character

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in the main bridge crew.

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And just like Star Trek we can be sure

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that hollywood is not going to try to bring

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gender equality into these reboots

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but rather just stick with their Smurfettes.

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The problem with narratives infused with

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the Smurfette Principle is not only the lack of women

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but as Katha Pollitt points out in her NY Times article:

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Basically this means that men are the default

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and women get to be sidekicks or sexy decorations.

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Even when there’s only one female primary cast member,

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as videoblogger Nostalgia Chick points out in her

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Smurfette Principle video, they are usually just

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“sexy” female duplicates of their male counterparts.

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“Disney was the one that kinda really started”

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“this interest in the whole default and”

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“deviation from default complex,”

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“basically this idea that men seem to want”

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“a vagina’d version of themselves.”

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That’s an excellent point,

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thank you Nostalgia Chick.

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The Smurfette Principle is an alternative name for

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Tokenism or the Token Minority which is

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the inclusion of one cast member

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from a marginalized group in an otherwise,

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white, straight male ensemble.

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We see this most often when writers include

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one person of colour and that character

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is usually painfully stereotyped.

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This is a little trick used by movie studios to pretend

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to appear “multicultural” and “diverse” when really

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they’re just upholding the status quo

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and not changing anything substantially.

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So here’s a tip for all you Hollywood writers

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out there, it is in fact possible to have

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more than one woman in your script.

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Really, I swear it is.

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You could even have 2 or 3 women or even

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the majority of your cast be women.

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Here’s a simple test you can ask yourself

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when you’re writing your scripts:

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“Does my movie have more than one woman on the primary cast?”

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That’s it, that’s the whole test.

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If you answered “NO” then you need to

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go back to the drawing board.

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If you answered “YES” then we can proceed to

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the Bechdel Test.

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Once you’ve got two female characters

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who are talking to each other about things other then men,

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then we can talk about fully developed female characters.

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[Song] “la, la, la, la, sing a happy song,”

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[Song] “la, la, la, la, smurf the whole day long”