Katha Pollitt's Article 'The Smurfette Principle'

K.C. Siwa

Mr. Cook

Comp 1

September 22, 2015

For hundreds of years, women argue that they have made an effort to gain equivalent equality with men. They bicker that don’t get the same opportunities as men do. Women believed they are being held back just because they are women. I, as a college student, do not see these issues in my everyday life. In Katha Pollitt’s article, The Smurfette Principle, she argues that in cartoons, the directors favor men over women as the lead roles in their cartoon series’. I believe that in society, there are no feminism, or Smurfette principle, attributes involved in any cartoons, nor is it entangled into the everyday world.

Katha Pollitt, an American essayist, created the controversial “Smurfette Principle”.

The Smurfette Principle is a term that refers to the allegory, found in many T.V. shows, where there is one female character in an all male production. This principle is solely found in fiction films. While speaking about “The Little Mermaid”, Pollitt attempts to make a heroine sound like a rarity when she goes on to mention, “She even rescues the prince. And that makes her a rare fish, indeed, in the world of preschool culture”(Pollitt n.p.). Pollitt argues the idea of females rarely being the protagonists of a T.V. show or movie. False. There is a long list of female protagonists from the follow movies: Frozen, Mulan, Pocahontas, and The Little Mermaid. That is just to name a few. The list can go on and on with female heroines. Pollitt even has disagreements with one of the most popular child book authors, Dr. Suess. She goes on to argue, “Dr. Seuss’s books are less about individual characters than about language and imaginative freedom – but, somehow or other, only boys get to go on beyond Zebra or see marvels on Mulberry Street. Frog and Toad, Lowly Worm, Lyle the Crocodile, all could have been female. But they’re not” (n.p.). These arguments that she brings about do not pertain to parents reading these stories to their children before bed. That is until she brings up the issue, in which is irrelevant to the people of society until she attempts to forcefully bring up her own opinion upon her audience.
Over the years, kids have looked up to classic characters on several fictional T.V.

shows. From the superheroes of the Justice League to characters like Daffy Duck, kids have always idolized these cartoon characters that they watched while eating their cereal every morning. Pollitt believes that these cartoons show signs of sexism through their characters. She goes on to make her statement, “do kids pick up on the sexism in children’s culture? You bet. Preschoolers are like medieval philosophers: the text – a book, a movie, a T.V. show – is more authoritative than the evidence of their own eyes”(n.p.). In my experience of growing up as a male, I never once noticed the diversity between male and female characters. These are issues that are noticed more as one matures. She continues, “little girls learn to split their consciousness, filtering their dreams and ambitions through boy characters while admiring the clothes of the princess”(n.p.). No girl that I grew up with admired male characters. They admired princesses such as Snow White and Cinderella. They wanted hair like Rapunzel. They didn’t filter their dreams on characters like Superman or Peter Pan. She even goes on to say that “sexism in preschool culture deforms both boys and girls”(n.p.). Deforms boys and girls? I am struggling to grasp this concept. Boys are boys, and girls are girls. There is nothing deformed about that. So the argument continues, is their sexism truly found within each of these T.V. shows? I am

still searching to find the archetypes to back up this controversy.
Pollitt sees a fine line between boys and girls along with the differences between the two.

The Smurfette Principle says that a lone female will accent a group of male characters. She continues with that top when she states, “the message is clear. Boys are the norm, girls the variation; boys are central, girls peripheral; boys are individuals, girls types. Boys define the group, its story, and its code of values”(n.p.). Cinderella and Snow White were the central, individual types in their fairytales. No boys defined the group they were in. Snow White had seven dwarves. Pollitt continues, “girls exist only in relation to boys”(n.p.). Girls are individuals, as are boys. Neither needs the other to exist. The childhood stories are not based to show that male characters are meant to take center stage. That would just be absurd. In society, there is no feminism defined in the cartoons that kids watch at a young age. These cartoons are not what brainwashes the kids at a young age. What brainwashes the kids are their parents who bring this topic among kids. Kids do not know what feminism is as a baby. That is unless their adult figures spoon-feed their kids these

ideas.
Pollitt has an argument that brings up her idea, the Smurfette Principle. This idea is, perhaps, ludicrous. In no way do kids pick up on any Smurfette traits when watching their favorite cartoons. The fuss caused between the argument between men and women being equal is unnecessary. Men and women are equal. You can find facts that show that they are not equal, but there are various statistics that show that they are equal. After reading her article, I still believe that the Smurfette Principle does not exist in society, nor is it shown in every childhood cartoon.

Pollitt, Katha. "Hers; The Smurfette Principle." The New York Times. The New York Times, 06 Apr. 1991. Web. 17 Sept. 2015.