At the cineplex the other night, Mabel & Sally’s movie choice was between the one with the secret agent children who curse like this:
“Shi…take mushrooms!”
and the small blue Belgian creatures who curse like this:
“Don’t smurf with us!”
Since they’d just seen the expletive-repleted cinematic landmark The Blues Brothers on DVD a few days earlier, the girls and I were unfazed by all the blue language in The Smurfs:
“Smurf me!”
“No smurfing way.”
…but it did make more sensitive dialogue like “Smurf you later!” seem casually obscene.
One thought on “Five-letter words”
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“Smurf” makes a handy bowdlerizer. I am currently working my way through Deadwood via Netflix. On Deadwood the F word is dropped so often that it has lost all its effect on me, which the writers clearly realized because early in Season 2 there’s this marvelous exchange:
[character enters whorehouse looking for specific woman] Where’s smurfing Dolly?
[response] Smurfing!
Because of the Smurfs, I can repeat that exchange sans blush.