Smurfette Has Been Removed From 'Smurfs: The Lost Village' Movie Posters in Israel's Bnei Brak Neighborhood
The only female smurf, Smurfette, was removed from movie posters in ultra-Orthodox Bnei Brak, near Tel Aviv, this week. According to The Times of Israel, the city has a law preventing advertising with women’s images that “might incite the feelings of the city’s residents.” Hence the expunging of Smurfette from Smurfs: The Lost Village (opening April 7 in the USA). In the Haredi world, Smurfette’s promotional duties will be handled by dude Smurfs Brainy, Clumsy, and Hefty. Elsewhere in Israel, Smurfette shall stand with her blue brethren.
Smurfette has illustrious company in erasure! We all remember Tablet’s Million Merkel March, a visual response to the digital excising of Angela Merkel in ultra-Orthodox newspapers from the 2015 march in Paris after the Charlie Hebdo massacre. One editor, Binyamin Lipkin of HaMevaser, told Israel’s Channel 10 that eliminating Merkel was the right choice for his readership. He said, “True, a picture of Angela Merkel should not ruin the child, but if I draw a line, I have to put it there from the bottom all the way to the top.” He added that the motivation was to show respect for the victims of the terrorists. “Including a picture of a woman into something so sacred, as far as we are concerned–it can desecrate the memory of the martyrs, and not the other way around.”