We are smurfed...
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.
See clips here (or cut and paste: http://movies.crooksandliars.com/N_051004_unicef_oorlogskinderen-20051004-132858-HB.mov).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 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.
Reactions ranged from approval to shock and, in the case of small children who saw the episode by accident, wailing terror. UNICEF and IMPS, the family company that controls all rights to the Smurfs, have stipulated that it is not to be broadcast before 9 p.m.
posted by BrooklynKat at 4:03 PM
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2 Comments:
The UN is a joke, as they do nothing to prevent wars and attrocities from happening. How long will it continue in Sudan? How long will the UN let Mugabe kill his people?
The UN is a paper tiger!
They don't have any power when the United States (the most powerful of its members) doesn't take it seriously. When Bush invaded Iraq without it, that's when the UN became a paper tiger. I agree that they should either have real power or dissolve.
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