SMURFETTE
The Smurfs is a Belgian comic franchise centered on a fictional colony of small blue humanoids who live in mushroom-shaped houses in the forest. The Smurfs was first created and introduced as a series of comic characters by the Belgian comics artist Peyo (pen name of Pierre Culliford) in 1958, where they were known as Les Schtroumpfs. There are more than one hundred Smurf characters, and their names are based on adjectives that emphasize their characteristics, such as “Jokey Smurf”, who likes to play practical jokes on his fellow smurfs. Smurfette was the first female Smurf to be introduced in the series. (More from Wikipedia)
Male domination of cartoons has been pervasive and continues to this day, particularly with fantasy characters of one form or another. For instance, among the Smurfs, the only female in the beginning was Smurfette; furthermore, her name suggests that she is not even a real Smurf. There are other females in the more recent movies, though from what I can tell, all of them still look like Smurfette. Another current example: Until 2012, the only female color among the M&M’s was Green.
(November 2013)
