Yesterday, I linked to this video of a French newscast on the "Smurfs get bombed" commercial. Today brings this message from Charles-Emmanuel Ouellette…
About the Smurf newscast and bombing, well, I'm French Canadian and happen to understand French (and speak and write English a bit awkwardly, sorry). I thought that you may be interested in a little English synopsis of the whole thing.
The newscaster at the start warns the audience that the new UNICEF campaign uses strong images that can be considered shocking and warns the audience about what follows. The off-screen News Lady then narrates the Smurfs sequence, saying it starts with images of joy that summarize young age, and then all hell breaks loose. It then jumps to the text on the blue background, saying: Don't let the children's universe be destroyed by war (well, that's how I put it in English, but I'm sure you can make it sound better). In all, since it's against war and for children's right, even if the Smurfs' little blue butt get kicked hard in this, I understand that Peyo's family agreed.
I'm pretty sure a lot of people who worked on Smurfs product just liked it at the first degree. Still, it's interesting that it's more than just cute character bashing (they're an awful lot of this on the net) and it delivers a message.
I don't know…"Don't let the children's universe be destroyed by war" sounds like a pretty good way to put it to me. It's sad that anyone felt they needed to make a commercial to "sell" that idea to people but I suppose the point is fund-raising. I'd be curious to know if the ad succeeds in that respect. Thanks for the translation.