"Smurfs" is an extremely clever and sophisticated movie...

...if you are homosexual.

Although Smurfs is bombing everywhere, it seems to be appealing to one demographic, and, weirdly, one that is not likely to have children to see this children's movie:

Is The Smurfs the gayest movie since The Birdcage? As someone who considers himself a friend-of-a-friend of Dorothy (check my DVD shelf for copies of Grey Gardens and Mommie Dearest) I sure think so. As we’re about to conclude the first full week of legal gay marriages in New York, there’s no better way to celebrate than to see this extremely clever and sophisticated movie.


Let’s take a look at the cast. The out and proud Neil Patrick Harris, who opened this year’s Tony Awards with one of the funniest numbers in recent history, plays our empathetic lead. His pregnant wife is played by Jayma Mays, star of the very pro-LGBT show Glee.

Well, alrighty then...but how about the movie?

But it isn’t just this cast of characters that makes this film the closest thing we’ll see to a 3D CGI version of Hush. . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte. There is a wry, worldly tone in the script. NPH is the perfect straight man, endlessly annoyed by the jolly singing, the illogic of randomly replacing words with “smurf” and the fact that everyone just happens to be named for how they act. When it comes time to defeat the baddies by “believing in yourself,” there is enough sincerity to sell as a kiddie picture, but you can almost hear the martini-soaked voice of a screenwriter spitballing “oh, hell, then Mickey and Judy put on a show in the barn.”

Because parents want their children exposed to "martini-soaked" screenwriters as much as they want subtle homosexual references laced through a kids' movie.

But, then, there is the obligatory ignore-the-fact-that-we-mocking-you-because-we-want-your-money wheeze of film-makers who are smelling a bomb:

I was lucky enough to speak to Smurfs director Raja Gosnell this morning who, while happy to riff with me on just how gross is too gross for one of Azrael’s hairballs, didn’t want to extrapolate too much on my theory that this film was crafted to have special appeal to a gay and gay friendly audience in a way that so many “kids pictures” do not.

“That absolutely is not something we tried to do. We cast Neil Patrick Harris because he’s an amazingly gifted actor. There’s not a lot of actors that can act opposite a Smurf and make it absolutely believable and absolutely charming. That is the sole reason we cast him. There was no effort to sneakily attract the gay crowd. We strictly cast on ability and talent. Tim Gunn exists because the movie takes place in a fashion world and who better to be the face of that world than Tim Gunn? He’s fantastic on his show, everyone knows him, everyone loves him, he’s a complete gentleman in real life and, by the way, he’s a good actor and hysterically funny!”

Oh, the fashion-world.  Yup, no hidden gay references are likely to crop up there.

And then there is this:

Okay, so they don’t want to lose the South, I can understand that. But for people who aren’t close minded, crack open your popcorn, your St. Germain and Soda and laugh when Hank Azaria makes his Brokeback Mountain reference.

Because parents want to have a talk about homosexual sheepherders with their six year olds.

*Sheesh*