But as some see it, as long as Smurfette is the only girl in The Smurfs, modifying her character is not enough.

"There's a catechism these days among young feminists that to have gender parity, there needs to be more than two women characters who actually talk to each other," Alcoff says, referring to the Bechdel Test. "I would argue that they need to make a more realistic portrayal of any kind of playground society or village community. Then they could show good and bad, but variety, among female characteristics."

Katha Pollitt says that in the 20 years since she wrote "The Smurfette Principle" for The New York Times Magazine, not a whole lot has changed. She points out that in the recent J.J. Abrams/Steven Spielberg film Super 8, the cast features a group of boys and only one girl, played by Elle Fanning.

"And it isn't just that there's this gender imbalance, it's that the girl represents femininity," she says. "That's what she's there for. She starts out as a very dominant character, but in the end, she's kidnapped by the horrible alien monster and has to be rescued by this boy who looks like he's about 10. And it's very striking that [the others] represent this range of character types, but she is just everything female."

Pollitt says that the Smurfette Principle doesn't stop at youth-oriented fictions like Super 8 or Harry Potter or Winnie the Pooh. For example, take MSNBC's roster.

"There's one Rachel Maddow, and then there's that whole male lineup," she says. "There's Ed [Schultz], there used to be Keith [Olbermann], and Lawrence O'Donnell, and now there's going to be Al Sharpton. It's quite remarkable that there's only this one woman, and it's never equal."

Beyond Gargamel's sarcastic remark about the 99-to-1 ratio, the new Smurfs movie does try to address Smurfette's singularity. In one scene, a human character, Grace, asks Smurfette, who's voiced by Katy Perry, why she's the only female Smurf.

"I wasn't brought by a stork like the others," Smurfette tells her. "Papa saved me. He cast a special spell and made me the Smurf I was meant to be." (In Geena Davis's telling of the same tale in 2007, she peppered it with an exasperated "I'm not kidding")

In the film, the "one girl" meme is also mined for emotional substance. After bonding with Grace (they give each other a "high four"), Smurfette says wistfully, "I've never had a girlfriend before."

According the director, Raja Gosnell, inventing a new female Smurf for the screenplay was never on the table.

"No, no, not at all--I mean, we definitely wanted to stay far, far away from that," he says. "Part of [Smurfs creator] Peyo's creation is that there's one female Smurf in the village. We really wanted to stay true to Peyo's original creation, and the fact that there's 99 Smurfs and one girl is part of the lore. We didn't want to just say, 'Let's throw another girl Smurf in there, just because.'"