On dolls and skintones
Aug. 23rd, 2009 01:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mmymoonSo there was a big event over in loli valentines with a million billion secrets, yay! See, subculture can be nice and welcoming if it tries...
La la, sort of tangentially, this valentine made me happy, for one, seeing a non-youth rocking of my styles, but also... because she has a darkskinned "mini me" BJD.
Okay, so, I don't know about anyone else, but I always had issues with Blonde Barbie when I was a little kid. I wasn't particularly fond of dolls as a child, being an action-figure-loving sort who would rather make whatever toy go on adventures than brush its stupid hair. But I was so tickled when someone gave me Hawaiian Barbie (Meko? Meeko? Miko?) and she had a deep olive tan, and black hair, and a chubby-cheeked face. I identified with her figure to an extent that I could never project onto the doe-eyed blondes my sister had.
People can be affectedly PC with kids and toys, but this was something that honestly bothered me when I was a child. I was obviously not "the fairest," and really couldn't project myself into white, blonde dolls. I know I'm not the only one who felt that way as a child, either. (Which is why I think various shades and lifestyles of toys AND CARTOONS really are important. It doesn't have to be dead-on, but kids can be grateful just to have a toy that in some way resembles their life whatsoever. People come in different colors, lifestyles, dis/abilities, and so do children.) Similarly, I've always been slightly unsettled when people do art of me that makes me super-pale, because that's so... not... me. It'd be like drawing me flatchested, or with straight hair.
So yeah. A while ago, I was looking at someone's "mini me" (self-portrait doll) that was some standard super-pale ball joint doll (when the person was fairly dark skinned) and just... thought that was kind of weird and sad. I know, from a technical standpoint, that darker resins are more difficult/expensive to cast. But I'm just really sort of happy that there are finally more colors of resin other than "SNOW" and "flesh."
... Jenny and Licca sure aren't Asian-featured dolls. What do all the poor kids in Japan do? Are there other, more realistic dolls that real children actually play with, or is it just an accepted suspension of disbelief, kind of like how baby dolls look nothing like actual babies?
And uh, before you ask: YES, the only baby dolls I ever had were anatomically correct. In various skintones. Yeeeeep. Non-realistic baby dolls disturbed me: it either had to be bizarrely stylized or fairly realistic. I was like that, even as a child.
La la, sort of tangentially, this valentine made me happy, for one, seeing a non-youth rocking of my styles, but also... because she has a darkskinned "mini me" BJD.
Okay, so, I don't know about anyone else, but I always had issues with Blonde Barbie when I was a little kid. I wasn't particularly fond of dolls as a child, being an action-figure-loving sort who would rather make whatever toy go on adventures than brush its stupid hair. But I was so tickled when someone gave me Hawaiian Barbie (Meko? Meeko? Miko?) and she had a deep olive tan, and black hair, and a chubby-cheeked face. I identified with her figure to an extent that I could never project onto the doe-eyed blondes my sister had.
People can be affectedly PC with kids and toys, but this was something that honestly bothered me when I was a child. I was obviously not "the fairest," and really couldn't project myself into white, blonde dolls. I know I'm not the only one who felt that way as a child, either. (Which is why I think various shades and lifestyles of toys AND CARTOONS really are important. It doesn't have to be dead-on, but kids can be grateful just to have a toy that in some way resembles their life whatsoever. People come in different colors, lifestyles, dis/abilities, and so do children.) Similarly, I've always been slightly unsettled when people do art of me that makes me super-pale, because that's so... not... me. It'd be like drawing me flatchested, or with straight hair.
So yeah. A while ago, I was looking at someone's "mini me" (self-portrait doll) that was some standard super-pale ball joint doll (when the person was fairly dark skinned) and just... thought that was kind of weird and sad. I know, from a technical standpoint, that darker resins are more difficult/expensive to cast. But I'm just really sort of happy that there are finally more colors of resin other than "SNOW" and "flesh."
... Jenny and Licca sure aren't Asian-featured dolls. What do all the poor kids in Japan do? Are there other, more realistic dolls that real children actually play with, or is it just an accepted suspension of disbelief, kind of like how baby dolls look nothing like actual babies?
And uh, before you ask: YES, the only baby dolls I ever had were anatomically correct. In various skintones. Yeeeeep. Non-realistic baby dolls disturbed me: it either had to be bizarrely stylized or fairly realistic. I was like that, even as a child.
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Date: 2009-08-24 03:03 am (UTC)And of course, people *still* aren't cool with Barbie's figure. Though I think the sleaze factor of the Bratz helped take a bit of the heat off in recent years.