Always Winter, Never Christmas

Determined to be unhappy about something, the Guardian’s Michele Hanson turns her drab, sad face to the subject of superhero dolls:  

They’re bendy and athletic, rather than stiff, pointy and girly. The teenage version of superheroines. 

Not pointy. Not girly. Um, that’s good, right?

They have physical powers rather than sex appeal.

Again, I’m not quite seeing the problem here.

I suppose it’s a step in the right direction.

Heavens. Things are going suspiciously well today. Perhaps a but is coming.

But why do the new dollies have to look so odd? Why the super-long anorexia-style legs and the thigh-gap? The weeny torsos with no room for innards? The giant or robot-style heads, the big (mainly) blue eyes and formidable eyelashes? 

Um, because they’re small plastic dolls based on a cartoon about comic book characters – you know, toys, designed to amuse children? And not, therefore, geared to the preferences of a self-described “single older woman” who writes for the Guardian. And I suspect the “thigh-gap” that so offends Ms Hanson has quite a lot to do with making a small, poseable doll with legs that can actually move.

They still give me the creeps. Dolls always have.

And… well, that’s it, really. So, class. Today we’ve learned that Ms Hanson isn’t a fan of dolls with big eyelashes and insufficiently discernible internal organs. At this point, readers may detect a hint of frustration, the sense that our grievance-seeking columnist has tried very hard to find fault with an unremarkable product – some damning evidence of sexism, perhaps – and then fallen on her arse. Indeed, just days earlier, the dolls in question were hailed by the Guardian’s sister paper, the Observer, as “challenging sexism in the toy industry,” in part because said toys were “designed by women following creative input from girls.”

Thwarted in her fault finding, Ms Hanson concludes by sharing a childhood memory, the point of which is somewhat unclear:

I had a pram full of animals when I was little, but my auntie insisted that I have a dolly, because I was a girl, and she gave me a cloth one, with moulded cloth face and shiny, pretend hair. But I scribbled all over its blank, spooky face, pulled its hair out, and my mother had to hide it from auntie in the wardrobe. Forever.

So there’s that.

Readers may recall Ms Hanson from this earlier display of factual rigour and socialist bonhomie.

Comments

[Joan]

It's popular so there must be something wrong with it.

[sk60]

Michele Hanson turns her drab, sad face to the subject of superhero dolls

Has she been spending too much time with George Monbiot?

[David]

She has the kind of face that makes smiling look uncomfortable and out of place.

As if being happy were a rare and bewildering experience.

Incidentally, Ms Hanson used to teach at Holland Park School, the “radical comprehensive” favoured in the 70s by middle-class lefties, and which was described to great effect in the book Comp by former pupil John-Paul Flintoff.

[David Davis]

Erm, there's even a black doll, and a superwoman-thingy that looks almost Indian. So at least she couldn't bleat about white racism in doll manufacture then.

[David]

Cue agonised comment by Guardian reader:

Isn’t this just encouraging girls to go down the same route as boys in terms of creating a society where aggression is the way to live?

And we were doing so well.

[The Lurker on the Threshold]

And not, therefore, geared to the preferences of a self-described “single older woman” who writes for the Guardian.

I sort of doubt that anything is.

[The Lurker on the Threshold]

Oh, and by the way, why do the dolls have to have to have room for innards? Are the children expected to dissect them?

[JuliaM]

"She has the kind of face that makes smiling look uncomfortable and out of place."

And apparently doesn't possess a hairbrush. It must be a Tool of the Patriarchy, or something.

[NielsR]

It's like some weird inverted hipsterdom : 'I hated it before there was a coherent reason to do so'

[Rafi]

the big (mainly) blue eyes

Ooh sounds a bit racist.... Oh wait. Turns out only two of the seven dolls have blue eyes. Three if you include purple.

[Ten]

Recently I rubbed shoulders with aging leftists in an activist setting. I'm not sure how you reconcile all the emotional but absolute moralizing in a worldview that rejects on face everything not itself.

I guess you just know, huh?

[Jay]

I blame the cloth dolly and the guilt from defacing it which has intensified over the years and got overlaid with the symbolism of destroying a fellow wimmin into a full-blown aversion to all dollies.

[R. Sherman]

So, I guess we now know that children who viciously destroy dolls either grow up to become psychotic serial killers . . . or Guardian columnists. We (figuratively) dodged a bullet with Ms. Hanson.

[[+]]

Readers may recall Ms Hanson from this earlier display of factual rigour and socialist bonhomie.

Wow. Envy really is poison to the soul.

[David]

Wow. Envy really is poison to the soul.

It doesn’t seem to be good for one, no. As I said in the comments there, it’s interesting how socialism can offer a kind of fig leaf for behaving in a way that might otherwise seem obnoxious.

If I started banging on about some random family that lives down the road and happens to be richer than me (but about whom I know nothing else) and about what ought to happen to them because they’re rich, and then went on about how much their house, which is bigger than mine, drives me into a “foaming temper,” you might think me unpleasant, petty, possibly unhinged. But if I were to say the same thing as a socialist in the pages of the Guardian, that same envy and vindictiveness might be viewed sympathetically by quite a few people. I might even be regarded as righteous -- despite my still knowing nothing at all about the people on whom I’m wishing fear and misery.

[Craig Mc]

Yes, they should totally make dolls whose thighs rub together, in the fashion of female Guardian writers.

[Darleen]

But if I were to say the same thing as a socialist in the pages of the Guardian, that same envy and vindictiveness might be viewed sympathetically by quite a few people. I might even be regarded as righteous

There is a whole doxxing movement going on in SoCal, led by the Los Angeles Times "reporter" Steve Lopez to uncover which resident of Bel-Air used 11 million gallons of water last year. "Water hog" is one of the kinder terms.

No matter that these people paid full price for their water, Lopez wants their head on a stick.

[Sam Duncan]

the big (mainly) blue eyes

Ooh sounds a bit racist.... Oh wait. Turns out only two of the seven dolls have blue eyes. Three if you include purple.

Presumably what she means is that the visible area of the eyes of the 28.6% of the dolls who have blue eyes is “mainly” blue, being also partly white and partly black. Right?

It seems a rather pedantic thing to say, but she can't have been lying through her teeth for effect, can she? Not in the Guardian.

[Anna]

SuperHero dolls might not be sexist. But

I'm just amazed the Groan has found something that isn't sexist.

[The original Mr. X]

OT, but too good not to share:

https://twitter.com/SoMuchGuardian/status/653976064637714432

[David]

too good not to share

See also this.

[Chester Draws]

And most girls will take their super-hero dolls and put them in prams and play mother to them. You can change the toy, but you can't change girls.

[BeckoningChasm]

"Determined to be unhappy about something"

That should be the slogan for all who call themselves "Progressives." It would make a great bumper sticker.

[dan]

I've stuck bandages around our dolls' legs so make their thighs a little more chubby, and I rub a bit of talcum powder over them to prevent chafing.

[BlogDog]

Having seen the picture, I have to wonder why that guy was playing with dolls in the first place. And his hygiene seems lousy to boot.

[David]

And then of course there’s this:

But they still have impossible stick insect legs. To be REALLY feminist, these dolls should come in all shapes and sizes, including the obese. That would be truely [sic] revolutionary. Actually, there probably would be a good market out there for them. I know I’d collect them.

Because every child wants a massively overweight Batgirl doll as approved by chubby feminists. Not so much an action figure as an “I need to sit down for a minute and catch my breath” figure.

[dan]

"But they still have impossible stick insect legs. To be REALLY feminist, these dolls should come in all shapes and sizes, including the obese"
I really hate it when the morbidly obese, the super obese, the super morbid obese, and the hyper super morbid obese are discriminated against.

[David]

Thigh chafing. It’s what everyone looks for in a superhero doll.

[Rob]

Crime fell while admissions rose. Why?

CLIMATE CHANGE!

[dicentra]

Oh, and by the way, why do the dolls have to have to have room for innards? Are the children expected to dissect them?

When it's time to "show me on the doll where they hurt you," no one can reliably point to the pancreas or duodenum.

Also, there's a thing where girls develop anorexia because they don't have Barbie's waistline. I don't remember ever comparing myself to Barbie or any other doll, but then I didn't play with dolls much and I tend to be oblivious about my appearance. (I was also naturally thin up until a couple decades ago.) I guess some girls are freaked out by not measuring up, but the ones who develop anorexia usually have an additional problem or two that actually triggers the disorder.

Don't underestimate how crazy women can get about measuring up to a beauty ideal: women used to have ribs removed to get that perfect, wasp waist.

[Darleen]

too good not to share

The flip side -- in California we have let 10,000 prisoners out of state prison, also knocked a bunch of felony statutes down to straight misdemeanors, including some property crimes.

Crime is now up 21%.

UNEXPECTEDLY!!!

[David Gillies]

Being a Grauniadista, especially a Comment is Free columnist means being given free rein to elevate whatever hobby horse, monomania or florid psychopathology animates one to the level of earnest social commentary. It's a pretty sweet gig, if childish solipsism is your thing. The set of truly important things being finite and small, and generally having been covered by people with a greater claim to intellectual stature than pinheads like Hanson, she and her ilk are forced to turn their electron microscopes on superhero dolls, or cupcakes, or barbecues, or how many spare bedrooms someone has.

[dicentra]

Wow, Dar.

California sure has itself some awfully bad luck.

[mojo]

What's all this, then?

A former meerkat expert at London Zoo has been ordered to pay compensation to a monkey handler she attacked with a wine glass in a love spat over a llama-keeper.

[svh]

Is anyone feeling angst over breakfast sandwich inequality?

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2015/10/13/journalisms-death-rattle-wapo-wastes-1000-words-lamenting-inequality-in-breakfast-sandwiches/

[Pinkeen]

I love how 'my auntie gave me a present' has mutated into 'my auntie insisted I have a dolly'.

[Bluntnose]

- My wife insisted I own some gold cufflinks!

You mean she bought you some cufflinks for your birthday?

- Well, yes, I suppose you could put it like that.

[David]

If anyone has trouble with comments getting snagged in the spam filter, email me and I’ll set them free.