fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2910 ]

[ SECRET POST #2910 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2910 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

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Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
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I was going to make this a secret but I think Case might have ruled it N!F. Anyway, I'm a doll collector. Was huge into dolls as a kid and am still now that I have passed the awkward teen years of "you're too old for dolls!" and into the adult years of "fuck you I'll buy what I want with my own money."

My issue is, that stupid tired meme that always comes around of what a Barbie would look like if she was "average-sized". I am so goddam tired of seeing these artist renderings with a thousand notes about how great the idea is.

But can we just admit the fucking truth? There is not one of us who would actually have wanted that doll as a child, and if you say you would, you're a liar. The doll on the right is not the doll any of us would want to play with as kids:

http://www.ohgizmo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Realistic-Barbie2.jpg

Why? Because she looks bizarre! And frankly, ugly! Oh, but she's a "realistic woman" and we should all bow down before it. I've been around long enough to see so many "anti-barbie" dolls attempted and every one of them has crashed and burned. Maybe the kids smelled the pandering; maybe they just thought they were boring. This doll, Lammilly, is the newest offering:

http://www.noticias.com.bo/images/2014-03-06-lammilly-la-muneca-con-medidas-del-ser-humano.jpg

The face is sweet, sure. But she bores the crap out of me. Give me glitter-shine Barbies any day. Plus, if we are going to toss around this horseshit that Barbie gives girls unrealistic expectations about their bodies, Lammilly would do just the same! If I had been influenced by my Lammilly dolls I would have grown up feeling ugly and freakish because the "average woman" shape shown here is completely different from my own.

So in conclusion: PLEASE STOP PRETENDING THAT "AVERAGE-SIZED" DOLLS WOULD MAKE THE WORLD A BEAUTIFUL, ALL-ACCEPTING PLACE. PLEASE STOP PRETENDING THAT MOST LITTLE GIRLS WOULD EVEN BUY ONE OVER A PRETTIER DOLL.

Barbie in general was boring as fuck. I'm not sure that having one that doesn't have a giraffe neck and could walk barefoot without breaking her imaginary toes would make her more boring. She had an awesome car (that she kind of sort of fit in) and an awesome house, but that was about it.

Eh, I'm not involved in this discussion and tend to find tumblr swj annoying, but I do think the doll on the right is the prettier one. Throw in some glitter and a horse and I would have been all over that as a kid.

Next to her the Barbie doll looks like a freak.

I had a more average sized, shorter 'Barbie' given to me by family in Japan when I was a girl , and I actually loved it a lot more than I did my regular Barbies. So who knows.

I also remember she had flat feet and came with things like tennis shoes, which I loved.

Re: "Realistic" Dolls

(Anonymous) - 2014-12-21 22:17 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "Realistic" Dolls

(Anonymous) - 2014-12-22 06:46 (UTC) - Expand

The realistic barbie looks scarily like a friend of mine...

I thought she looked like Britney Spears.

I don't know, I liked variety in my dolls. I had plenty of Barbies and Skippers. I had a She-Ra doll with a sword. I had Cupcake dolls. My sisters and I had so many goddamn little Quints, Quints cousins, and Krystal Princess dolls.

But my single favorite doll of all was a 6-inch teen doll with proportions that are somewhere between Skipper and Lammilly. Okay, so my Barbie clothes didn't fit her. That was okay. I made clothes out of the tops of socks, handkerchiefs, etc. She was my favorite and I took her just about everywhere. And she was from some completely no-brand line at like Pic-n-Save or something, and came in a pack with 2 other dolls (that belonged to my sisters).

I don't entirely disagree with this, but those dolls look fine to me. But then IMO, what made Barbie cool wasn't her body size/shape, but her clothing and accessories and any of those realistic dolls could have equally shiny, glittery clothing and accessories.

This, pretty much. My favorite doll was a Barbie, not because of how her body looked, but because of all the cool and fashionable clothing and accessories she came with. I would have chosen the Lammily doll over Barbie doll in a second if she came with cooler accessories.

I would have been okay with the average sized doll, but I was also okay with having a Barbie. I don't think my self-esteem problem came from my dolls that didn't really look human to begin with, so much as being drowned in fashion magazines from a pre-teen on. I find it much more useful to give people crash courses in photoshop than mess with their dolls (because frankly, they can pick up the unrealistic body expectations from cartoons anyway.)

I loved fashion dolls as a kid, I had Barbie, Skipper and Stacy, Sindy (Hasbro and Pedigree), and a couple of off brand dolls. They all had different body shapes. What mattered to me most when picking out a doll was whether they looked interesting which meant having cool clothes and accessories, and also nice long hair to play with (which is why I didn't have Ken or Paul).

I don't think Lammily would have met my criteria as a child, she's just a bit dull. I would have played with her, but I wouldn't have asked for her, or saved up for her.

If I was a kid now and Lammily was on a shelf next to Barbie/Monster High/MLP dolls I don't think I'd even notice her.

How about fuck you I'll buy what I want for my kids, and if they want the normal sized one then that's what they'll get.

If that's what they want, than you are a good parent for listening to your kids and respecting their preferences. If your kid wants a Barbie and you buy a Lammilly instead because you feel she's somehow better, you're a jackass. Let the kid play with the toy they want to play with.

Re: "Realistic" Dolls

(Anonymous) - 2014-12-21 23:19 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "Realistic" Dolls

(Anonymous) - 2014-12-22 02:31 (UTC) - Expand

I don't think it's wrong for people to want to push this, I personally may have never felt pressured by barbie's proportions (cartoons or dolls never had an effect on me, only real people did), but there are studies to suggest it can have a negative effect.

Debate aside, I don't care about the proportions, more about variety in dolls and the "fantasy" aspect. I wanted dolls with different hair colors, different clothes, I didn't want them to be realistic, I wanted to take them to different worlds. Part of the reason Barbie was never my favorite was because she was always blonde haired and blue eyed (getting dolls of her friends was rare) and even with the "glitter" she was still pretty based in reality. The only reason I played with Barbie was because she had the most clothes of any of my doll.

But I liked My Little Pony better. I also had these small dolls, I don't remember what they were called, but they all had different colored hair (like fun colors like pink) and lived in things that could turn into other things (like a stereo that turned into a stage... anyone remember these dolls/know what they are called?)

Re: "Realistic" Dolls

ginainthekingsroad - 2014-12-21 23:32 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "Realistic" Dolls

(Anonymous) - 2014-12-21 23:37 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "Realistic" Dolls

(Anonymous) - 2014-12-22 02:35 (UTC) - Expand

I think there is more than enough room in the world for BOTH types of dolls.

As other people in this thread have mentioned, one of the attractions of Barbie is her many accessories. If Lammilly dolls also have nice clothes and accessories, I'd be more than happy to buy one and put her on the same shelf as my Barbies.

I love dolls and action figures in general though, so as far as I'm concerned the more variety the better!

+1

(Anonymous) - 2014-12-22 00:15 (UTC) - Expand

Barbies were great because they were grown-up people who could have adventures and live in the bookshelf like it was a giant apartment complex, and change into different clothes. I didn't think about them as being "beauty ideals" or "pretty" or anything like that. I think I'd have been happy with any dolls that looked more or less like grown people and not like babies, and that had clothes you could take off and put on.

WTF happened to you as a child that you thought a doll being proportional was "boring" and that you wouldn't have wanted to play with it?

I cared about my dolls having hair that I could brush, lots of outfits that I could dress them in, and lots of playscapes. I couldn't have given two shits if they looked like the Barbie on the left or the Barbie on the right. The only time I thought a doll was "superior" was when they came out with the gymnast Barbie that had actual jointed legs. The thing that made her "not boring" wasn't that she had big boobs and an itty bitty waist, it was that her limbs could actually, you know, bend.

You can't speak for every kid. And also, I think there was something fucked up with you if you would've refused to play with a doll for having a normal waistline.

I quit on Barbie when I realized she couldn't ride any of my horse action figures without breaking a hip. One year I got a Lone Ranger action figure (with ball-joint hips) who could ride Silver *and* the palomino from the Johnny West action set my cousins gave me. I don't have any of my childhood dolls, but I've still got those horses--some of whome have homemade prosthetic legs and yarn tails, because they broke easily.

I'd have loved Barbie if she'd just had ball-joint hips. I really wished I had a girl doll to play with along with my horses.

Even as a young girl, I hated Barbie for being so weirdly proportioned. I used to try to bend her feet flat so she'd look even halfway human, but that just made her legs look even weirder.

That creepy, vacuous smile, too...

Maybe dolls in general just weren't for me.

Re: "Realistic" Dolls

(Anonymous) - 2014-12-22 07:15 (UTC) - Expand

Like some others here, I didn't care what their bodies looked like at all and they didn't give me any particular feelings about my own body. It was all about dressing them up and getting them cool houses and cars and stuff, my friends and I didn't care how realistic any of it was. I have The Sims games for that now, lol. Plus I played with them in the early-mid 80s, when the dresses were extra fabulous: http://forums.vintagefashionguild.org/attachments/oscardelarenta-jpg.36410/
I know I had the middle two dresses. That red Oscar de la Renta, man.

This is

This is a pretty extreme reaction.

I think most kids would be fine with the "realistic" doll, especially if that's the only kind they had. Like others have said, it's more about the accessories and the imaginary adventures than what the doll looks like. My favorite doll as a kid was a tinly thing thgat someone made for me out of fabric. I liked it because it was easy for me to make clothes for her and se fit the dollhouse I made from a kit.

It's not like anyone is suggesting buying Go Bots for kids who wanted Trasformers. Now THAT woud be unforgivable.

...I honestly can't really tell what's supposed to be different about those dolls, except the second one has a narrow waist I guess. I never played with dolls as a kid, though. They both just look like dolls to me. Can someone explain the EPIC RAGE!!!111 going on here?

Did a thick-waisted doll kill your dog?

I was surprised when it was about Barbies.

Re: When I saw the subject, I thought it was going to be about Real Dolls.

(Anonymous) - 2014-12-22 05:45 (UTC) - Expand

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