Doll

"I think it’s massively important for children to see diversity in the toy box, for disabled children to see themselves represented positively. It’s very affirming for them to see that they can be a fairy, they can be a wizard in a wheelchair, and all that kind of fun and possibility is open to them as well, and it’s also really important for children without disabilities, to see disability as a normal, fun thing, it’s not just something that exists in hospital or medical settings, it exists everywhere, and its time that thee toy manufacturers started to take note and include disabled children in their products."

"Rosie Eggleston, from the National Deaf Childrens Society said: "Deafness is often misunderstood and deaf children usually grow up knowing few people, with first-hand experience of what theyre going through. "Its so important for them to see deafness represented in as many areas as possible, because it helps them understand that there are other people just like them."

"The Toy Story movies are true to the toys they represent, as we learn from the movies the kind of lessons we learn in life, and work though emotionally and intellectually with action figures: learning our place in the scheme of the world through self-knowledge, the choice between protecting our hearts by isolating ourselves emotionally from others or risking heart-break, accepting abandonment, old age and death. My own realization of growing up came when I realized that my huge Lego diorama, much like the one the dad has in The Lego Movies was not something adults had, and that in growing up I would have to give it up. But in the modern world the toys we play with are not faceless dolls. The toys are G.I. Joe and Barbie, Pokemon, Batman and Superman, The X-Men and Spiderman and The Hulk, all owned by a handful of megacorporations. For many Americans childhood imitations are not of weddings and festivals, but of things seen on screens, TV shows and movies, things also owned by that same handful of mega-corporations. The blockbuster film industry, with its endless parade of nostalgic heroes from childhood and an attendant emotional maturity, is the playground for 35-year-old- ticket buyers who are told they never have to leave these things behind."

"Before Barbie, dolls were babies, to be fed and burped and bathed and wheeled around in prams and put down for naps."

"As Kozinski would write in his opinion in Mattel v. MGA, it’s possible to make dolls that don’t look like porn stars but “there’s not a big market for fashion dolls that look like Patty and Selma Bouvier”—a reference to Lisa Simpson’s big-nosed, wide-waisted, thick-ankled aunts."

"Empowerment feminism is a cynical sham. As Margaret Talbot once noted in these pages, “To change a Bratz doll’s shoes, you have to snap off its feet at the ankles.” That is pretty much what girlhood feels like. In a 2014 study, girls between four and seven were asked about possible careers for boys and girls after playing with either Fashion Barbie, Doctor Barbie, or, as a control, Mrs. Potato Head. The girls who had played with Mrs. Potato Head were significantly more likely to answer yes to the question “Could you do this job when you grow up?” when shown a picture of the workplaces of a construction worker, a firefighter, a pilot, a doctor, and a police officer. The study had a tiny sample size, and, like most slightly nutty research in the field of social psychology, has never been replicated, or scaled up, except that, since nearly all American girls own a Barbie, the population of American girls has been the subject of the scaled-up version of that experiment for nearly six decades."

"Japan’s oldest “love doll” manufacturer wants to strip the sex toys of their seedy image and encourage people to see them as works of art instead. “Even now there is still a stigma,” said a spokesperson for Tokyo-based sex doll maker Orient Industry, which recently celebrated its 40th anniversary with a three-week exhibition showing the evolution of its dolls that drew over 10,000 visitors. “But at our exhibition there were lots of men and women visitors — more women than men, in fact,” he said. “There were young and old, men and women, a really wide range of people. I think people came because they had heard the reputation of how beautiful our dolls are. We want to get rid of the stigma.”"

"Competition from video and mobile games has diminished the interest in action figures, allow a child to fantasise about taking on the role of a heroic character. Video and mobile games greatly enhance that ability. The age appeal of action figures has been declining for decades due to the rise of video games."

"To start, the most abject Happy Meal toy lost in the deepest layers of the toy bin still signifies the epitome of polysemic postmodern participatory commodity culture. At the same time, the expertly-graded, mint-in-blisterpack Star Wars rebel of Ideal Posin Supergirl cocooned for eternity within its EcoStar PC50 Recycled PET acryllic clam shell against all possible risk, play, or abuse can command thousands of dollars on the collector/investor/speculator market. From garage sales and Goodwill fodder to certified collectibles and international Internet auction houses, the action figure circulates through complex aesthetic, psychological, and socio-economic conditions of unusual scope and power. Its defining characteristics seem obvious enough. An action figure is generally a manufactured personality or character built to a diminished scale. It is usually, though not necessarily humanoid, and often designed to encourage manipulation, posing, or play including movable body parts, interchanging costumes, accessories, weapons, prosthetics, and related apparatus. At times, these accoutrements can expand to include elaborate vehicles, carrying cases, and playsets so ingeniously and engineered that they are sometimes more engaging in their miniaturized discrepancy than the figured body or character itself. Certain bases, expanded worlds, and microcosmic mock-ups tend to develop their own specialized mythologies. Iconic examples include Shredder and Krangs Technodrome of mechanized evil from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise and G.I. Joes remarkably Space Shuttle Defiant. From the figures themselves to the gear, couture, and conveyances that enable and transport them, the action figure always signifies a larger spectacle well beyond its tiny idealized body."

"It is a common belief in Japan that dolls are mirrors. The dolls show their owner’s true self."

"In 2000, only two films in the top 10 US box office hits would have been likely to generate a licensed character toy, X-Men and How the Grinch Stole Christmas, perhaps Mission: Impossible II. But in 2017, nine out of the 10 top films had licensed characters associated with them, from Star Wars to Beauty and the Beast to Wonder Woman to Thor. So, consumers are spending about the same amount of money on toys in total, but now they have far more choices to spend it on. The battle is over the share of a parent’s pocketbook."

"A popular urban legend claims the German Navy became the first creator of the modern sex-doll, Model Borghild (Ferguson, 2010; Lenz, n.d.; Pulham, 2008; Wolf, 2010). According to rumor and urban myth, the doll was part of the Nazi’s “field-hygienic project,” initiated to counterbalance the sexual drive of storm troopers (Lenz, n.d.). However, the existence of the author, “Lenz”, and the reports on the so-called Borghild doll are unverifiable, and are possibly hoaxes (Ferguson, 2010; Schewe & Moreno, 2011). The Japanese had a version of a dames de voyage, called a do-ningyo. A description is cited from a Japanese work titled “The Art of Quickly Seducing a Novice” in Tabori’s book, The Humor and Technology of Sex (1969): A man who is forced to sleep alone can obtain pleasure with a do-ningyo. This is the body of a female doll, the image of a girl of thirteen or fourteen with a velvet vulva. But these dolls are only for people of high rank. (p. 337) Dolls and statues created and used for sexual purposes are cross-cultural phenomena in various forms for centuries. The absence of historical information about production, distribution, and sales, or customer satisfaction data on sex dolls leaves the history of sex dolls open to considerable speculation. Until the emergence of the modern sex dolls, records of sales are found only in rumored accounts of sex doll use, and antique advertisements, such as the one translated by Henry Carey from a Paris circular in 1902. It advertises the sale of a complete, custom sex doll made to fit customer specifications: “All moves, arms, legs, buttocks, head, eyes; a perfect likeness of the person whose photograph is sent...the complete apparatus, guaranteed against breakage, man or woman, 3000 francs” (Cary, 1922, p. 50)."