Here's a photo of the back of her box:
Somewhere out in the doll collecting communities, there are people shaking their heads. Oh, she's not a real black doll. No, she's just a chocolate-dipped white doll. I recognize that there are Black women with keen features. There are Black women with fuller features. There is room enough in my crowded doll and action figure collection for both.
Back in the '60s and the 70's when some people found chocolate-dipped dolls offensive, I wondered how people who looked like those dolls felt. Unauthentic? Not Black enough? That didn't seem fair. People's looks -- barring surgery -- stem from a chance arrangement of their parents' genes. Sure, I could understand wanting Black dolls with fuller features and coarser hair, but the keener featured dolls were or could be representative, too.
Today, my take is this: a toy company wants to reach more audiences WITHOUT the added expense of creating a new head mold. No evil plan. Just economics.
2 comments:
I think it's more like these features are not as common in the Afro population as broader features + coarser hair. By representative, I think people expect average.
I know it's economics, but it's also laziness.
I personally didn't get this doll as I didn't fancy either the light or dark versions.
Average representation is a fair expectation. I prefer coarser hair, fuller features, and a range of complexions. But if certain companies turn out "chocolate dipped" models, shrug, I allow that some Black people could look like that. Dolls with fuller features and curvier figures like the late Get Set Club dolls and the current YNU Group Mixis do not garner the interest and the support that the "chocolate dipped" models do.
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