Dolls of Color

I need a nudie shot of a Shani body mould – doesn’t have to be black, can be deathly white if need be… so onto Google I go! And I stumbled upon this article…

The Commodification of Blackness by Sosophrank’s Media Fascinations – 090604

Now, as an essay by itself it’s totally fine, the arguments suit the topic and make sense and it serves the purpose of the assignment (from my very quick skimming). BUT reading it with an eye of a doll collector AND an involved participant in the anti-racism blogosphere I just couldn’t help but be critical of it.

My response to this was -

Hi, I’d just like to point out that in your Figure 2, the dolls that are being shown are actually Uhura (Star Trek character) and Christie (working name for the African American doll of that series showcasing 1960’s fashion styles) and that is why they have been listed under “Pop Culture”, not all dolls of African American appearance are listed as such and to claim so is misleading.

Shani dolls and the others in this series are wildly popular with collectors contrary to what you’ve mentioned in regards to them being unpopular – perhaps they were unpopular with their intended market. The Asha face mould (light skin doll) has been used in regular play line dolls and the Nichelle face mould (dark skin doll) has been used in many collector line dolls since their introduction.

There are plenty of examples of racism, colonialist thinking and white privilege in the world of Barbie dolls, unfortunately the examples that you have chosen are not what shows the racial issues. There are many blogs out there that deal with race, racism, sociological imagery as well as racial depictions of dolls which you could refer to in future research.

Asha face on Cali Girl Christie

Nichelle face as Af-Am Barbie

It is true that there is under-representation of non-white dolls in Barbie’s world and that there is a disproportionate number of dolls of color found in the more exotic categories of Pop Culture and Dolls of the World (code for “not one of us”). That’s why I actually have both the Uhura AND POP Christie dolls because there’s so much more fewer Af-Am dolls released compared to the more socially normalised Caucasian doll.

As for that mysterious bigger booty on the Shani dolls and friends… it’s a myth… the regular Twist-n-Turn butt has the measurement of 130mm and Shani’s arse is only 120mm. That my dear folks, makes it SMALLER. And no, I didn’t spend time measuring tiny doll body parts myself… some other collector did

Anyway… I still need that image of nudie Shani body sculpt…. because funnily enough, the only Shani doll I actually have uses the regular Twist-n-Turn body XD