Crazy Doll People

There was a recent article in the New York Times titled "Tally of The Dolls".  It's about us crazy doll people, specifically those on Instagram.  Since tone of voice is difficult in print, some of us have taken it as an attack, and I made the same mistake before actually reading the article in question.  Shame on me!  I know better than that! 

The article's title is somewhat misleading, since it only touches on the profits to be made, but it's not a bad read.  The problem is a question of tone.  Syntax can only take us so far in understanding the author's intent -- when this author calls us "artists", is it with respect or derision?  I choose to believe it was intended with respect.  I'm a big fan of the benefit of the doubt.

Why do we do what we do?  The only one I can answer for is myself, and there probably are deep psychological issues -- when aren't there deep psychological issues?  I don't think much about my reasons.  I just enjoy it, and I'm not hurting anyone!

I felt bad because I never got the doll with my initials (PJ).  I was thrilled at the age of 18 to finally have her! (I'm currently on my second PJ head and god only knows the number of bodies they've used.)  I think about how I longed for that doll, one with a bit of me in her, and I try to imagine what it would have been like to be non-white.  To never see a doll that even vaguely resembled me, or to only find them tucked away in a corner of the aisle like an afterthought or something shameful? 

Some of us focus on the disabled.  Because we, or someone we love, isn't represented in the doll universe?  Maybe.  One blogger I follow tries to have as much variation as possible in her storytelling because she celebrates human diversity.  Another focuses strictly on her own ethnicity. 

It wasn't until I was an adult that I realized most of my early dolls had come from local charities.  Thus, they were mostly the standard blond Barbie. The poverty that brought them into my life was a blessing in disguise, as far as representation goes.  They were simply too precious to be tossed aside.  If they lost an arm, I invented a story to explain it.  One with strange eyes?  She's blind. 

Those stories evolved into writing fiction.  My research, intended to help me write respectfully about people different from myself, was met with a lot of hostility.  White girls have no business writing about other cultures.  Straight girls have no business writing about lesbians or gay men.  It was, and still is, very hurtful.  I have tears in my eyes as I type this.  But storytelling is so much a part of me, I had to do it, and the only "correct" way was fiction.  Preferably novels.  I have two completed, and a few short stories, that will never see publication.  Rejection I can handle.  Backlash like that?  No.

That's not to say I've made no friends in the writing community.  I've gotten encouragement and even been told by actual lesbians that I write Olivia and Ann perfectly!  But every time I venture out to research some little bit, I cringe.  My little stories here don't require that sort of depth.  I can just write about people and the things we all have in common. 

Some of us really are childless spinsters or gay men, per the stereotype, but not even a majority.  We all do it for different reasons, in different ways, and we're harmless.  We're creating art.  We're answering a higher calling to promote an ethnic or religious or otherwise singular group.  All I know is I feel like I've returned to my roots.  I love my fellow crazy doll people.