New Line of Dolls with Disabilities

[sinisterporpoise]

 http://www.cosmopolitan.com/lifestyle/news/a40588/makies-dolls/

Yes, I understand that the custom toy maker should respond to customer demands. I do not fault them for giving into the demands of their customers. What I am having a hard time with is I find this idea horrific and I can't really explain why. As someone who grew up during the 80s and who was assigned male at birth, the closest thing we had to this were the Starscream action and Destro action figures.  

Comments

[silk_dragon_zen]

You find this horrific? I, for one, am thrilled that said customers both demanded and got representation from this toy manufacturer! Nothing horrific about that at all. Our culture's otherwise compulsory “normality” just serves to marginalize kids who have disabilities by saying, “no, you're not good enough the way you are to have a doll made to look like you actually look”. So kudos to this toy company — and especially to its customers — for making a clear statement affirming that a person with a disability isn't broken nor lacking as a person, and that the body they have is the body they have.

As for Starscream and Destro, having just read the beginnings of both Wikipedia articles, how do these particular action figures relate to you being trans? — or to being disabled? I never watched either show, and the Wikipedia articles are less than enlightening on the subject.

[sinisterporpoise]

If I could explain why I am having problems with this idea, I would. I think any reasoning I can find involves Rule 34 and I'd rather not pursue that line of thought.

But if I were picking disabled characters from the 80s, those two would probably hit the top of my list. Starscream from the 80s cartoon is written horribly, and an argument could be made he suffers from mental illness. (Despite fond memories of the Transformers cartoon, I'd be hard pressed to find any example of good writing from it.)

Destro, on the other hand, hides his scarred face behind a silver mask. It's too bad he was one of the villains. He was actually one of the more interesting characters on the show. In one episode, they go into a parallel universe and you find Destro and the Baroness leading the "good guys."

The last two items were only tangentially related. I would not be able to find any positive transgender characters from the 80s. It would have been easier for me if the first examples of transgender people I ever heard about came from Maury Povich and Jerry Springer.

[silk_dragon_zen]

Ah, I hadn't been thinking in the direction of rule 34. On the other hand, there are many disabled people who want their sexual partners to be attracted to them not despite their disabilities, but want their partners to be attracted to them as a whole, including their disabilities as part of who they are.

But sheesh, we're talking about dolls for kids here, so rule 34 doesn't even remotely apply (except maybe in the way that, alas, rule 34 might apply to “abled” dolls, too: a doll fetish or something. *sigh*).

[sinisterporpoise]

Now you see why I didn't want to go down that road.