Say whaaaaat??!?
Nod to the blogging wonder women behind Mixed Media Watch and Addicted to Race for the e-mail tip on … um … THIS.
(You gotta click it to see for yourself. Go ahead. Take your time. Look around. I’ll wait.)
*humming* *filing nails* *thumbing through People* *I mean, um … Time … yeah, that’s it. Time*
Everyone finished? So upon first click, I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to burst into gales of laughter, or knock somebody around till their teeth rattled. I was feeling confused, anxious, sad, alone, and a little afraid. So I clicked around some more.
Did you see it? Amid the parade of tired, played out stereotypes — including a lone black lesbian action figure, “Badness,” dressed up as (what else?) a basketball player — are Kelly, Christine and little Soo Jin. In case you missed them, allow me to quote from one of the press releases:
So what’s cooking at DYKEd0lls? More scrumptious dykes, of course. Bite sizes dykes called “Baby Dykes” will soon be available. “Baby Dykes” are 4 inches tall, made from plastic and suitable for children 3 years old and up, including adults.
Call “I got next” on the playground with “Badness” the HIGH SCHOOL pickup b-baller wit it! And for those who like to gender bend, Dean the DragKing is ready to whip it out! Play family with Kelly and Christine, the mommies, who recently adopted little Soo Jin from The Korean Adoption Program. All you can eat “Baby Dykes” will soon be available on www.DYKEd0lls.com and selected stores. Get em while they’re hot!
No they didn’t!
At one moment, in my bewilderment, a small voice arose from within my head that protested, “But they don’t even let lesbians adopt from Korea.” Yes, indeedy. Always thinking, I am.
Weird. Actually, judging from the plethora of visual clichés going on there, I totally expected to discover Soo Jin to be described as Chinese. Which might have been easier for me to totally make fun of, what with all the Chinese adoption news making the headlines these days. But somebody even took the time to come up an actual *Korean* name for Soo Jin, which is most unusual. Why?
I also have to wonder, did Kelly and Christine adopt from Korea because they were too damn good to domestically adopt a black baby? Bitches! 
Why go there? To stereotype as many socially marginalized groups as possible? Or were they going for diversity, and Soo Jin is all about representin’ for the Asian peeps. What the fuh? I don’t know.
So I can get behind some of what the creator says on the bio page: “I would get a d0ll that cried or peed when you pressed its stomach, and think it was pretty lame. I’d be like, ‘Mom, I don’t want this.’”
But … um … I’m just left wondering, do these d0lls — especially ones such as little Soo Jin — really fulfill a need? Is this the right way to counterbalance the glut of stereotypical blonde, blue-eyed d0lls taking up store shelves? By taking “dyke” stereotypes to a whole new level, immortalized in plastic, wearing flannel and camo?
While they’re at it, why not take the typecasting one step further, and give Diesel Dyke a mullet? How about packaging all the d0lls with interchangeable heads with angry facial expressions? Oh, I know! How about Sexually Promiscuous Pam and Bi-Curious Betty, who come as a set along with a fat, balding male d0ll with lifelike drooling, masturbatory action?
The press releases try to talk these things up as cool, fun and playful, even subtle. Ex-squeeze me? Subtle? Is the subtlety obscured somewhere behind the strap-on dild0s and the miniature vibrat0rs?
Don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t deny a girl a healthy amount of quality time with her vibrat0r, but come on, now. This just isn’t right. Y’all should be building one another up, sisters, not selling each other out as $50 novelty caricatures.
And do not go there with the Korean baby. That’s so not cool.
Wow! How come Barbie never came with sex toys? I guess she was not allowed to play with “those sorts of things” – only with her un-anatomically correct confused Ken, eh?
I also wonder who is supposed to buy these “toys” – ceratinly not for children with the sex toys, although I could see some lesbian moms liking the idea that they cou8ld get a barbie substitute for their kids. But I too do not want to go there with the adopted kid…too strange….
*flabbergasted*
i wasn’t quite sure what to make of the site too.. actually, i stil don’t. something along the lines of “omgwtfisthatLOLyou’vegottobejokingisthatallowed?!deargawdhahaha” went thru my head…
So when are we gonna come up with our own “adoptee dolls”? Oh wait, that’s right. they already have them:
Baby June”
Baby Jason
Newborn dolls even come with a keepsake birthcertificate. Wonder if it comes with wite out for the *adoptive parents* to change their names.
Thank you! THANK YOU. I was like, huh, and then clicked on baby dykes and actually gasped when I saw Soo Jin in the arms of Christine. Appalling.
Ah, yes, it disturbed me to see the “Little Soo Jin” doll – parodies of themselves, they can make, but not of “Little Soo Jin”. They could’ve done a test tube baby doll, “Little David Crosby”?
its been a while.. but im back in action. But – yeah – i KNEW that once i saw the front page what I was going to find. I live in the bay area and my queer brothers and sister who are adopting are also adopting internationally and interacially. My solo show is partially targetted to these folks. All i can say is, that as we all know – the privledges of whiteness and the inability to struggle with race on a daily basis also affect my queer familia. I read a blog written by some queer men who adopted a little black girl – and dress her up like a doll and take her out during festivals! The site actually commented about what a diva she was (sigh). Much has of course been written about feminist and queer theory forgetting to examine race as dutifully as it examines gender – in other words – just because you are queer – dont mean you arent racist.
May the creator is really Adam Corolla incognito.
I had to take a double-take and it still doesn’t make any sense. I can’t wrap my head around the contradiction. Was the intitial intention really about representation or was that just an afterthought?
I am glad for the new blogs to read, so thanks for those links! but the dyke dolls make me wanna barf. As a expired card-carrying member of the so-called GLBT community, which is as fragmented as it is diverse, I can say that these dyke dolls are tard old stereotypes of lesbians that date back to my coming out days in the 80’s–the dykes we all wanted to be: young white butch (for a little variety, maybe date the lone token girl of color). But only about five percent of our population could pull off the James Dean look and they were usually spending a leetle too much time holding up the bar.
OTOH do you know how freaking hard it is to get a doll who is not dressed in pink poof and wearing blue eyeshadow? Muchless one who is not white? My daughter saw the front page of dyke dolls and wanted the Brokeback Mountain one! She wants to be a cowgirl when she grows up. IT’S NOT MY FAULT.
Oh and no country outside the US accepts openly queer applicants for adoption. The only way to pull it off is to play single-with-roommate and more and more countries are catching on. (Lesbians are more likely to be successful than gay men because most countries won’t entertain applications from single men.) China forces an affadavit of heterosexuality on single applicants. So those white lesbo dolls adopting the Korean baby are not only offensive, they are so rare that they can’t be much of a niche market.
And yeah to what Lisa Marie said. White queers are just as blinded by racism and classism as any white folks.
Sue
http://mylifepostponed.typepad.com/about.html
That’s right. I think I recall my big sis having to sign some similar affadavit swearing that she was not, nor had she ever been, nor would she ever become, nor would she ever talk to or look at or be in the same room as a lesbian, before she was allowed into Vietnam to adopt my nephew. OK, I made that last part up. But I remember it giving her pause.
Ugh. I do wish we could build doll families to look however our families look (not necessarily man-woman, or all one race) but this just seems to buy into the “trendy baby” thing.
Gross.
I have to admit, when I first clicked on the link I got all excited at the prospect of finding some cool lesbian kitch, along the same lines as the “Billy Dolls” that you find in shops for gay men. But when I saw the “mommies”… ugh. Ugh, ugh, and ugh. And ugh some more.
bizarre. truly bizarre. I especially like the vulvular opening page…
But I must say.
I feel about as represented by these “dyke dolls” as your average chinese adoptee must feel represented by the “coming home” barbie.
Which is to say, not at all.
Being a queer male adoptee of color, I totally must bow out of this one. If there is anything I’ve learned over the years is never… ever… ever… f**k with lesbians. And Soo-Jin? Shouldn’t they have renamed the child Butch? Sorry I couldn’t help myself.
Seriously, no not the best idea. Even in the queer community marginalization of people of color is still a big problem. Being a minority doesn’t give you a free pass to be an idiot.
art-sweet — Good lord, those Barbies really exist?! I think I saw a picture of one of those once, but I assumed it was a joke. I wish it had been! Bleah!
Funny, but TOTALLY messed up, seriously.
I know if I had a little girl I would just run right out and buy her the whole set, accesories and all.
ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh….my……god…
yes, mattell leaves one in the room of all adopting families at the White Swan hotel. Apparently there are several different models and the staff at the White Swan (anyone else find that name excruciatingly ironic?) puts one in the room with coloring that best matches the coloring of the new mom. Because, y’know, heaven forbid that a blonde mom gets a brunette barbie.
If you google “coming home barbie” or “white swan barbie” you’ll come up with any number of nausea-inducing sites with new adoptive moms sighing over how sweet it is…
You’ll also find a petition asking the toy company to make the doll available elsewhere. Because it’s not fair that people who adopted before this practice was put into place can’t have a coming home barbie.
http://www.petitiononline.com/chb/petition.html
have your emetic basin handy.
and to be fair, lots of people adopting from china are revolted by these.
I’ve definitely learned during this past year in Seattle that being queer does not automatically mean one is not racist. By the way, looking at the dolls reminded me of how I used to yearn for a Cabbage Patch Kid when I was little. Ji-in–did you ever have one? My parents refused to indulge me, and instead had a neighbor lady hand-sew me one for Christmas (which upon receiving I sulked and cried).
Thank you Lisa Marie and gabrielfamily. Some of the most racist things I’ve heard have come out of other GLBT’s mouths. To me, the dyke doll is an affront to queer women, not to mention queer women of color. Ew ew and ew. Too tired to tirade, but wanted to put my two cents in!
Sarah, I had a cabbage patch doll. My sister and I each received one. My sister, a blonde, green eyed Norwegian received a blonde cabbage patch.
Since they did not have *Asian* dolls at the time, guess what I got? That’s right folks, the *black, Addie Mae* cabbage patch doll, adoption certificate and all. Of course, as a proper *adoptive parent* the first thing I did was promply changed the name.
Oh, Sarah… I'm so sorry about the Cabbage Patch Frankenstein. That's sad. Um, I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I had uh …. *counting* … I forget how many CBKs. God, I think I had at least 8. At least my mom had the good sense not to buy me the blonde, blue-eyed ones. I had a couple CBKs of color, even, and Mom ordered a hanbok for one of them — the one with the dark brown hair, since they hadn't started making Asian CBKs yet. The hanbok even came with a tiny purse, you know those little silk drawstring bags. I changed most of their names, too.
So we didn't have cable television or video games or a computer, and we didn't even get a VCR until most families had already been through at least 4 of them. But yeah, I had my Cabbage Patch Kids.
art-sweet…they give you the doll of the season, which actually is worse I think. Then the seasonal dolls go up in value (see ebay). (Trust me, the doll they gave me looks nothing like me.)
The doll I was given is in the closet (haha, does that make it a butch doll?) I debated selling it and sending the cash to an organization that supports children who are not adopted (domestically or internationally) in china. But I decided to keep it and let my kids decide what they want to do with it when they are older (old enough to understand what it means.)
Of course, I don’t want my kids playing with barbie for other reasons. My girls prefer stuffed animals anyway.
Oh, I’m so jealous of you two (Jae Ran and Ji-in)!!!! Multiple Cabbage Patch Kids??? (sob!)
I actually have two of the coming home Barbies (both blondes, which I am not). They are also put away in the closet until my daughter gets older and decides what she wants to do with them. I don’t think the staff checked us out to decide which model of Barbie to leave in our room, otherwise my mom and mother-in-law wouldn’t have received one in their room too, unless the staff figured they were a couple of lesbians that slipped through the cracks and adopted a Chinese baby.
I considered burning our “coming home Barbie,” and I considered donating it, but like Dawn and Patti, I decided to put it away until my little one is older – as in 21.
I might feel a LITTLE better about the whole thing if these Barbies were ever black or Asian or just generally not white.
Signed,
the blue-eyed, blonde, chesty, Barbie hating Patricia
We didn’t stay at the White Swan, so no Coming Home Barbie. I don’t miss it, but I wouldn’t mind the $350+ they go for on EBay–no joke. I don’t think I would have saved it, but who knows. I have bought my daughter “Panda Protector” Yue-Sai WaWa and am on the lookout for the Chef and MD/TCM Pediatrician versions–as an antidote during the possibly inevitable Barbie phase.
Then again she may turn out to be a dyke. I still don’t think I’d invest in >these