Emmanuelle Goodiern has an excellent editorial over at Mothering Magazine about the biz of hooking little kids with “Brats” dolls and other useless junk. Her main point is that anorexic fashion plate girl dolls create what we in the disability studies world call the “social construction of normalcy”–in other words, they promote a destructive fiction about human bodies.
“Why,” you might ask “is Steve Kuusisto reading “Mothering Magazine”?”
Because I think children are our future. Because I care about kids with disabilities. Because I was one of those kids once. Because I care about culture.
No. I’m not in the market for a breast pump.
Kidding aside, the commodity fetishism of anorexia and hooker fashions is relentless and you can check out the link on this blog to Gigi Durham’s excellent book “The Lolita Effect” for a deeper read into the industry that stands behind this social travesty.
When four year old girls come home loaded down with “Brat” gear and are swept up into the egregious and demeaning semiotics of pathetic misrepresentations of real bodies then its time to talk back to the damned culture.
Of course you can talk back and often nothing much happens right away. But things do eventually happen. Consciousness is impossible to stamp out. Gandhi said that first and he said it better. He was also a better dresser than I am.
I think I tell better jokes than Gandhi.
Still the commidification of childhood is no joke.
S.K.
Planet of the Blind 