Taking a few minutes while getting ready for our New Years Eve Boardgaming Party. While reading the news over lunch, a number of articles screamed out at me:
- Dolls Exposing Racism. An interesting video has been circulating in Mexico of late. It shows schoolchildren in a taped social experiment on race.The kids are seated at a table before a white doll and a black doll, and are asked to pick the “good doll” or the doll that most resembled them. The children, mostly brown-skinned, almost uniformly say the white doll was better or most resembled them. People are wondering if this shows inherent racism in Mexican culture. [*] Does this reflect Mexican society?
Do peopleDoes this group in Mexican society, for whatever reason, trust lighter-skinned people more? Or, to bring the question back to the subject of the post: Does our choice of skin color in the toys for our children influence how they view people as trustworthy?
[ETA: The question was clarified to be less broad and to tie to the post better, based on a discussion on LJ]
- Should Toys Be Genderless? That’s the question posited by an op-ed piece in the NY Times. It talks about a store in England that recently dismantled its pink “girls” and blue “boys” sections in favor of a gender-neutral store with red-and-white signage. Rather than floors dedicated to Barbie dolls and action figures, merchandise is now organized by types (Soft Toys) and interests (Outdoor). So the question is: is that store taking the right approach, or should toys be categorized by target gender? Does this reflect society: no matter how much we try to be gender-neutral and inclusive, we are regularly reminded that men and women are different, and often think different and approach problems differently.
- Reading Too Much Into Things. A number of parents are complaining about a new toy from Toys R Us. They believe this doll, which babbles nonsense words, is really saying “OK, crazy bitch”. Toys R US is stating they won’t pull the doll; they wouldn’t market a doll that says profanity. I think this illustrates our society well: we’re often willing to see malice or bad intentions, especially when the party potentially responsible has deep pockets.
- Is It Human? Now, I’m not a comic book person, but I do know that X-Men are supposedly mutant humans. But, according to their creators, Marvel, they aren’t humans… at least for tax purposes. You see, X-Men toys are made overseas, and dolls (i.e., human representations) that are imported have a higher tariff than toys (non-human). So X-Men action figures aren’t dolls, they are toys. Again, a reflection of society: we do what is convention, irrespective of whether it is wrong or makes sense, to make profit. Greed is good and all that.
Music: Standard Time (Sam Harris): Blame It on My Youth
Today’s collection of news chum—potentially the last in 2011—I bring you a collection of stories that are about things that are a waste, or otherwise appear odd to me:
In the musical “Fiddler on the Roof“, Tevye the milkman sings about tradition. Tradition is important in musicals. Most musicals have a traditional structure: they tell a fictional story with characters that show growth. They feature particular types of songs structured into typical places to musicalize important points or emotional moments of that story. Other shows are more “jukebox” shows: they present a catalog of an artists music, perhaps arranged so as to tell the life story of the artist. I was just recording one of those yesterday: a collection of songs illustrating the life of Cole Porter. “
