The Obama Doll

What is wrong with this picture?




Links to the story:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,558768,00.html (english)
http://www.sueddeutsche.de/panorama/artikel/749/179200/ (german)

It is genuinely a shame that the toymaker's attempt to honour Obama (I will take his words at face value) are so seriously backfiring...at least in the minds of people who know about the dangers of perpetuating racist stereotypes.
I have been reading article after article and have yet to come across any journalist who has anything more to say on the subject other than "it doesn't look like him very much does it?"

Well, no it bloody doesn't. But it does look very much like a random black doll dressed in a suit - the sole identifying features being the fuzzy hair, prominent lips, wide nose and vague childlike expression - oh yeah, and the non-white skin (oh, does it remind you of this http://www.sarottimohr.com/Mohren.htm too?)

Should we be upset about this? ('We' is broadly phrased to include everyone who might think this is offensive - the comments at the end of the article in German are a breath of fresh air).

I asked a few friends of mine, cause I thought to myself "ahh hang on... you is overreacting again. And the guy *meant* well..."

Here some responses:

"oh my GOD! What the FUCK!
I think it's so off the deep end. Is there a Sarkozy doll or a Merkel doll out there?
It wouldn't be so bad if it actually did resemble barack but this black Sambo job is just disgusting and insulting."

"very bad! very very bad & insulting"

"this guy is taking the piss!"


It is true that actually, there are other dolls of politicians...

http://www.presidentpuppets.com/

http://www.talkingpresidents.com/products.shtml

And the toymaker has made dolls of Angela Merkel, Princess Diana, the Pope among others. Yet - here is the thing - the other dolls do not rely on stupid race-based stereotypes. They couldn't afford to do that - they would all end up looking exactly the same.

Whereas toymaker admits "To create a new doll head from scratch would have cost about $45,000, and that would have made my dolls way too expensive, even as collector items. We've opted for an off-the-shelf black doll's head, making it affordable for customers."

http://abcnews.go.com/International/Story?id=5053396&page=1


Off-the-shelf black doll's head for the first ever Black presidential candidate of the USA. That just about sums it up.



Afterthought:
By the way - the Princess Di doll at 179 € is far more expensive than Obama at 139 €...I'm just saying...

http://www.deutsche-klassiker.de/beruehmtheiten/index.php