http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2009/01/malia_sasha_obama_dolls_progre.html
First Lady Michelle Obama has let it be known she's not amused that a Chicago-area company has appropriated her daughters' names for use on its one-foot tall dolls.
Ty Inc. maker of Beanie Babies, has introduced Marvelous Malia and Sweet Sasha, two brown-colored dolls, as part of its TyGirlz line. To which Mrs. Obama has said through her press secretary: "We feel it is inappropriate to use young, private citizens for marketing purposes."
No small irony there since it appeared to many observers of the recently ended presidential campaign that the Obama girls were an important part of the president's marketing effort to gain the White House. They helped introduce the then-unknown senator as a family man with adorable, smart and well-mannered offspring. In some unmeasurable way, the girls likely helped the Obamas win the big prize.
Doll maker Ty's response is essentially, hey, we just liked the names. Any resemblance to living persons is merely coincidence. As the Associated Press reported:
The Oak Brook-based company chose the names because "they are beautiful names," not because of any resemblance to Malia and Sasha Obama, said spokeswoman Tania Lundeen.
"There's nothing on the dolls that refers to the Obama girls," Lundeen said. "It would not be fair to say they are exact replications of these girls. They are not."
The dolls have bronze skin and "real doll hair," Lundeen said. They were introduced in early January and a limited supply has been shipped to retailers.
This response is reminiscent of the Curtiss Candy Co., maker of the original Baby Ruth candy bar. When people suggested it was named after legendary homerun hitter Babe Ruth, the company insisted it was actually named after President Grover Cleveland's daughter Ruth. But many people, including Ruth, believed that story was a fiction meant to cheat him out of royalties. Meanwhile, the company did all manner of baseball-related promotions over the years.
in any event, the Obamas are entitled to have whatever response to the dolls they'd like. But here's something everyone should keep in mind.
A little over five decades ago when civil rights lawyers were trying to graphically show racism's psychically destructive power, they used famous, heartbreaking research by psychologist Kenneth Clark.
In experiments, he demonstrated that given the choice, young black children would almost invariably choose white dolls over black ones. When asked which dolls were good and beautiful, the black children, nearly without fail, pointed to the white dolls. The black dolls were perceived as bad or ugly. That research was used by the lawyers who argued Brown vs. Board of Education and helped sway the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down school segregation in 1954.
Fast forward 55 years. How remarkable it is that in 2009 we should have a company believing it can profit by marketing brown-colored dolls named Malia and Sasha. Maybe the dolls aren't so much a sign of exploitation. Maybe they actually signal progress.
First Lady Michelle Obama has let it be known she's not amused that a Chicago-area company has appropriated her daughters' names for use on its one-foot tall dolls.
Ty Inc. maker of Beanie Babies, has introduced Marvelous Malia and Sweet Sasha, two brown-colored dolls, as part of its TyGirlz line. To which Mrs. Obama has said through her press secretary: "We feel it is inappropriate to use young, private citizens for marketing purposes."
No small irony there since it appeared to many observers of the recently ended presidential campaign that the Obama girls were an important part of the president's marketing effort to gain the White House. They helped introduce the then-unknown senator as a family man with adorable, smart and well-mannered offspring. In some unmeasurable way, the girls likely helped the Obamas win the big prize.
Doll maker Ty's response is essentially, hey, we just liked the names. Any resemblance to living persons is merely coincidence. As the Associated Press reported:
The Oak Brook-based company chose the names because "they are beautiful names," not because of any resemblance to Malia and Sasha Obama, said spokeswoman Tania Lundeen.
"There's nothing on the dolls that refers to the Obama girls," Lundeen said. "It would not be fair to say they are exact replications of these girls. They are not."
The dolls have bronze skin and "real doll hair," Lundeen said. They were introduced in early January and a limited supply has been shipped to retailers.
This response is reminiscent of the Curtiss Candy Co., maker of the original Baby Ruth candy bar. When people suggested it was named after legendary homerun hitter Babe Ruth, the company insisted it was actually named after President Grover Cleveland's daughter Ruth. But many people, including Ruth, believed that story was a fiction meant to cheat him out of royalties. Meanwhile, the company did all manner of baseball-related promotions over the years.
in any event, the Obamas are entitled to have whatever response to the dolls they'd like. But here's something everyone should keep in mind.
A little over five decades ago when civil rights lawyers were trying to graphically show racism's psychically destructive power, they used famous, heartbreaking research by psychologist Kenneth Clark.
In experiments, he demonstrated that given the choice, young black children would almost invariably choose white dolls over black ones. When asked which dolls were good and beautiful, the black children, nearly without fail, pointed to the white dolls. The black dolls were perceived as bad or ugly. That research was used by the lawyers who argued Brown vs. Board of Education and helped sway the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down school segregation in 1954.
Fast forward 55 years. How remarkable it is that in 2009 we should have a company believing it can profit by marketing brown-colored dolls named Malia and Sasha. Maybe the dolls aren't so much a sign of exploitation. Maybe they actually signal progress.