Portraying Dollie Drug Use?

I don't think it's a bad idea to include it unless it's purely for the: ZOMG!!!MAH DOLLEH'S DOIN' DRUGZORZ!!!11!!

I never knew a drug addict that wasn't trying to deal with or bury bad things that they had went through or were going through. To trivialize it and make it look like fun would be offensive, to me.

 

I should probably preface this by saying that some of my characters use drugs for recreational purposes, occasionally. :p Obviously, I find no problem with it. I guess it does depend on the way someone goes about including it in their stories. Even so, the problem at hand would not be the actual depiction of drugs, but rather the WAY the drugs are depicted. No need to be prudish and unaccepting of the life styles of others when they don't effect you personally. That's beside the point, though. It's quite okay to be disinterested in a story involving drugs if it's not your fancy, but to try and censor it would be ridiculous and wrong. Whether your character is a homemaker or a heroin addict is your choice alone, and anyone who objects should not be given the time of day, imo.

 

I really don't think it's a problem. Sure, drug addiction is very romanticized nowadays, but its also very real in people's lives regardless at what age. People like to see their dolls as having a story and being an addict could be part of it. Really, having an addiction really gives you a different sense of things, especially since most addicts have had to face many trials in their lives regarding drugs.

Some people may overuse addiction, which can be annoying, so for all those who are just meaninglessly using it, to me, need to rethink it. But, if your character is just holding a cigarette at parts is completely okay to me.

 

Having friends who have suffered from substance abuse and even addiction, its a sensitive subject for me. I have no problem with it as long as it is portrayed correctly and not encouraged. If its solely for the shock value or something trivial of that nature, it would very much offend me.

 

Like anything else we do, drugs are emphasized in the wrong way in relationship to other vices we have and in relationship to the differences between addiction and simple usage.

Humans have indulged in recreational drugs for thousands of years and in truth, that is a large departure from actual drug addiction. It is very, VERY possible to regularly use what we consider to be street "drugs" recreationally without becoming addicted to them at all. Conversely, it's nearly impossible to smoke a cigarette or two without becoming rabidly addicted. However, in the mind of most people, smoking cigarettes carries much less of a stigma than using illegal drugs.

Which is silly, considering on average, even heroine addictions are easier and less costly to overcome than the average nicotine addiction.

Still, in terms of media expression, most people will have little or no problem witnessing a doll partaking in a nicotine addiction, but will be bothered by imagery depicting illicit drug use.

And most certainly many won't understand the distinction between showing a pair of recreational drug users enjoying themselves and a pair of junkies getting a fix. And there IS a difference. To get an audience to percieve the difference you'd firstly have to be sure your audience even realized there WAS a difference. Then you'd have to beat them over the head with scenery and blatant context--and even then some people might still miss the distinction.

So the whole contextual issue of "must represent drug usage with due gravity" is utter wash. You can represent it as you like and someone will always be offended. The nature of photographic art (or any art for that matter) is that the person seeing it will project (to use a Jungian idea) what they wish to see into what they are perceiving based upon personal bias, academic knowledge and all manner of thing.

To top it all off, as I have said in other threads, any storytelling done with BJD's likely follows the same rules of other human figurative art. Which is to say it's not about right or wrong, endorsing a bad habit or decrying it--rather it's about capturing a moment...an instant, within the scope of human experience. Like freezing a fly in an ice cube--it's not always pretty, but it does make you think.

And like it or not, that validates any treatment of graphic drug use in doll photography that a person could ever want to make.

 

I do think comparing cigarettes to heroine isn't a very accurate comparison.
Mostly because while one who is addicted to cigarettes is quitting they don't tend to end up as sick as someone quitting heroine. Which has been known to also put people into the hospital while trying to get off the drug.
Now if we take into account current costs of most illegal drugs vs cigarettes. Frankly buying dolls can be a cheaper habit then either. I know I could get a prescription for something that would cost me $4 and sell it for far more on the street. And paying $7 a pack for menthols is my roommates every other day expense. Usually $14 at least because she's buying two packs. It's about the same.

As for the price of over coming the addiction, it depends on the level of your addiction and to what.
For some people its harder to stop drinking then it is to stop smoking.

As for gravity of a situation. Well maybe its where I've been living for the past few months but there is no gravity to people standing outside at a public smoking location smoking pot so anyone portraying that in a light sense wouldn't really be doing something in an inaccurate way. That does not have to be gritty and dirty at all because a lot of the time it isn't. That, in enough situations, is done for the shock value, for the hell of it. The other side of it also involves the fact that sure, if you smoke so much when you're stressed that after a point nothing else will help. Like anything else, as your tolerance builds it takes more to get the desired effect.

But if thats offensive why isn't someone portraying their doll smoking a cigarette offensive? That really is on the same level. If you get pissed off at work, go out and smoke two cigarettes, there is nothing about that considered offensive and something that shouldn't be portrayed. But to change it up to an illegal drug for the same reason we've offended several people.
I don't get the difference.

 

Actually, it's a very good comparison, in terms of difficulty of quiting, which is specifically what I referenced. And that is not only from very well respected research on the matter but from professionals I used to work with in the medical field that specialize in addiction treatment. Heroine withdrawal is more dramatic in its early stages but easier to come off of and the withdrawal period is much shorter compared to nicotine withdrawal. The artificially high amounts of nicotine added to cigarettes means that you are many times less likely to be successful at quitting and the withdrawal symptoms (which range in severity) can take many, many months to abate. The average propaganda says a much shorter time. But the reality of it is very different than the PR spin doctoring. The truth of the matter is that it really is harder to quit cigarettes than heroine.

If I was going to get offended by the use of addictive substances in doll photo art, I would be just as likely to be offended by the presence of cigarettes as anything categorized as illicit--if not more so. Ergo, I have to agree with you here.

Again, this goes to my argument about how inappropriately skewed our societal views on addiction are. Cigarettes are just as filthy, just as unhealthy and just as financially damaging to families as other kinds of addictions. But because there is a long established tolerance for that particular addiction, it's still lawful and has much less of a stigma attached to it.

But it's just as bad.

 

The truth of the matter is it also depends on the person as well. A perfect example being myself and my roommate, smoking the same amount day after day and when the snow started (to be honest I'm older then her and having been smoking longer) I said screw it and stopped. I had no need or desire to go out for a smoke while she had her little fits and ended up outside freezing her tail off. People can argue a lot of things about the differences between myself and her but the end is still the same. I refuse to be that cold for a smoke and she apparently enjoys complaining for an hour afterwards.
Between that and being around friends who've gone through their own withdrawls over things other then and including cigarettes it really does depend a lot on the person.

Yeah I'm one of those people with a "well my friends did this" story who isn't offended by it. Interesting end of the spectrum I may be...

I think one of the issues is also outside of media. How many of us have grown up with parents, grandparents and siblings who smoke? For those who've lost family members due to smoking some find the habit more disgusting then a cocaine addiction. People who haven't however, who've only seen the general people smoking side of life don't always either get to or choose to see the negative.

At least this is my theory as to why. That and some of us who grow up with the line of thought of "The media exaggerates everything! So why believe it?" Well yeah... This is where my mind went with it. My theories and all that.
There are more on the subject but I think most of those come from going to a highschool where the list of things you shouldn't do because they're bad for you was crammed down our collective throats so often after while tuning it out is actually easier then listening. So I'll avoid those lines of thoughts as to why people may react the way they do.

 

I don't have any experience with heroin, but I quit smoking a few years ago. Sometimes seeing someone light a cigarette is enough to tie my stomach in knots and make my hands sweat. I was a very heavy smoker at somewhere around a pack or two a day. Sometimes more.

 

I have to agree with you here. My father decided to quit smoking one day and he hasn't even had the urge to light up a cigarette since. No withdrawl symptoms. Nothing. My mother, however, also tried, but was unable to do it on her own. She still smokes.

Apart from the fact that people used to think that smoking is 'so cool', I don't think our views on addiction are that skewed. Smoking might be filthy, unhealthy and financially damaging, but there's a huge difference between growing up with a parent that lights a cigarette and one that's an alcoholic or a drug-addict. The social consequences of the latter are much more severe. Both for the addicted person and his/her family. That isn't just because smoking is more socially accepted, it's because the personality changes of a drug- or alcohol-addict are much bigger than that of a nicotine-addict.
When dealing with an alcoholic, half the time you don't recognize that person anymore (or he/she doesn't recognize you). When someone smokes, you do.

 

I think that with the customization abilities and the many different people who share this hobby there isn't anything too serious for these dolls because they are special. It isn't like Barbie who cannot soil her reputation as a horse training doctor who lives in Malibu and when she isn't doing any of that she's helping sick kittens. These dolls can be whatever you want them to be.

 

I have no problem with it what so ever. People have been photographing people doing drugs (both fictional for the artistic, and real for journalism) so why not dolls? I think the only thing I'd have a problem with is if it was ment to make drugs look cool. But if the only people who were going to be viewing the photos were 18+, they should be old enough to make up their own minds on wether drugs are cool or not. I don't see regular smokes as a drug, more as a filthy habit that should not be advertised as cool, but kids see grown ups smoking every day so I don't think a dollie with a sigarette would make them start smoking.
In my opinion, people can do with their own dolls as they wish, if I don't like it I don't have to look at it.

 

Mostly because I consider dolls to be characters in their own right... no, it doesn't bother me. Stories and pictures of it happening might be a bit creepy or dark to read, but there's those sort of plot lines in almost all fiction, just like it happens in real life.

 

i dont really care its there story and i would not be offended

 

Many people give dolls identities, just like humans. I don't see why this should be any different.

Personally, I love seeing/reading about characters that are imperfect. It's more realistic and holds truer meaning for me.

 

I'd find it intriguing!

Most people's dolls are little angels. Some maybe a little flawed, a little evil, but seeing a heroine junkie Luts would be very interesting to me!

It's a fact of life. I don't like when people hide that.

Personally, my doll (who 'lives' in 1860), smokes opium. I see nothing wrong with it.

Then again, my views on certain recreational drugs are more open than others, so...

 

I wouldn't be offended, as long as it was tastefully done. By that I mean, It shouldn't portray the drug as the 'cool thing to do.' By tastefully done I mean that I wouldn't want to see a doll in the process of injecting heroin, that would seem different then say a doll smoking. Realism, or accuracy would be important also.
I could see drug use as being part of a character. It could add more depth, IRL many (not all drug users) people use drugs as a way to cope/self medicate with their various problems. It kinda reminds me of the show House. The episodes where he is in the psych ward were amusing/interesting.
The possibilities would be endless with the theme. When i first saw this post "Dolly Intervention!" popped into my head.

 

I personally find characters with drug problems fascinating, because it gives such an "out there" view on a normal life, and can be great for stories and such. Honestly, I think smoking is gross, and pointless, but it just works for some characters. It's the very same idea in drug use.

I have a werewolf character for a story I plan on rewriting that has a heroin addiction, but I would never actually do it, nor would I ever allow someone else to. It's the fact that they aren't real, alive beings that it's so easy to make them into those sorts of characters.

 

dolls can do just about anything without offending me.

 

I think it would be okay as long as it was tastefully done and also didn't glamourise the drug use. You'd probably be safest putting a trigger warning on photo shoots because it's a controversial and potentially distressing topic.

Difficult topics shouldn't automatically be out of bounds, but they do require additional considerations and someone should go into it knowing that it has a strong potential to cause offense.