Using Actual Killers As A Theme: Going Too Far

Wait, the Lizzie Borden case was a HUNDRED YEARS AGO? We're complaining about something that no living person has real memories of??

This really is like the Masamume thread - loads of people were offended at something that they and no one they knew were personally affected by it.

I mean, should I start getting offended at my boyfriend, because 100 years ago men treated women like second class human beings? Should Black people still be offended by White people because their great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents were slaves?

I know that racism and sexism still happens, and we should be more worried about that. But blaming a group of people for something that's happened 100 years ago is a waste of time. The people you blame had nothing to do with it, and can't do anything to change what's happened. All you can do is accept what's done was done, and prevent it ever happening again.

PS What about Jack the Ripper? He's been used in media for years, but no one's complained that they're glorifying his work or being offensive to prostitutes and women. It happened, let's move on and try and stop those who emulate him in real life (like the Yorkshire Ripper).

 

I think it's kinda tasteless to name things that way, and I can see where it could be a little offensive to some. Me, I just ignore it and move on. I prefer things bright and cheery, not macabre.

What is unwarranted, however, are all of the hostile replies to this thread. So you don't agree with the OP? Okay, that's all fine and dandy, but that's no reason to get so nasty over a silly little forum thread. Oh, and before I get flamed for this, I'm not singling anybody out with the "you" - I mean it in the most general sense.

 

hmm I remember that rhyme too...
erm, I think that as they're using the rhyme in the title of their series it's okay, but they're putting the fairy-tale spin on things, bringing back the Victorian clothes set thing.

 

Overreaction. It's based on a nursery rhyme, not the actual murderer, and the murders happened a hundred years ago.

Even if someone is using an actual killer as a theme, it all depends on how they use it. I wouldn't be offended by the sole fact that someone mentions a name.

 

Dollheart probably have no idea this was a real person. They have used nursery rhymes in the past and, possibly, to them, Lizzie Borden is no more a real person than Jack and Jill.

I'm British, so I had no idea what this was about until I Googled it. This is something that not many people are going to know about besides those familiar with the rhyme, which itself doesn't seem to be very widely known anymore.

I would be surprised at the tastelessness if a doll company themed a release around a murder or other tragic event in living memory. I would find it very tasteless if Myra Hindley or Peter Sutcliffe or Robert Napier were the focus of a sales event, but that is mainly because there are people living who remember the people who suffered and died because of these people. One brave mother is still suffering because she has never been told where her son was buried by Hindley and Brady after being murdered and that was almost 50 years ago now.

If no one living remembers it and there are no living relatives of the deceased or the criminal to be targeted and attacked as a result, I think it is a different story. I'm still not comfortable with glorifying criminals through dolls...but I'm not offended by it. I think I would be if I was a relative of the deceased, but I'm not, and I have no grounds to be offended.

 

The rhyme was also featured on the awesome Alfred Hitchcock Presents regarding Miss Lizzie Borden which suggested her innocent-faced sister did it. The rhyme is "Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her father forty whacks. And when she saw what she had done she gave her mother forty one." I feel like because of the age of this particular crime that it doesn't have the same offence factor that a fresher crime might. And people are generally fascinated by killers, why else would shows like CSI and Criminal Minds be so incredibly popular? Anyway, Jessica is probably right on this one. I doubt they even knew she was real. I didn't know who she was until I saw that Hitchcock Presents and then I had to google her.

 

Agreeing with the people who think Dollheart probably don't even know who Lizzie Borden is and have just heard the nursery rhyme as well as those who know that Lizzie was acquitted and therefore found innocent of the crimes she was accused of committing, thus I really can't see the offense.

And even if it was a doll of a known serial killer, so what? It's not your doll, if you don't like it, move on. There are tons of representations of Jack the Ripper in pop culture, and some of them are very positive. Grell Sutcliffe, anyone? He's one of the most popular characters from Kuroshitsuji. I don't really see how this would be any different.

 

The marketing side of me is saying this is just shock advertising. A way to drum up discussion and hopefully sales. I'm not offended.

 

I kind of feel compelled to stay quiet on this one. I get the whole "lets keep children innocent" nonsense. but children can be destructive and homicidal too. sociopathy is hard wiring, after all.

I'm seriously surprised, actually. I just... I'm a horror movie fanatic, and I've seen more offensive things in horror media than a little child's clothing being named off a nursery rhyme. Nursery rhymes, by the way, are taken from a lot of folk songs. Most of which are.. quite unbecoming and the opposite of "lets keep our children innocent."

"Ruby lips above the water blowing bubbles soft and fine. But alas, I was no swimmer. So I lost my Clementine. How I missed her. How I missed her! How I missed my Clementine. But I kissed her little sister, I forgot my Clementine."

Please. That song in itself offends me more than Dollhearts new line of clothing. As usual, the only thing that offends me about dollheart.... is their price. *sigh*

 

Frankly, I'm more offended by the hyper-realistic Steve Jobs figure (offered for sale mere months after the man's death) than I am a doll costume inspired by a spinster acquitted of murder over a hundred years ago.

Mind you, it's hard to offend me at all, although things like the whole "Nevada-tan"* meme manage to do it fairly well.

*Google it. If you dare.

 

This. I love DH and agree that they're probably clueless about the origin of the little rhyme.

 

Totally agree on this <.<

 

I winced when I saw those ads. Yeah, Dollheart probably was looking at the nursery rhyme and had no idea that Lizzie Borden actually did exist and that she was acquitted of the double-murder. If they did know, then shame on them for lack of taste.

The rhyme was something we jumped rope to when I was little (it is catchy--and cruel). I forgot where I first heard about the story, but it is commonly known in America.

IIRC, both Lizzie and her sister died childless, so I don't think there is any direct family left to be offended.

 

[the following is MY OPINION, and not meant to offend the OP or anyone else, everyone else's thoughts are as valid as my own, even if they are total opposite]

I'm not at all offended by it. Before I got into BJDs, I was a very fanatical collector of Living Dead Dolls...who actually HAVE made dolls of Lizzie Borden and Jack the Ripper....Sadie has an "X" on her forehead like Charles Manson....Dahlia has scars from being cut in half....and none of these dolls are adults, they are actually about the same size and build as a Yo-SD and appear to be about 6-8 years old IMO.

I sold these dolls when I worked at Spencers and they usually sold out within a couple of days of getting them in. So....offensive or not....The macabre makes money. Sure, some people ARE offended, but the fact that the goriest dolls (LDDs, Chucky, etc) stayed in my top 10 report weekly as long as they were in stock proves that there are more people wanting to buy it than protest it. Dollheart may be using it as a marketing tactic.

I don't see anything wrong with it. These dolls, accessories and outfits are made for adult collectors, even if they are child-like dolls. They aren't meant for young children to play with or use as role models. They aren't real children being exploited. As adults, we have the ability to know the difference in a doll and a real murderer and the freedom to think its great and buy it or find it tasteless and ignore it.

Honestly, with this and other topics, I get tired of the few offended people trying to police what everyone else likes or buys.

 

I'm not a particularly macarbre person but I have an (off topic) Lizzie Borden doll, complete with bloodstained axe, who came in a coffin-shaped box. Sticks out like a sore thumb among my doll collection of happy smiley kiddies, but I don't see any problem with it.

I don't see any harm in discussing it - people obviously have differing opinions on it or none of us would be posting responses.

Discussion of it doens't prevent anyone from making up their own mind to buy or not to buy. Personally, I think dolls with child faces on large breasted/mature-figured bodies are a World-of-Wrong but I wouldn't interfere with anyone else's right to like and buy them. Other people think there's something wrong with a middle-aged man having (or even wanting to have) a large collection of dolls, but I've not encountered anyone trying to police whether I buy them or not.

Teddy

 

The case is an unsolved mystery that has long passed into folklore. The rhyme that the item is based on is macabre humor, like a lot of childhood stories, and the intention of many DH collections seems to be to invoke childhood nostalgia - so I see no malicious intent. They are not glorifying or inciting murder.

 

If Dollheart was referring to the actual person, then it's distasteful, and a little offensive, but nothing to get one's (theoretical) panties in a bunch about, to be honest. >: Agreeing with the notion that if the name of the collection was 'Casey Anthony Took Duct-Tape', then it would've been much more offensive. I personally read the Lizzie Borden rhyme on a book made for children when I was younger myself. I suppose it's turned into a bit of an urban legend now.

Also agreeing with the notion that most nursery rhymes are pretty terrible in itself. Ring Around the Rosey still gives me shudders.​

 

Considering my fascination with nursery rhyme's and folklore in general, no I don't find DH's new clothing offensive or distasteful. If anything I find it interesting the staying power that rhyme's have, even when the actual events may have long been forgotten by most people alive.

 

Hehe, Ring Around the Rosey came to mind as I was reading through this topic. I was shocked to learn (as an adult) what source this nursery rhyme came from! I sang it all the time as a small child, and now play the game with my 3 and 4 year old grandsons who learned it in nursery class. Actually, I loved Grimm's Fairy tales as a child, not really knowing their source, and many of the stories were really worse in nature than the Lizzie Borden story of 100 years ago. As far as the fairy tale theme itself, I agree with what everyone said about it. I would go so far as to say that the time the Grimm Brother wrote their rhymes were very dark and scary. I think they devised these rhymes to help children make sense of the world around them and at the same time use these stories as a lesson in morals. There wasn't much of anything pretty about the dark ages, nor during the industrial revolution in England in Charles Dickins' time.

While I agree with the OP that Lizzie Borden might not be the nicest topic to base a line of doll clothes on, we also are not talking about dolls that children buy. Be aware that Living Dead Dolls are marked right on the coffin boxes "For ages 15 and up".

Unfortunately, we have to live with ugliness and deal with it the best way we can. Be it through the medium of facing dark themes head on, or choosing to surround oneself with goodness and light, it is the choice of the particular person. Obviously the OP needs to avoid the darker themes (I don't mean this in a bad way at all, as I myself am drawn to lighter topics and more innocent dolls). If a particular theme bothers me (such as gore mods), I just avoid it, simple as that. Different strokes for different folks. Dollheart is merely tapping into a particular customer base. I must say that the clothing is beautiful, and will be popular with a lot of people. I also don't believe a company based outside of the USA like Dollheart is aware of the Lizzie Borden story as anything more than a nursery rhyme.

 

I was just thinking about this still and as far as keeping kids innocent, nursery rhymes aren't that great at it anyway. If you don't enjoy the macabre little rhyme about Lizzie Borden you should probably also refrain from using such child's rhymes as Ring Around the Rosie and Three Blind Mice. They're both horribly morbid little rhymes that most parents teach their children at a young age. I don't see how these could be ok but the Lizzie would be a problem.

Agree with Valfal about the original Grimm Fairy Tales as well. The real stories are NOT the Disney tales you know.