What's the Fascination

Same here. I'm overweight, but that doesn't translate into me wanting an overweight doll.

 

Interesting topic!

Personally, I don't think anyone on the outside can state definitively why individual doll-makers or doll-collectors choose the design of dolls they make or buy. As an artist, I know it is very hard to create something that doesn't strike me as beautiful (I have had commissions that didn't appeal to me, and it wasn't easy to produce good work, even though I managed to finish the pieces in the end).

I understand the theory that "everyone" is prejudiced, but I don't think personal preference should automatically be labeled as "prejudice." Preference is hard to explain. I love anime, but I don't like the traditional "anime pretty" dolls. I love real cats, but I can't stand anthro cat dolls. I like realism, but I find most Iplehouse sculpts bland...you get the picture. I like what I like, and I suppose others do as well.

It should go without saying that no one should be treated differently because they are overweigh/non-fit/whatever term you wish to use. It is a tragedy for someone to be made to feel less of a person because of weight.

On the flip side, being overweight in real life causes many health problems and a healthy weight is a good goal for any person. Two of my siblings work in the paramedic field and overweight patients are much, much harder to help when they need to be transported, or pulled out of burning cars, or even given CPR. My siblings do not have "fatphobia," but when they are called to the side of a 200+lb patient, the physical reality of the weight is inescapable and it puts the patient at risk and makes their job harder. We shouldn't put a value on ourselves based on our weight, but we should care about it as it relates to being healthy.

That being said, dolls don't suffer from health problems! I would love to see more variety in dolls. I hope that more people who want variety will try their hand at making dolls in the future.

 

Okay, I totally respect some people simply finding slender dolls more appealing aesthetically, but bringing the "being overweight is unhealthy" argument to this question is completely ridiculous, in my opinion.

Given the popularity of starvation-level skinny dolls like Doll Chateau, Serenade Doll, a good number of independent artist dolls, etc. I don't think that argument tracks. I don't think that a "healthy body type" was really the ideal these artists were working for. Again, that's fine. I have nothing against super skinny dolls. But I don't think any rational person is going to call that a healthy body type.

But hey, what is a healthy body type anyway? I would absolutely love to see more athletic, muscley female builds (not many of those, although again, the number has definitely gone up since I've been in the hobby) or maybe some women with broad shoulders and small hips, or men with sloping shoulders and bubble butts. These things aren't unhealthy, they just aren't conventionally aesthetically pleasing.

Everyone wants different things from their doll collections. For me, I want my dolls to reflect the variety of sizes and shapes of the actual people I see around me. And for what it's worth, I do not live in the America's Next Top Model house.

 

@americanseamstress Wow, fantastic post! I agree wholeheartedly. I like dolls of all shapes and sizes, and I think creative joints could solve a lot of problems. Look at dolls like Doom Bomi - thick hips, thighs, and a great butt. I know there was some issues with standing, but that goes to prove that thicker dolls are entirely possible. There are actually many dolls, now that I think of it, that have thick hips and legs...it's just that these dolls also have itty-bitty waists and arms, and therefore manage to remain socially-acceptable.
Also, your comments on prejudice are spot-on. Prejudice is deeply ingrained in most cultures, so it's often difficult to recognize it. And that affects our art, too.

 

@Mori Carter

I think part of the difficulty in having these conversations is that people think that admitting to prejudice is some sort of admission that they're a terrible person. They take a systemic/social criticism personally.

It's why when there's an article even tangentially related to feminism online, there are hundreds of angry men in the comments asking why the "feminazis" (terrible and inaccurate term) hate them. It's why people's hackles raise when black people express frustration with racism by stating, "white people are trash," or something to the effect.

I think the general perspective of people who actually study this sort of thing (sociologists, etc.) is that the initial gut reaction is perhaps impossible to prevent. Society is prejudiced, and we, as people in that society, have been trained, socialized, since birth to believe that prejudice, whether we're conscious of it or not.

So, perhaps I'm speaking for too many people, but I think what makes you the bad person is not the gut reaction, but choosing not to educate yourself and try to be that better person.

That's why the pages of excuses like "it's poseability" (even though fat/chubby dolls exist and can pose), "it's promoting an unhealthy body" (even when Doll Chateau's dolls are anorexic, and weight is only one facet of health--thinking of mental health in particular here, but there are other facets), or "it's cultural" (as if other cultures can't have problematic aspects), etc. seems kinda cringey. Especially because some of the arguments are such a reach that it's clear how taboo admitting to prejudice really is.

I guess I just think that if admitting and trying to minimize prejudice (fatphobia, racism, sexism, etc) in any way helps the people with real problems (minorities themselves), then I'm on board.

(And it's totally not at all that I'd get some more variation in BJD body types as a nice side benefit. Nope, not at all.)

 

@americanseamstress Yes yes yes, exactly! So happy to find someone else in this hobby that's aware of these things. Educating oneself is key, and getting over your initial discomfort and defensiveness is necessary.
The people who are so concerned about curvy models/dolls being unhealthy influences are the same ones not even batting an eye at dangerously thin models who often encourage eating disorders. Obviously, many women are naturally lanky and lean, which is fine. But to only promote that one body type, and to encourage even those naturally thin women to be even thinner, is problematic. Body diversity is a must, in real life and within the community.

 

@Mori Carter

It's interesting (or perhaps disturbing) that thinness and fatness have begun to have moral connotations regarding someone's concern for their own health.

Society sees someone who is overweight and automatically assumes that person doesn't care about their body and doesn't care about being healthy. This line of reasoning is extremely concerning because it is in direct opposition to the reality of weight loss and a more complete definition of health.

When you make an assumption about someone because of their weight, you know nothing about them or their circumstances. Being overweight and low socioeconomic status go together because buying healthy, nutritious food with enough calories to feed a person is expensive and time consuming. If you're working multiple minimum wage jobs in the US, having time to cook anything at all may be extremely hard.

Or perhaps you have a genetic predisposition to being overweight. Prader-Willi is the most extreme example, but there are others.

Or perhaps you are loosing or have lost weight, and as a result, your metabolism is slower than average and you must consume a smaller number of calories to maintain your weight. The recidivism rate for extreme weight loss is ridiculously high (for bariatric surgery it's 90% after 5 years), so clearly the issue is far more complex than telling people to "just lose weight."

There's also other health-related reasons for staying overweight. Perhaps the individual is anorexic or bulimic, and the behaviors of dieting trigger their disorder.

It's not necessarily that striving to be a healthy weight isn't admirable or healthy, it's just that sometimes facets of health directly oppose one another and you have to pick one over the other (perhaps temporarily, perhaps forever).

And that's not even all the issues concerning fat representation in dolls. Maybe seeing a doll that looks a bit like you helps your mental health. Maybe seeing a pretty fat doll encourages you to challenge or better yourself, perhaps you see that as losing weight, but perhaps you choose to focus on getting that job you always wanted or going back to school. Perhaps it gives you confidence to have people gush over a fat doll.

 

Very true. You make some excellent points. There are also medications that affect weight and sometimes people have a choice between taking tablets that cause weight gain or suffering the ill effects of avoiding medication.

I'll admit, when I was younger, in my know it all teen years, I was very judgemental. Not to say all teens are the way I was! Adult life has taught me a lot about tolerance and about the subtleties involved in any given situation. It's also taught me that there are overweight people in my life who are good people, and a close friend who battled anorexia for decades and at times has been borderline skeletal. This has nothing to do with their worth as human beings. It's a lot more complex than that.

I prefer to buy dolls that have certain body types, and personally I don't like super thin ones. But this is my personal preference. I wouldn't call it a prejudice because people cannot choose what they find appealing but can choose how they treat those that don't fit that 'ideal'. And they can choose to treat people with respect, dignity and even admiration based on the actions of that person, and the way they conduct themselves.

Edit: just read your post on page 1, and I agree with that too. I suppose we are all prejudiced, I probably am too. I think what I said above still stands: it's about how you choose the handle those gut feelings. We're sentient, and we have a choice to educate ourselves and try (try!) to act in a manner we can be proud of.

 

@Spuggey

I guess I'm wary of using the language of individual choice because reducing any type of prejudice to the individual level minimizes the harm that results from it.

Women aren't mad because some guys on the internet hate them, they're not mad because someone says, "I'm not like other girls," theyre not mad that walk signs wear pants.

They're mad because they're paid less (minority women even less) than men, they're mad because they could get raped or assaulted on the street and the rapist goes free, they're mad that women are still seen as the primary caregiver for children, aging relatives, and even their (adult, fully capable) husbands (heteronormative because it's heteronormative gender roles that are the issue).

These problems are bigger than a single mean person. They're problems which have become part of the foundations of our institutions (government, schools, etc.). That's why minimizing it to a single person and a single choice is misleading. It's kind of a red herring which derails such discussions of prejudice.

And being prejudiced really isn't an individual choice. Everything everyone was exposed to as a baby, child, and adult, taught them in this way. (That's not to say people aren't responsible for putting on their big kid pants and trying to be better.)

 

Good points. Though surely change begins on an individual level? I mean, my choice to confront my own, possibly prejudiced, views leads me to educate myself, those around me and helps a small group become more open. This willingness to confront can spread and be taught or learned just as prejudice can. Correct me if I misunderstand your point! (It's been a long day, and a very sad one.) I think I refer to my preference in terms of most of the dolls I've bought are faces and body types that I find attractive in real people, I'm not sure how I alter that, so to that degree it is an individual thing.

 

@Spuggey

I can't speak for everyone, but I think trying to better yourself and then going on to educate others and perhaps change society is kind of the point.

There's kind of another component to the elimination of a type of prejudice, however.

For example, in the US at least, one might argue that the original premise of social security is sexist and racist (because the Social Security Act excluded domestic work and agricultural work--two types of work favored--perhaps however by necessity--by African Americans and women). Or policing (which originated in the South and was run by the KKK). Some might argue that yes, the people (who work for Social Security/police) should be educated, yes, but that the institutions themselves, being established under a racist/sexist premise will perpetuate this prejudice and discrimination without human help, and must therefore be reworked.

I'm not sure entirely how this relates to dolls, although the logical parallel might be which artists are seen as skilled and what type of art is perceived as valuable.

What structural problems exist in art which value a painting or sculpture over a doll (and why is "doll" a distinct and less prestigious category from sculpture?) or embroidery (naturally, the reason I'm reminded of this is The Subversive Stitch: embroidery and the making of the feminine, by Rozsika Parker--I can't take credit).

 

So, among other things I've spent a great deal of the last fifteen years or so as a figure model. I sit for painters mainly, the best figurative artist in Pittsburgh snagged me as his class regular and main personal model a decade ago and for a couple of years that's how I was making all my food money. And over and *over* again I'd hear that I "must be doing something right" because you "don't often see a body like that."

I'm 5'3 and weighed about 115 lbs. Most of my height is in my legs; I've got an oddly short torso. Long feet, long arms, short, round-boned face. Over and over again artists told me that I must work out a lot, I must diet carefully, I must have iron control, to have this body.

What I have, it turns out, is a lethally degenerative gene disorder.

And because of that gene disorder, even my doctors tend to think I'm healthy. I'd been complaining of fainting spells, difficulty getting out of bed, hunger, for nearly a decade by the time that the doctors finally thought to check and see if I was hypothyroid, because after all I'm skinny! I was so hypothyroid that my blood tech couldn't believe I was upright.

It's true that I'm active; I practice two martial arts, and I like to go running. But frankly, there's no way that that would balance out my wackaloon caloric intake habits in someone who didn't have Marfan syndrome. Sometimes I eat a whole bag of Oreos for breakfast. At my birthday every year I get a quarter-sheet cake and eat mainly that (and copious amounts of full-fat milk)for the entire week. I've been known to go through an entire bag of tortilla chips and most of a jar of salsa on my own, on videogaming nights, and sometimes I think "I don't wanna cook, so how about I just eat Brie and smoked salmon and crackers for the next hour and a half?" I eat, bluntly, like someone twice my weight.

My best friend, on the other hand, eats mainly veggies and in small portions. Very little fat, almost no refined sugar ever (a cupcake is a once-a-year treat for her, I know because I am the one who makes it). She runs marathons, once a month. She runs half-marathons, two a month. She runs five or ten miles before she goes to work in the morning, then she swims after work, then she comes home and watches TV while on her exercise bike. She's a MUCH more active martial artist than I am, she fights from a considerably more difficult stance than I do.
And she weighs probably sixty-five pounds more than I do, and she probably always will.

Someone in a fight online literally told her that I was a more moral person than she is, because you could "see it in our bodies."

Sometimes I make a full pan of cupcakes and frost them with my own buttercream, and eat them ALL.
If she's really letting her habits go for the week, she'll have a froyo once. A child-sized one.

All of this is a really long way, I guess, of saying that I definitely agree.

 

@Foxbright

Part of the reason I like this dolly community is all the interesting people I can meet and bond with over BJDs!

It sounds like you have a wonderful hobby, and a fantastic friend, but I'm sorry it took some serious work to get diagnosed with your condition--it's really nice to know what sort of brain and body you're working with, because different people have different things to watch out for. (I'm adopted, with no medical history, and I think at some point I'll need to get some genetic testing done so I can do preventive things for genetic predispositions I am currently unaware of.)

It's kinda scary when you know your sick and people don't believe you--I had trouble convincing my doctor father that maybe constant headaches ever day wasn't normal and maybe I should get help. (He had migraines too but grew out of them, so he thought of them as a phase.)

Since you're a martial artist, perhaps you're in my boat for other varied bodies too--perhaps some female bodies that have some muscle!

(I also want gangly, flat chested female bodies; broad shouldered female bodies; skinny but mature boy bodies; etc.)

 

Interesting addition to the conversation, thanks.

 

I would love to see some chunkier dolls, all my yo-sized dolls are all the same height and build. I would also like to see more black dolls put out. I like that some companies are offering resin choice, but I would like to see darker than tan offered. And Aside from all the politics, weight of resin, and mobility issues discussed, I think it just comes down to sculptors making what they think will sell or what they think is cute. I've seen a lot of variation recently with bigger butts and thicker legs, so I think there has been a little bit of improvement in this area, but I think it will be slow progress as there seems to be a standard of beauty in the hobby that was established by Volks at the onset, much like Barbie set a standard. Interesting topic though, it's interesting reading people's thoughts

 

I'd love for a greater variety of doll body shapes but I also have to be realistic about what is feasible and what is cost effective. Chunkier dolls will use more resin which will have more problems- people have mentioned pose-ability being a very major factor in the new problems. People also pointed out that there is a certain cultural element to how dolls are designed.
The dolls may be a work of art in their own right but they are a business. The companies need to make money or they fail as a business and so they will stick to a model that they know works. The best thing I can say is to keep showing interest in heavier dolls, just keep in mind that the culture bit is going to be pretty important in the representation of what is "chubby". In China for example, fat is something that many of us in the US would consider a normal weight. (Source: friend born and raised in mainland China, came to the US to study nursing).

I would also go and say that it is also a matter of comfort for some of the artists that make dolls. In my experience in trying to draw chubby characters and make them look not only visually appealing but also just ... not weird is a bit of a skill- especially if you are tasked with the additional problem of making the extra flesh *appear* soft on a hard material like resin.

 

Short answer: Asian Aesthetic. For the same reason that almost no females have arched or large noses, few dolls have large feet, and so on and so on. "idealized" beauty according to a minority Anime/Traditional Asian/Modern Global Beauty standard view that's loosening slowly as more and more companies and artists dare the brutal attempt to put your art where it's going to get stolen.

Cynical answer: Recasts. Most new doll releases these days look alike in the face and body. For a bit there dolls were starting to branch out more but I feel that the amount of new styles is plateauing because why make something that's going to be instantly stolen? Better to play it safe and make another oval faced baby doll cutie thing with soft round face and a slim toneless sort of body. No one will steal it if it's not TOO original.

Technical answer: People like to claim that curvier shapes wouldn't work with the joints or the thickness of resin but EIDs prove that's a bunch of excuses- full of baloney. What IS admittedly hard is that if you do not have a good grounding in how body fat distributes realistically and shapes respond to gravity because you have only ever studied/drawn/sculpted thin "ideal" bodies, any attempt at thicker forms is going to look like a balloon or a fatsuit, not like the human beauty of curves or softness or solidity.

 

FYI, there are already quite a few threads on this topic, some more general and some more specific. Maybe some of that context would be interesting to newer DoA members who aren't aware of the existing discussions. These four threads seem the closest to this thread's original post, though when I searched in General Discussion, I got four pages of results:
Different body types
wanting a BJD thats your body type?
Pregnant and Chubby BJDs
Do your dolls reflect your own ideals of beauty?

 

Yeaaaah...I'm thinking it's less a "we hate teh fat wimminz!" thing and more of a case that most of these dolls are made in East Asia where there are very few people that we in the west would consider fat, their average is what we would consider very thin and petite, and our small is something they would consider chubby. The dolls are thin because the people there are generally thin, like the thought of making a doll that looks like Tess Holiday wouldn't even occur to them (if they've ever seen a person who looks like that in the first place).

Personally I'd love to see some beefier male dolls that have both muscle and fat. Most of what we see tends to be muscular-skinny.

 

I second this! I've had to give up on shelling some of my thicker male OCs because there just isn't anything chubbier than a Volks SD13, at least not that I've seen. Give me a chubby dude! I'm thinking something with a body like...hmmm....Kevin Smith?

I wouldn't mind thicker girls, either. I like a variety. My thinnest girl's waist (ResinSoul Mi) is 2.5cm smaller than my thickest girl's thigh (Iplehouse nYID Erica), and I LOVE posing them together. The contrast is beautiful, IMO.


I do think posing might be an issue, as I have noticed with some of my thicker dolls, their posing is limited, but I don't think that means the engineering is impossible--I think it just means that artists may have to think outside the box and try some unconventional ideas to make it work, since resin doesn't squish like flesh, and can't move out of the way to allow, for example, thighs to have space to go under a large belly while sitting, or large breasts to allow slouching (my Iplehouse girl has this problem--her chest joint is basically useless due to her glamour bust). Maybe silicone or vinyl would be a better option than resin for a chubby doll?

I do also think appeal and reception might be a problem. Former attempts at plus size dolls haven't been exactly popular. Sharmistha and Salome were sold in limited numbers, and while they have their fans, they weren't without a lot of criticism too. BeechKiss barely even reached half of her Indiegogo goal before being cancelled. I wonder if this makes artists less likely to try? Sculpting, casting and marketing a doll takes a lot of time and money, and it may not be worth it to most artists to create a doll that only appeals to a handful of people.