ONTD

This is such a sweet idea. I imagine these dolls will also get snapped up by people who redesign dolls as a hobby, too (the Monster High "make a monster" kits come with bald doll heads and wigs, and a lot of customizers use them as bases for rooting their own hair), which will be awesome if the proceeds go to charity.

The Bratz ones are selling at Toys r Us, though. I was referring to those.

Mattel probably feels the need to tread lightly- every time they try to push the envelope, it ends up more trouble than it's worth for them. Everybody remembers "Pregnant Barbie" from a few years ago because of the controversy, but nobody seems to recall that the doll was actually Barbie's friend Midge, who came with a storybook telling how she and her husband Alan had already been happily married for years (she had a wedding ring!) and had a three-year-old son, and I think Midge herself was implied to be around 25 or so in the story (she had some kind of good-level career, at least). Barbie was the pediatrician who helped take care of the new baby- hell, they even designed a set of grandparent dolls. It doesn't get much more idealized-successful-family-situation than that, and people still thought a pregnant doll was a horrible role model. I can imagine releasing a bald Barbie to stores would get nonsensical accusations that she's a lesbian or just comments that it's too morbid to make a doll living with a life-threatening disease, and let the little girls (and boys) living with the same disease be damned. :/ People really suck where this kind of thing is concerned.

They're probably not going to be producing enough of the dolls to have them in retail stores-- and the whole point of these dolls is to help those children & such dealing with cancer... so I think they just want to make sure they're getting to those who need them most.

But if they get great enough feedback from this, there's probably a chance they'll distribute them to stores in the future, I'd imagine.

Edited at 2012-03-31 06:15 pm (UTC)