Roland Barthes on Toys

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up. -Pablo Picasso

Barthes has a chapter in 'Mythologies' - 'Toys', in which he analyses the denotation and connotation of children's playthings. He was one of the first theorists to recognise that these toys are pre-conditioning children to the gender roles that they will be expected to assume. He says that "All the toys one commonly sees are essentially a microcosm of the adult world", and that for instance, a girls doll is "meant to...'condition' her to her future role as mother". If we apply this to videogames, we can immediately see that semiotics, especially as applied to ideology, might shed more light on the role that games play in our globalised society. If we are guilty of making too many games for boys, then we might too argue that we are guilty of perpetuating what is expected from boys.

Toys-Roland Barthes

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Dark side of sweetness!

A friend stumbled upon these images. I love them. This pretty much sums up my theme:)
Children have a dark side to them, which we can see if they were allowed to show it. Instead, we suppress these tendencies and force feed them with 'cute'.

Littlest pet shop

A few months ago, i bought a toy from Hasbro's 'Littlest Pet shop' collection. It looks like a hybrid of a turtle and a dragonfly, only its purple:)
Its adorable, but after fiddling with it a little, i discovered something. When i look at it one way, it looks cute and innocent and if i turn its head around and hold it in a different angle, it looks somewhat..demonic! Im pretty sure this was unintended by Hasbro!

Different ways of playing with a toy

I made a video to show that the way you interact with, use or (re)contextualize an object, its meaning changes. Here, a children's toy is perceived as cute or scary because of its use/interaction. This was made just to give an idea of what i mean.

Matilda O.o

On the 5th of August, after my talk with Radhika, i was walking through the junior school library. To my surprise and delight, I saw the 2nd standard kids sitting in front of the TV and watching MATILDA! It made my day to see these little kids laugh everytime Matilda gave her teacher a hard time with her pranks and tricks. The librarian told me she usually made them watch animated movies, but once in a while they were allowed to view such films as well. She said they'd become serious when the teacher tortured Matilda, but extremely happy when it happened otherwise. They loved any tit-for-tat scenes:)It was amazing to see the racket the kids created when the movie was being turned off mid way, because it was time for lunch break. Several kids ran up to the teacher and tried to convince her to turn it back on, while some ran out, and some reacted in their own way(maybe or maybe not because of the movie itself)threw themselves on each other.

A conversation with Radhika Srinivasan

On the 5th of August, i met with Radhika Srinivasan, a councillor at Mallya Aditi Junior School. She gave me useful insight on the reasons for violent tendencies in shildren, ways to deal with it, pointers on talking to children, related articles/books, etc.

Radhika

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Creepy Kewpies

When i was visiting the toy shops in Tokyo, i saw one toy in all the shops! It wasn't hello kitty or Ben Ten or Miffy or any of thos, but little naked babies being sold in packets. These are called Kewpies! They were extremely popular and loved. I asked why it didn't have any clothes on, and the shop keeper told me in broken english, that people bought the dolls and stitched clothes for them. These came in various shapes and poses. The looked to me like the toys sold here by the local vendors for about 5 bucks each, but there a pack of 12 small kewpies cost me 1400 yen!(which was a little more than 700 indian rupees).I saw a large life size one too which was tattooed and had piercings on it!It was crazy ridiculous, and could not be left behind!I thought these could be used for my project at some point of time.

Kewpie dolls (occasionally spelled cupie) and figurines are based on comical strip-like illustrations by Rose O'Neill that appeared in Ladies' Home Journal in 1909. The small dolls were extremely popular in the early 1900s. They were first produced in Ohrdruf, a small town in Germany, then famous for its toy-manufacturers. They were made out of bisque and then celluloid. In 1949, Effanbee created the first hard plastic versions. Their name, often shortened to "Kewpies", is derived from "cupid". The early dolls, especially signed or bisque, are highly collectible and worth thousands of dollars. The term "Kewpie doll" is sometimes mistakenly applied to the troll doll.

Hans Bellmer

I was recently introduced to Hans Bellmer, who's doll projects are fascinating. He was a German artist, best known for the life-sized pubescent female dolls he produced in the mid-1930s. Historians of art and photography also consider him a Surrealist photographer.He initiated his doll project to oppose the fascism of the Nazi Party by declaring that he would make no work that would support the new German state. Represented by mutated forms and unconventional poses, his dolls were directed specifically at the cult of the perfect body then prominent in Germany. Bellmer's doll project is also said to have been catalysed by a series of events in his personal life. In his works, Bellmer explicitly sexualized the doll as a young girl.

Creepy children's chants

children's games often creep adults out. Some adults think children should be shielded from the blood and gore.

But most kids quite like the blood and gore
Just think of the Original versions of the popular Fairy stories:
The Ugly sisters cut off their toes and heels to try and make the glass slipper fit.

And the evil queen in Snow White, met a quite gruesome end at the hands of the dwarfs., with shoes made of red hot iron.

Children often play gruesome games with chants - when they think adults are out of earshot. Here is one chant:

"Cats got the measles,
Dogs got the Flu
We've got Chickenpox,
Now so have you."


Many of the old childrens rhymes and fairy stories are Very graphic and gruesome. In recent years political correctness and adults who think children should be wrapped in cotton wool until they are 21 year old - have removed all the blood and gore .
But that's the bits children liked - every one likes a good scare when the bad guy gets it in the end in suitably graphic detail.
-steven m

everyone know this one, but its still very strange:

Rock-a-bye baby, in the treetop,
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock,
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall,
And down will come baby, cradle and all

Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy: Inside a school for suicide bombers

Filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy takes on a terrifying question: How does the Taliban convince children to become suicide bombers? Propaganda footage from a training camp is intercut with her interviews of young camp graduates. A shocking vision.