Tuesday, April 1, 2008

The Grateful Red



I had a job interview this week at a local museum that has a really great gift shop. Of course I do go to museums for the culture, you know, but a great gift shop is what makes a trip to the museum truly worthwhile in my opinion. This museum carries a large selection of Asian and Asian-inspired fine gifts like ceramics, textiles, and prints. So the last thing I expected to find there was this little piece of Kawaii (Japanese for "cute"). It's called Momiji. Momiji are message dolls. Each doll has a slot on the bottom and comes with a blank slip of paper so you can write a secret message to your friends and hide it in the doll. It's one of those cute-but-completely-impractical things that I enjoy buying now and then. Although it looks Japanese, it's actually made by a British company that is as equally enamored of cute Japanese Kawaii as Gwen Stefani (her Harajuku Lovers line of products) or anyone who buys Hello Kitty stuff (including me). But although they had several Momijis to choose from, I had to get this one, called "Laughing," because she has red hair. She's just the latest in my collection of red-headed figures.

I started collecting red-headed action figures and toys about ten years ago. So far I have, among others, Agent Scully from The X-Files, Queen Beryl from Sailor Moon, Lara Croft from Tomb Raider (the video game, not the movie with Angelina Jolie), and Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy from the Batman and Robin movie (which was so bad that, even though I saw it in the movie theater when it was first released, I totally forgot that George Clooney took a turn playing Batman until I saw a clip of him from the film on t.v. years later). My collection had originally started out as an Evil Redhead collection (hence Queen Beryl and Poison Ivy), but the lack of evil redheads forced me to expand my collection to include those on the side of good (like Agent Scully). Now anytime I see anything cool or funky with a redhead on it, I have to buy it, like this:



"Fafi Doll" from MAC Cosmetics' spring collection, inspired by the work of French graffiti artist Fafi


I think I know why I've got this obsession with red-headed toys. It all stems from childhood, as indeed, all obsessions do. When I was growing up in the Seventies, there were no red-headed dolls (except for Raggedy Ann, hardly a raving beauty). Barbie only came in blonde, first as Malibu Barbie in the early Seventies, then Superstar Barbie during the disco era. And other little-girl dolls that I had came in blonde or brunette, not red. Why? When Barbie was first introduced in 1958, she came in blonde, brunette, and red-head, and all three hair colors were available through the late Sixties. Then the notion of California Blonde seemed to take hold with Malibu Barbie, and the brunette and red-headed dolls disappeared (although some of Barbie's friends still came in brunette). So I think I have deep-rooted insecurities about being a red-head because it wasn't consistent with America's idealized standards of beauty when I was growing up. Of course, not helping matters was the fact that, during the Sixties and Seventies, the most famous redheads were either wacky comediennes like Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett, or Shirley Booth (t.v.'s Hazel), or else they were pigtailed, freckle-faced kids like Pippi Longstocking or Heidi Doody (puppets count). But what about Lana Turner? Or 1960s fashion model Jane Asher? They were red-heads and beautiful. Thankfully, today redheads have cast off the negative association with funny-looking funnywomen or bratty neighbor kids. Think Sarah Ferguson, who landed herself a prince, or Marcia Cross from Desperate Housewives. These days, many actresses are dyeing to be redheads (geddit?).

And speaking of dyeing, when I was in college, I dyed my hair jet black. It was kind of a punk thing, but maybe deep-down, I wanted to change my hair color to experience life as a non-redhead (because I got called names in grade school because of my hair: carrot top, Irish setter, etc.). I immediately regretted it, however, and had to go to a hair salon to have the black bleached out. Now, I wouldn't change my hair color for anything in the world.

My mother found this book recently when she was packing up her house to move. It dates from 1965, and since I was born, er, shortly thereafter, I can only surmise that this was one of my very first books ever. I have no recollection of it at all, but the worn-out spine and the paint stains on the inside front cover attest to the fact that it must have been read a lot. The little girl protagonist has red hair, which I'm sure is why my parents bought it for me.



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