Last week, a swedish group called Gothenburg Cooperative for Independent Living (Göteborgskooperativet för independent living – GIL), planted a 'Retard doll' into toy stores in Gothenburg. The group is a non profit organisation which provides personal assistants to people with disabilities. The doll is meant to draw attention to how we treat people with disabilities. It is made to appear as if it has cerebral palsy and is not meant to be "cute" at all. "
I think it's an interesting project and a great initiative. I'm not sure though what they mean with the message written on the packaging "Treat her like a real retard". Probably they want to make you aware that you treat 'retards' differently than others, but why encourage that by saying that you actually 'shall' treat her like a retard. Even if this is said in an ironic way, the message should be that we shouldn't treat her any different than any other person. This way, it sounds like someone could misunderstand this totally, and take this doll as a freak to mock and to be laughed at. I think the impact would have been stronger if the package resembled the package of any doll, maybe not even clearly saying it is a retard doll.
"She doesn't swear, have sex, drink, or poop. So much better than a normal retard." I don't fully understand this qoute either. Why should she drink and have sex? She is a baby, right? Not a teenager! Are they ironic again, saying that people think retards swear, have sex, drink and poop more than others. People have prejudices, but I'm not sure these are the ones they have for retards. Or is it that they want to point at the stupidness of thinking such things against anyone. If so, it is a bit unclear to me. I think it should be fun if she peed like the dolls we saw in TV-advertisments a while ago. You give her water and after a while it comes out the natural way. Interesting in itself as a phenomenon which focuses on the 'motherly' caring of the child the doll shall represent. If the retard doll pees like this doll, I think it triggers more complex and dualistic feelings. Making a point that retards pee the same way as anybody else, but also might trigger a strange feeling of guilt that you think a retards pee is ickier tha a normal childs.
In the context of my Golem-game, this doll is a Golem which adressess some of the issues I want to adress with my game. The way we look at and treat people that are different from ourselves. The misfits in our world.
Aftonbladet 120524 (Swedish)
CP-dockan at Facebook
Nothing to do with Arbroath, Blogarticle 120528 (English)
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