Living dolls

Where do you stand on the Marvelous Malia and Sweet Sasha controversy? Balter's Blog wants to know.

Photo: Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated Press

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5 Comments

Richard Parker said…
ovendi“It would not be fair to say they are exact replications of these girls,” Ms. Lundeen told The A.P.

No -they're disgusting parodies
Anne Gilbert said…
Cripes! I don't stand anywhere on it. The dolls are cute, but. . . .
Frankly, I don't exactly see why anybody would even bother, one way or the other.
Anne G
Anonymous said…
Why the controversy? They are adorable. Now, I can understand why the Obama Sock Puppet Monkey caused controversy last summer. But frankly, I don't see why these dolls would spark an uproar. Are they??? If so, why???
Anonymous said…
I just read the article you linked to on your Blog and now I understand the controversy. It's not that the dolls are viewed as racist or distasteful. It's that Michelle thinks toy companies shouldn't be making profits off of dolls designed to look like private citizens. Fair enough. But now the Obama girls have become public figures, thanks to the actions of their father, whether they like it or not. I still think their privacy should be respected. But Anne's right: Those are very cute dolls.
Michael Balter said…
I tend to agree with the position that the girls are now public figures, at least in terms of representations of them, symbolic, photographic, or otherwise. Where we might want to draw the line would be personal information about them, eg their school grades etc.