Thinking Outside the Doll House

Dolls are everywhere. Turn on any TV show or play a movie in your DVD player and you will find dolls as props. Articles about dolls pop up everywhere. The internet is bulging with studies of Barbie, articles on Cabbage Patch Kids, advertisements on dolls, sites that sell dolls, doll blogs, doll videos, etc. There are even phobias connected with dolls and their cousins, automatons and robots. Mystery writers weave novel stories about dolls; poets pay them attention in verse. There is no house without a doll! Even those who claim they have no dolls or don't like them have had a doll or a doll-related object in their lives. Doll-related objects that fit the doll theme or what Lea Baten calls "The Doll Motif" are basically anything figural, portrait-related, loved as a doll or toy, a paper doll, or a stuffed animal. Dolls rock! Read on!