DOLLS

While watching “30 Rock” this week, I chuckled when the always droll Tina Fey trumpeted what feminism had promised: (1) women could go into whatever career they desired, and (2) fatter dolls.

Well, the so-called more solid dolls—representations that are more realistic than idealized—have come to pass, but they certainly haven’t eclipsed the popularity of the more slender, more stylized, more stylish counterparts. And in a way, this makes perfect sense. If play—and, by extension, collecting—is an extension of wish fulfillment, how many young girls and women wish to be bigger and thicker? Not many. Why is it that most men secretly desire to get as bulky and muscled as possible, and women to become as tiny and as petite as calorically allowable? (Keep in mind the old saying from Wallis Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor: “A woman can never be too rich or too thin.”)