Sometimes it baffles me what makes people upset and what they choose to take their pent up aggression out on. In this case we have the Sideshow Collectibles Mary Jane Comiquette featuring the comic book character doing Peter Parker a favor by washing Spider-Man’s suit in her grubby little jeans, pink thong and rather revealing cut-off t-shirt. I was pointed to the DevilDoll Livejournal blog in which there were so many negative comments the Devil Doll herself had to place a comment telling people not to combat her (and her readers’) opinion that the doll is offensive.
What exactly do they think of the doll? Let’s take a look:
So tasteless, and yet I’m still surprised they even painted her with clothes on at all. After all, they might get wet! *eye roll*
…male chauvinist pig scum who should be locked up with rabid dogs…
Oh, cripes. That’s just about the worse thing ever.
Whoever came up with that deserves to be bitch slapped. Or maybe be strangled with a cute ickle pink thong.
What?!? Isn’t that how you do laundry? All sex kitten and stuff with pearls on and your nails done but no wedding band for the beloved Hubby you got all gussied up to do his wash? Well I know I do and hand wash too… no machine washing his Navy uniforms… I bet after this she and Paris washed Spidy’s car while eating hamburgers…
Now those are just from the first page of comments and it is the last one that I am going to examine a little closer even though these comments come from people upset about a statue, but they seem more than content with strangling, bitch slapping and torturing the people that made it. Hypocrisy from Internet bloggers? Go figure.
Anyhow, that last comment seems to be looking at the statue and saying how people never do that. I am not going to say that people never dress like that to do the laundry, but I am also going to go out on a limb and say that humans don’t turn into half-human/half-spider breeds and shoot webs out of their wrists to combat sandmen and half-lizard people changed by a symbiote from space. So it is pretty much a wash in the world of fantasy.
I should say that I can’t point my finger only at DevilDoll’s blog because this is not the only place this thing is getting attention, but most of the other places are just talking about how the bloggers are mad. You can check out the New York Post, Entertainment Weekly’s Popwatch and Fox News.
One of the best things to come out of those links is the first comment at EW in which someone says:
Feh, statues of hot women aimed at the “guys who’ve never dated a real woman” market are standard fare in the lucrative sci fi and Comic book collectible scene. You think anyone collects the female action figures for any other reason? Exempting maybe the super edition Elektra, most female superhero figures feature limited articulation but plenty of curve appeal.
And the worst spider man product is that web shooter the kids love. That gook gets everywhere!
Talk about a bitch slap and is that a racist Freudian slip at the end there? Nevertheless the comment can’t be too far off. Personally I haven’t bought dolls or actions figures since Star Wars, He-Man and G.I. Joe about 20 years ago and I think the only female figure I had was Princess Leia and I didn’t even have the Jabba slave one, what a gyp.
Is this figurine really that bad? Is it a bad thing that little boys are getting their rocks off on a 14″ statue? Personally I don’t see a problem with it and think it is harmless and just one more way for girls that don’t exactly “fit the mold” to get upset that she isn’t 190 pounds and sitting at home and blogging about how the world is against them.
Obviously Sideshow isn’t batting an eye at the situation as the $124.99 figurine is sold out and has not even begun shipping and won’t be sent out until 3rd Qtr 2007. You can join a wait list and check out the details on the item here.
If you want to join the complaint/praise fray you can go here and add your two cents, but stay clear of DevilDoll she will label you a troll (what is that?) if you decide to insult, use sarcasm or resort to name-calling (isn’t calling someone a troll name-calling?). One commenter over there contacted Sideshow and received the following response:
Thank you for your recent submission of your comments to our site. We appreciate that you took the time to share your thoughts with us and have passed them on to the appropriate department for further review in consideration of our future products.
Our product is not produced to make a political or social statement but is fashioned after entertainment properties currently in the market place. We suggest that if you do find the Mary Jane product offensive that you refrain from viewing that web page.
Please let me know if I can be of further assistance.
They took that to mean “We have dismissed your comments out of hand and they will soon be deleted. Run along now.”
Sounds like good advice to me, let me paraphrase further, “Find something worth complaining about.” The best part is “refrain from viewing that web page,” such a simple solution to a worthless problem.
I will say that if Kirsten Dunst looked like that in Spider-Man 3 it would have at least made her annoying little character a smidge more tolerable, but just a smidge.
