Crazy-Eyed Blythe

I just received a "Hello, Blythe" postcard book in the mail, which I'd ordered recently. Blythe is a strange doll, originally made in 1972, and only produced for one year, apparently due to low sales. Her eyes change colors when you pull a string on the back of her head. Yes, you read that correctly! You pull a string and her eyes are blue. Pull the string and they turn PINK. Pull again and you get a brown-eyed girl, and so forth. FREAKY!!!

Gina Garan began the Blythe comeback by taking photos of Blythe in different situations and in different outfits. Blythe enjoyed a Blythe Renaissance - she was produced again, in limited-edition batches, and then a bunch of famous designers designed outfits for her. Prints of Gina Garan's Blythe photos are available for sale starting at around $100, and there are photo books, postcard books, like the one I bought ("used" but in perfect condition, for less than four dollars, by the way!), and outfits. An original 1972 Blythe can sell for thousands of dollars. Personally, I don't desire a Blythe doll, but I like the photos, mostly because the whole thing is sort of nonsensical and macabre, and that tickles me. Blythe is an expressionless, enormous-eyed, tiny-bodied inanimate DOLL, all dressed up and looking good. And I think she's the perfect metaphor for what mainstream America wants American women to be - mindless, little girl-like, all of us with different hair color and eye color and different outfits, but basically cast from the same mold. The photos of Blythe are so weird and creepy that I think the whole Blythe thing is subversive in its way. Or just in my way, maybe.

P.S. For Meagan - do you think the first photo looks like a certain Assistant Manager you and I once worked beneath? Is she not BLYTHE BATOR?!

Visit Blythe Here.