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When I was a kid, my best buddy had this awesome Voltron action figure that was at least two feet tall. Then one day he got pneumonia and threw up all over it, and his mom threw it out :(
I used to have a Luke Skywalker action figure that was about 12" high. He was my Ken doll, even though he was dispropotionate to the Barbies. He had a grappling hook and a light saber but no penis.
And really, I'm not sure how many of us menfolk cling to the "action figure" moniker simply because we fear for our masculinity. If anything, I'd blame the hours and hours of toy marketing we absorbed through our kidhood.
I always associate the word "doll" with either Barbie or Bogie's vocabulary in pretty much every film he's been in.
Yeah I know it's strange, but that why I like the term "Action Figure".
I have Space Ghost, grabbingsand! (And Rosie too, though she'll probably be a gift to someone someday. Sometimes I buy gifts with no idea of whom I'll give them to, then years later they turn out perfect.)
If this fellow had more hair in front, a longer nose, and brown eyes I'd finally have my action figure: ≡ Click to see image ≡
Forget the cover of Rolling Stone; when they make an action figure of you, you've arrived.
I have the librarian action figure that someone gave me as a gift - and I've actually met the real librarian who was the model for it. I've thought about getting the crazy cat lady but I thought it would give bad luck to my dating efforts, since I'm already *this* close to becoming one.
Does anyone else remember the Barbie Liberation Organization? They're the ones who switched the voice thingies from the first talking Barbie and GI Joe. From the page:
The BLO returned the altered dolls to the toy store shelves, who then resold them to children who had to invent scenarios for Barbies who yelled "Vengeance is mine!" and G.I. Joes who daydreamed "Let’s plan our dream wedding!"
Action figures have more points of articulation, yo. Or do they make barbies with knees and elbows now? Because if the arms can hold a machine gun without being deformed, it's an action figure.
I grew up playing with these, if that explains anything.
Speaking of Che, Joe, here's a link to that play I mentioned yesterday. It's a moving, well-written piece; I've seen readings of it with a slightly different cast, and they were more than just moving. José Rivera is a top-notch playwright.
I'm sure I meant to use more adjectives than just "moving," but there musta been a slip twixt the intention and the execution. Anyway, it's good. Also, since it's at the Public, tix are cheaper than Broadway (though I just looked and it's pricier than previous Public performances).
Yeah, after seeing the first reading they did of this, I immediately signed up for a master class with José, where I found his approach to writing for the stage much like my own. More about creating a situation for his characters to live through than creating characters to live through a situation; that's a poor and very incomplete explanation. He talked about "watching his characters react" to things, or "seeing how they develop" in response to plot actions, rather than having the individuals in the story being the prime movers: thus his characters come across as more human because they are less in control than one often sees, they're realistic because they are inhabitants of a specific and changing world. In the case of a historical play, this approach works perfectly.
He also had quite a few very interesting things to say about magical realism (part of most of his other work, notably Cloud Tectonics and References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot). That's for another post, though.
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
photo by ethylene
