Friday, August 01, 2008

UK Kerfuffle

I saw this article on Gawker about a celebrity knitter from the UK, Rachel Matthews, who has created knitted doll patterns featuring Hitler (Knitler), Idi Amin, Pol Pot and Saddam Hussein.
As always a topic about reviled leaders and the idea that someone is glamorizing their existence polarizes the public. The dolls, Knitler especially, have caused the Anti-Defamation League to become quite upset.
Others view the kerfuffle and think nothing of it, saying a doll won't hurt anyone, people do.
I agree that knitters usually, but not always, are kind, caring people, as this writer talks about, but can the creation of these dolls be deemed anti-Semitic? If we condemn her for that it seems comparable with the Sudanese government for putting the British teacher in jail and charging her with blasphemy because she named a classroom teddy bear Mohamed.
Or how about the death threats received by the European cartoonist because he created an image less than flattering to Islam?
None of these dictators are worthwhile human beings, but do we condemn the designer because she has created a knitted image of a man whose ideas were contemptible?
You may not like what someone is saying, but you should defend their right to say it, even if many find the idea abhorrent.
Plus, the cynical part of me wonders why everyone is fussing over the white, European doll, but no one has raised issues about the Arab, the Cambodian, or the African dolls. Is it because we expect it of them?

P.S. Besides you could probably use them as voodoo dolls - make that Ninth Circle of Hell that much more uncomfortable for Adolf and friends....I'm just saying....

1 comment:

Justine Aurora said...

First off, how very voltaire of you.
secondly, shall we discuss how terribly afeminite knittler looks?

And it's a doll.
It won't lead the fourth reich on the united states.
A doll does not institute anti-semitism. Stupid and ignorant people do.