There’s Something About Midge: (Mis)Remembering Pregnant Doll Controversies Online
摘要
Mattel’s 2002 “Happy Family” doll collection is often remembered for the infamous pregnant Midge, who stirred controversy with her detachable magnetic womb. Her original solo packaging was so scandalous that she was repackaged with an accompanying cardboard cut-out of her husband Alan and without her prominent belly before she could be returned to Walmart shelves in the United States (Carpenter, 2023; The Associated Press, 2002b). This chapter applies a feminist reading of the various discourses about pregnant Midge and explores how the moral panic around Happy Family Midge appears as a hazy urban legend across the internet. It examines how even scholarly and journalistic accounts often spread misinformation about her story and court readership by emphasizing the monstrosity of pregnant bodies. Midge and similar dolls are continually read through discourses of shock, disgust, and indignation when they appear in journalistic accounts and internet forums like YouTube, Twitter/X, and Pinterest, often appearing as #BarbieMidge. These reactions sharply contrast the attitudes of doll collectors, who have meticulously archived these dolls and admire them for their creatively cavernous bodies. This chapter traces the fragments of Midge’s controversial pregnancy and other (mis)rememberings of pregnant dolls through their brief mentions in retrospective articles, scholarly publications, blogs, and social media threads.