Review: Creatable World Doll

   I'm prefacing again. I want to say that I have rethought something I said,(and did), in another post. I am rethinking the wisdom of our visit to the park. I thought there wouldn't be anybody there. If I had known there would be more than a couple of people there I probably wouldn't have even gone. I was thinking at the time that it was ok as long as we didn't get near anybody or use the bathroom or picnic tables. I think I was remiss in saying that going to a park is ok. I think it's better to be safe than sorry, especially now, as the weather is getting warmer, (Except for here, where this week it has been, and will finish, in the 40's and 50's Fahrenheit,and down to the 30's at night! Except for Friday,of course, when it will get down to 28!), and there will be even more people in the parks. I don't think I'd go to the park again until this is over,unless it was a strictly car enclosed visit.
  My dogwood tree is in bloom, the blooms are almost gone from my pear tree, and my lilacs are starting to bloom. All that, but it's too cold to go out and enjoy it all! I will be bringing some lilacs in when they fully bloom, for sure!
  Now for the actual subject of this post. I'm finally getting around to showing you my last birthday gift. (I lie. There is one more I will show you at some point.) This was a gift from Ken,after I, shall we say,expressed an interest in owning one. It's a Creatable World doll.

Ken ordered it, so it arrived in this shipping box...

Inside the shipping box was this box,inside a slipcase...

Inside the slipcase the box was covered by this two sided cardboard 'flat'. That's a bit of overkill I think. Too much cardboard waste for it all being exactly the same.

This is part of the back of the slipcase. The back of the actual box is blank. All this could have been printed on the box and the flat wouldn't have been necessary at all.

Creatable World,made by Mattel, was introduced last year. It 'creatabled' quite a stir at the time. Some organizations complained, and even tried to get the public to try to get Mattel to end the line. What caused such a stir? A doll that could be seen as gender non-specific,non-binary, or Transsexual. The clothes provided for the doll are a mixture of  male and female clothes. Some are non specific.
  Okay. Let's start with the body. The doll's body is sexless: no breasts,no sexual organs. 

The doll comes in a tank top and white shorts/underwear.

 Wait a minute. This certainly isn't the first doll like that. Look at the classic child fashion doll,Skipper.
 

Skipper's body was even used for Ricky. Same body. They could share clothes. Skipper doll is dressed in Ricky's jeans, etc. and I don't know how many times I've seen Ricky dressed in Skipper's plaid shirt from Fun Time,even though he had his own wardrobe. Kelly doll and Tommy doll shared the same body too, as did the vintage Tutti and Todd dolls. Since dolls aren't generally provided with genitals,the prepubescent body is the same anyway. The Creatable World dolls look to be anywhere from 10 to 14 years old. The fact that there are no obvious breasts make the body genderless.

Skipper. You can see the post on this particular doll HERE.

 The face of the Creatable World dolls is sweet.

The hair is short,but girls can have short hair,and boys can have long hair. There's a long wig included with every doll. 

It can be used or not,as the owner prefers. I'll talk more about the wig in a bit.
  I thought at first that the body was the same one used for the recent and current Mattel Harry Potter dolls. They're about the same size, articulated in almost the same way, and are very similar.

It's a different body though. 

Creatable top of the photo, Ron at the bottom.Ron has more musculature,less belly button, and molded on underwear.
The limbs are a different sculpt, and there is one more point of articulation in the Creatable World dolls.

Top: Ron Weasley from the Harry Potter line, and bottom: Creatable World doll.

Ron has no ankle articulation,and his legs are slightly more muscular than the Creatable World doll.

 Creatable World dolls are articulated at the neck,shoulders,elbows,wrists, hips, knees,and ankles. The Potter dolls don't have jointed ankles.

Ron's feet are slightly bigger too.

Ron's shoes fit Creatable World fine,but they make the feet look a bit big for the body.

  Creatable World has a less realistic, large head than the Potter dolls,with rooted hair,as opposed to Ron's sculpted hair.

Ron is a little taller, mainly due to his longer legs. The torso is about the same length.

Creatable World can wear Ron's pants,but they are a little too long and slightly loose at the waist.

The Creatable World hands are less realistic than the Potter dolls'. They aren't as detailed and are too small for the body.

   The Creatables can also tilt their heads side to side and up and down a bit,as well as turn them,something the Potter dolls can't do.

    As for that articulation,the leg articulation allows the dolls to sit in some natural poses.
 

 The  Creatable World doll's articulated ankles make this stance more natural for them than Ron can manage.

The dolls in both doll lines can touch their face, or at least their heads,but the Creatable World seems to have a slight edge on the Potter dolls there.

Now, the clothes. The clothes are modern clothes,the type kids the age of the Creatable World kids might wear.

I got the big set,which comes with 12 pieces of clothing and accessories.

Personally,I love some of the Creatable World clothes,and hate others. My favourites in this set are the red plaid shirt,the checked Vans,and the glasses!

The pants are not on that list.

The 'leather' jacket is ok, but I hate these pants.

But you know I love doll glasses! These are really nice too.

The legs don't fold,but they have lenses. (The glasses are made all in one piece.)

The shirt really closes with Velcro, but it has tiny fake buttons,as does the skirt.

There's also a purse/bag. It can really hold things and closes with Velcro.

 Now for that wig. 

The wig looks nice except for one thing.

 Can you see what I'm talking about?

What's the deal with the big ring around the hairline?!

It looks really stupid.

 I wondered if I could just snip the excess plastic off,so it didn't show. I tried,(In the back of the wig,in case I ruined it.) The plastic is so hard that I couldn't snip it with the tip of the scissors,and I couldn't get the scissors in to cut with the middle of the blades without cutting the hairline.

The lighter edge at the bottom is where I cut it. So,in theory,it works,but it is hard to cut and leaves the paler edge.

 Maybe if they had made it to look like a head band it wouldn't be so bad. You'd just be stuck with a head band all the time. But what's the giant rubber ring?! Liv doll wigs don't have that,and they work just fine, thank you. Makes me wonder if Liv wigs would fit these dolls.


  The wig does allow you to go from this...

Sorry about the blur.

...to this.

  Which brings us to the big controversy. Or does it? You could think of this doll as a doll that gives you multiple options for play or display. You can have a short haired female, a long haired female, a short haired male,or even a long haired male. Suppose you want to put together a heavy metal band?
  The thing that's bothering some people is, this doll could also be seen as a transsexual or non-binary doll. That brings us to the previous post, Our Dolls, Ourselves. If you haven't read that one, you might want to do that before we go on. That post concerned the effect a doll's appearance has on a child's opinion of themselves. There is another topic I didn't quite touch on enough in that post, and that's this: How important is it for a child to have dolls that they feel represent them?
  When The Doll Test was originally done,in the 1940's, the researchers couldn't even find a brown skinned baby doll. Now, dolls are produced that allow kids of many ethnicities, body types,and physical challenges to have dolls that are 'like them'. (There are dolls in wheelchairs, dolls with hearing aids,prosthetic limbs,skin disorders,dolls 'with' cancer, and even dolls made to resemble kids with Down Syndrome.)  Is that important? Karlyn Crowley, Ph.D., says,"Dolls may seem unimportant, but they can play a major role in identity." All this advancement in dolls with different backgrounds,etc, has made many children feel better about themselves. But what about kids who feel they were born the wrong sex? There's a great deal of pain in growing up feeling you aren't who you're supposed to be,that others don't see you as you see yourself,that you feel you're being forced to live a lie. One Transgender person I spoke to about the Creatable World doll said having a doll like this might have made them feel better when they were a child, but also pointed out that "most kids who need a doll like that won't get one."  In other words, if they aren't being accepted and supported by their family in the first place, they certainly aren't going to be bought a doll like this. That's probably true. But for little boys and girls out there who feel alone in feeling they were born in the wrong body, a doll like this could make a world of difference.