I've never been in love before...

15.11.08
I went to see a fully Germanized version of guys and dolls, the musical. Great singing acting and blocking aside, I fell in love with the mondrian like set: a criss-crossing of blue or red beams, gray and black lines, and see-through squares of whitelight. The people ran around in bright 40s era comic-book colors, looking like live Lichtenstein characters navigating a subway map schematic. I went with ding ding, miss shanghai from my german course, and we happened to catch the after-show discussion session with the actors. It was hours and hours, but the weather outside was too rainy and depressing not to do something. Its in that kind of weather that staying home just kills you.
But even more stunning than those hypnotically transforming set pieces is what I accidentally discovered when looking for original clips of the guys and dolls movie songs on youtube. No, its not what you think; I came up with no results as questionable as one might expect a search for ‘guys and dolls’ on google to return. But…right at the top, a documentary about guys who carry on relationships with ‘real dolls’. What?
Yes, real dolls. No, I don’t mean blow up blow me sex toys, but life size realistic-ish rubbery Barbie puppets with exchangeable tongues with whom (on whom?) some men not only carry on a physical relationship but construct an entire psychology and emotional connection to. Beyond Stepfordesque.
“we just spent this morning laying in bed; I think she may be sleeping it off” says one man as he opens the door to let the cameraman into his room. “Virginia” slumbers half covered by the sheets, a delicate cross on a gold chain resting askew on her elegant plastic neck. “Yes, its just as I thought” he continues.
Now, it's not an unfamiliar idea to me that many people find plenty solace in plastic plus imagination, but this feels like a step too far. Like when one man speaks lovingly of how "Jeeshan" gazes into his eyes as he carefully massages her malleable feet. ‘what’s most important is how I know we’re really there for eachother’ he sighs.
Alarm bells explode in my mind.
Ok, so Yes I played with dolls as a child, and yes, many had a constructed inner consciousness (some several) with which they could connect and interact with other dolls and people, including myself. But even I (who many a time poured out childhood woes to a stuffed lion) find myself….taken aback. Wasn’t this pretending just practice so I could then better relate to people who ‘actually’ have individual minds; beautiful, complicated, unpredictable and (for the most part) not in my control?
I like pretending, I’m all for it. I like to dress up and costumes, I like games, and a little self-delusion, but all within reason. (But then who am I to assess what is in reason?) This frightens me but I find it difficult to pinpoint exactly what unnerves me most about it. Its not that I find the people creepy, the problem is that I half understand: the need for human (or half human contact) is so strong that no price is too high (or form too strange). But are people so uncooperative that extra forms of beings (dolls) have to be created in order for a need to be fulfilled. Or is the idea that someone would instead enact a doll desire on a human person creepier? I mean, which is creepier: treating a doll as though it’s alive or treating a human like plastic?
I am trying to be open. People have needs and its disappointing world for many. besides these people aren’t hurting anyone (real) directly. (Although, on second thought maybe this is a perpetuation of a system of abstracted human contact. Where our ideals and expectations are developed in disjunction with the real people around us.) Why can we relate better to things than others??? Sorry. My thoughts on this are not quite fully formed yet, there’s just a justifying rational struggling with gut repulsion. meanwhile, im rubbernecking it like a car crash.