Good Golly!
So there I was, buying a card for my mate’s new baby in Tutthills newsagents in the leper colony that is the Mill Centre in Clondalkin Village, when this caught my eye.
A fucking Gollywog!!
Seeing as the baby is half Polish, I excitedly began searching for a shaven headded plumber doll with a six pack of Tyskie in his hands and a glint of rape in his eye, but I couldn’t find one.
Jesus, Tutthills. If you’re going to be a massive bunch of racists, at least spread it around evenly.
What’s wrong with gollywogs?
I don’t see what’s racist about them?
It doesn’t make any negative statement against black people.
Unlike your polish comment, which is pretty funny to be fair.
That’s weird. I was just about to post in your Marathon spiel about bringing back golly bars with the original gollywog packaging.
Guess Tuttills just have a knack of seeing gaps in the market – anyone remember they had those pregnant Barbie knock-offs, and the bump popped off to release a neatly folded-up baby and a expose a flat belly…just like real life.
Yeah, I don’t see any problem with them either morgor.
Gollywogs were a toy produced after the popularity of the Black and White Minstrels. It was only in the 1960s did they become symbols of racial insecurity.
I find them pretty racist to be honest.
Although at least they don’t have bones through their noses.
You’re all massive racists and should be burnt at the stake.
except for banjo. He can strike the match.
I know a Polish guy with long hair, he looks a bit like Tomas Rosicky.
Nice one.
Is he always injured?
Anyone who finds a gollywog doll racist needs their head read.
It’s a doll, no more, no less, in my humble opinion.
It has paws, sure it’s not just a cat?
Or an action figure from the activist group the black panthers?
chortle
It is fairly racist.
It’s the childish version of the embodiement of stereotypes that led to the creation of the Minstrels and was completely prevelant, especially in America, in “de olden days”.
With it’s enlarged, exaggerated lips, it’s pickaninny hair and bright white teeth it’s just another representation of the Coon Chicken restaurant darkie (Actual description, not my words) that was in Ghost World and that was actually used up until the 50’s.
Just because children played with it in a time when racism wasn’t such a gig taboo should not give it exemption from it’s racist origins.
Good topic BTW.
On a racist note – If it wasn’t smiling you probably wouldn’t have seen it.
Didn’t they have a golliwog on Robinson’s marmalade labels until recently? Only they just called him Golly. Maybe they still do.
Part of the PC purge that removed Golly from the Noddy books and the aforementioned golly bars.
pc urge? you say it like it’s a bad thing…..
No, not at all.
it’s just some things were taken out of society in case they may cause offence, that I personally think were OK.
Obviously i’m talking about the banning of Speedy Gonzales and his lazy mexican cousins,although I think he won the fight and is back on the air now.
Oh, and playing Cowboys and Indians is gone now for kids, Cowboys and Native Americans isn’t nearly as catchy.
And eeny meany miney mo has had its lyrics changed to “catch a tiger by the toe” (maybe that one was for the best!)
Mind you, if you want to see how far society has come you should check out the old racist cartoons on You Tube like Tokio Jokio with porky pig or Making Stars with Betty Boop. Although I don’t agree with everything PC I think the world is a better place for it.
(I’m referencing cartoons cos this all started with a kids toy…and I like cartoons.)
It may be the result of racism or whatever, but liking it isn’t racist though, it’s got a kitsch novelty value few things can equal…
speedy gonzalez was just terrible, I thought thats why he died… same with Tom and Jerry.
OFTR, although it will raise a laugh your comment about the Polish plumber reminds me of the type of attitude that immigrants found in England in the ’50’s & ’60’s. (“No Blacks or Irish wanted”.)
I find them pretty racist to be honest.
Although at least they don’t have bones through their noses.
ok, that would be a bit racist alright, but even then . . .
It put it on a par like having an Irish doll with red hair and pale skin with freckles.
Saying black people don’t have big lips (by our standards) and curly hair is stupid.
Having a doll of a chinese person with narrower eyes than a doll of a westerner is not racist.
Apparently a chinese slang word for europeans is “a-tho-ka” or something along those lines, meaning “big nose”.
Not sure if we do have bigger noses than them, but perhaps we do. (i’ve met chinese guys with bigger noses than me!)
If the chinese doll was made of yellow fabric, had just slits instead of eyes, had a long, thin, droopy moustache, a lamp shade hat, silk robes, had its hand sown together in a kow-tow and said “Ah-So” when you pulled it’s cord it might be considered racist. It’s the almagamation of exaggerated stereotypes that make it racist.
And yeah, if a doll was released that was dressed all in green, had a bottle of guiness in one hand, a shillelagh in the other and a pig under his arm, came with accessories of 15 children and a beaten-up wife and slurred drunkenly when you pulled his cord, well some might find that offensive.
Not me, I’d buy it in a flash – but some would be offended by it because that’s a collection of stereotypes that the Irish have applied to them (particularly in older American and British media)and it would now be embodied in a child’s toy.
Having a black doll with curly hair and bigger lips is fine – like the Shaft action figure, or Clamp Champ from He-Man.
But a gollywog- well that’s just a bit different IMO.
It’s the almagamation of exaggerated stereotypes that make it racist.
agreed.
I’d buy it in a flash
Sounds good to me too!
But a gollywog- well that’s just a bit different IMO.
still don’t see why. maybe i’m missing something.
perhaps it has connotations of black people being forced to serve as entertainers as second class citizens or something, but to me it’s just a black doll in a pin stripe suit.
Hardly the clothes of a slave or whatever other bad connotation you associate it with.
The white entertainers of the time wore something similar I believe. (i’m thinking of the fast show’s “where’s me washboard!” character)
[...] One for the road has a post about Golliwogs. [...]
Care bears » Twenty Major - Still smoking in Dublin bars said this on May 14, 2008 at 2:26 pm
It’s the white entertainers who painted their faces coal black with big white or red lips and big bushy black wigs that golliwogs are based on. the ones were the white actors (99% of them were white) spoke, acted and sang songs like “Mammy” in the OTT impersonations of black american culture.
The Black Faced Minstrel shows are now long gone – although they until only a few decades ago in the UK- because they are perceived as racist.
The Gollywog is a direct descendant of that. If one has fallen by the wayside, it stands to reason that the other should.
The Golliwog cannot be racist as it is not discriminatory. It maybe viewed as patronising or offensive but it is not discrimintory nor was it intended to be discriminatory. Stereotypes are used throughout the world for ease of identification of races and nationalities. It is a childs toy no more no less.
‘if a doll was released that was dressed all in green, had a bottle of guiness in one hand, a shillelagh in the other and a pig under his arm, came with accessories of 15 children and a beaten-up wife and slurred drunkenly when you pulled his cord’
I think I saw one in Carrolls if you’re interested.
meh, i’m not convinced.
For example did you find the film where black guys got made up like rich white girls offensive? (can’t remember the title, something by the cohen brothers or maybe with that spanner from bad boys martin lawrence)
It may be shit but I wouldn’t consider them racist.
I can see where you’re coming from but still….
“if the chinese doll was made of yellow fabric, had just slits instead of eyes, had a long, thin, droopy moustache, a lamp shade hat, silk robes, had its hand sown together in a kow-tow and said “Ah-So” when you pulled it’s cord…”
I’d buy that for a dollar!!
so by your standards meh, is apu(abu?) from the simpsons racist?
(actually most foreign characters in most tv shows, the guy from that seventies show, the german in killinascuddy etc etc)
Katie, if Carrolls had one of the wife wearing a black shawl, a long skirt down below her knees with three kids clinging to it, a pair of brown leather boots with no laces, her hair tied back in a bun, holding a child and standing in cowshite it would complete the picture !
Morgor, by my standards no, Apu is not racist.
By somebody elses standards he very well may be.
And yes I did find “White Chicks” offensive, because it is possibly the lowest grade of film ever made but not cos some black guys dressed up as white girls. Same with Lenny Henry’s only Hollywood movie were he became a White mafioso or that 80s film Soul Man… I don’t really care.
I think offense is in the eye of the beholder – Do black people find the Minstrels and Gollywogs offensive and racist?
Do Indians/Pakistanis find Apu offensive.
Remember about 10 years ago how much fuss was caused here when Eastenders went to Ireland and there we were, represented by a drunken Georgie “Bleedin” Burgess, smacking his daughters around, living in grotty farms, with holes in the roof so the fire smoke could get out and the pigs sleeping in the bedroom… fair enough that’s exaggerating but it’s not too far off the mark. I thought it was gas that the Eastenders writers thought that a fair representation of Eire but others didn’t take to it like that and the storyline was cut out after a week.
So, the English didn’t find that offensive at all but the Irish sure did, who was right?
I’ve seen a fair few things like that alright on british tv, and it’s still lingering around to be fair.
For example watchinig dragons den that guy who owns the underwear chain shot down some entrepreneur from Ireland for being too laissaiz faire (that how you spell it?) and when he’d gone mentioned with a smirk “I think theres too much of a difference between our cultures”.
Anyway, if that eastenders episode had of been set in the 1800s or something, i wouldn’t have minded but they tried to portray that as a typical irish family in modern times.
Anyway, It still seems like a weak reason to be offended by golliwogs but well I’m sick of arguing over a small difference in opinion
I think it should be our national costume
so… Darby O’Gill, racist?
only got 6.8 on imdb!
Al Jolson, haha
morgor – it’s got ‘wog ‘in its name. How is it not racist? It’s a step away from the sambo figures, a little black boy with its mouth open right back to suggest endless service – and for you to keep coins in. Bleh.
I’m in California at the moment, and I walked past a green t-shirt with Irish Yoga’ on it today, depicting three drunken men slumped into contorted drunken poses! THat’s racist, but I suppose it’s our fault for perpetuating it!
What’s a racist?
i thought wog stood for western oriental gentleman.
perhaps someone has been lying to me.
It stands for Wily Oriental Gentleman.
actually read up on it a bit there. (check my web link)
wog actually comes from golliwog.
which in turn came a made up name for a doll from minstrel acts on stage which originally weren’t racist but ended up becoming so.
pretty convoluted.
I actually owned a gollywog when I was a child and I loved him. He always smiled at me. (Even when I tried to twist out his button eyes!)
I don’t see why it’s so easy to understand the racist connotations and cultural baggage carried by the golliwog, be it the associations it has with Jolson-era blackface routines (which are essentially a cultural sterilisation of black culture crossed with an incredibly crass caricature) or the possible derivation of the term “wog” from it.
Granted, the origin of the golliwog doll pre-dates the era of the blackface minstrel, but it has become the de-facto caricature of black people to racists. Browse any Neo-Nazi or similar websites and they’re peppered with images in caricature derived from the template this doll sets up.
It’s too simplistic to say “it’s just a doll” with the massive weight of the historical baggage involved. The place of the golliwog is as a cultural artifact in a museum, not on the shelves of a shop in Ireland in the 21st century.
Actually no, I take it all back. It’s “PC gone mad”, it is. Soon, you won’t be able to spit at a Romanian baby without being reproached for it.
Correction on first sentence:
*I don’t see why it’s so HARD to understand
Browse any Neo-Nazi or similar websites and they’re peppered with images in caricature derived from the template this doll sets up.
Sorry they’re not on my favourites list.
It’s too simplistic to say “it’s just a doll” with the massive weight of the historical baggage involved
Fair enough, the reason it seemed like just a doll is because I was unaware of exactly how much history was behind it.
If it wasn’t for the historical baggage it don’t think it would be racist, but because of the history behind it I suppose it is. in an old fashioned sort of way.
My local newsagent had one too, the gollywog is in that grey area of racism. But I’d lean toward offensive, like yourself.
Btw, for my argument against Sex and the City I sort of stole your ‘tits’ line from your Happy Go Lucky review.
Have a read if you can be arsed.
http://helloscum.blogspot.com/2008/05/sex-and-shitty.html
And thanks for adding me to your…blogroll (ugh, seriously, is that what we’ve all settled on calling it?)
Gollywogs are racist, though white people claim to no longer apply the same meaning to them they still represent, for black people, a painfully remembered social history. I’m not black by the way, but this is exactly how I feel about the gaurdians need to use the word ‘oirish’ with everything even vaguely related to this rock. I’d imagine its much the same with Gollywogs
jesus. i go away for the weekend and you’re still all mouthing out of you..