This past Saturday, I found myself slumped on the couch with Mr. Pop Rocks watching Marie Osmond hawking her line of porcelain dolls on QVC. Yes, I was watching QVC. On a Saturday night. The one highlight of the evening was that I was simultaneously consuming Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream while watching QVC. But really, when that’s the “highlight” of your evening, that’s just sad.
For those of you not familiar with the Marie Osmond line of porcelain dolls, I urge you to either go to www.marieosmond.com or flip to QVC in the middle of the night. You’ll get to meet such bizarre and freakish dolls as Lil’ Pumpkin, Bitty Beauty Bug, and Merry Kisses Tiny Tot. They all have a creepy coquettishness to them, complete with eternally rosy cheeks and bee-stung lips. This is made all the more creepy when paired with Marie’s on-air descriptions.
“Look at her tongue, just look at how her little tongue just sticks right out,” purred everyone’s favorite Mormon as she cuddled some doll named Petals or Baby Angel or something equally pornoesque. I rolled my eyes, not sure who I was more disgusted with, me or Marie.
“You know, when I was a little girl, I loved to play with dolls, and I would never have wanted those things,” I said to Mr. Pop Rocks. “They’re too fragile to really play with.”
“Then who buys them?” he asked.
“I think mostly grown women named Destiny who have a lot of wood paneling in their homes and shop at, like, Dress Barn,” I answered. “Not to reduce them to a cultural stereotype or anything, but that’s my guess. And I’m willing to bet a couple of pedophiles are on her mailing list.”
“Maybe you should write your master’s thesis on this topic since you’re so informed,” he muttered, reaching for his Jack and Coke.
Right after the moment when one woman called in to announce she had named her child after one of the QVC hosts (I swear to God), I threw the spoon into the (now empty) ice cream carton in disgust.
“What the hell has happened to us?” I cried out to Mr. Pop Rocks.
He didn’t answer, only shrugged, barely able to move his shoulders up and down, so sucked in was he by the train wreck that is Marie Osmond’s porcelain doll collection.
“I guess now we do this,” he said in a resigned tone. “Oh my God, look. They have a Baby Elvis doll.”
At least now I know what to get him for Christmas. — Jennifer Mathieu
This article appears in Aug 16-22, 2007.
