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No more playing with dolls Greece has banned the sale of living dead dolls – kids’ toys featuring fiery eyes, scarred faces and bloodied mouths which come in their own little coffins. Oh, and the dolls also have their own death certificates.
 Playful Sybill Sybill is strapped in a strait jacket with a collar and chain while Inferno has auburn hair, fiery eyes and bat-like wings. They should be a hit with children who just love all things gory and gruesome. But no, the Development Ministry said:
“There is no way we will allow these dolls on the market…these toys constitute a serious threat to the smooth formation and development of the child’s personality and mental health.”
Unlike your knee-jerk statist interference., right? 
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Baltasar Porcel would have a field day with this, I’m sure 😉
Well, I do find those dolls deeply distasteful – but of course, why should it be any business of government to outlaw something just because it is a bit nauseating?
Perhaps some state officials see themselves as something a little like turbo-charged restaurant critics? Unable to express themselves in any more interesting way than flamboyantly banning things?
Distasteful to an adult perhaps, but right on mark for kids who love this sort of stuff.
Yet another Third World law brought to you by the Greek government.
It sort of fits with the banning of all computer games (even your mobile phone, even if you forgot it was there) and putting plane spotters on trial.
And they don’t even grow banannas there…
I just went through the product list. Pretty cute actually, although 1 or 2 I’d pass on for a small child.
They definitely read Gorey 🙂
I’ve always thought it was the job of the parents to decide what was good for their child.
Now, no one is going to get really upset about some stupid doll getting banned. It’s probably better that children don’t have those things. But if the Greek government has the power and arrogance to make that decision and to back it by the power of the state what else will they do?
There is no limit to how bad things can get when a government can turn the personal opinions of some official into law.
It’s not a parent’s job to decide what is good for a child, any more than it is the government’s job to decide what is good for you or me or our children.
Think of all the kids who have had to make do with cutting off their sister’s Barbie doll heads and limbs and painting them with nail polish. These dolls represent new heights in human progress!
Lots of kids would love these dolls, which is a clear indication that there is something to be learned from them. It might not be obvious to many adults, but i would speculate that it has something to do with grappling with death and cruelty and power, among other things, just as playing with guns or monsters or war games or ninja. Fun is good!
Off to buy some dolls…
Actually, I think everybody has so far missed the real problem with this. Greece actually has a “Development Ministry” that takes care of such matters! What on earth next?
If the Greeks want to see something that could be labeled as “living dead,” they should take a look at their ranking on the 2003 Index of Economic Freedom. They’re tied with Mexico – need I say more?
Yes, Dan, thank you for getting the point that was behind this point post in the first place – i.e. to draw attention to the fact that the Greeks actually have a state(!) institution in place to ban things as trivial as dolls and presumably many other things.
So I hope you’ll exclude me from your definition of ‘everyone’. 🙂
Whether the dolls are distastful, innappropriate or just harmless fun for children wasn’t the issue in my post. Perhaps, some children might love them, some might not. That’s up to them to decide and not some Development Ministry bureaucrat…
Kids are fascinated by death and horror. They are, I would suggest, more warped by the attitudes of adults toward these things than they are by the (doll-like) representations of these things. Adult people influence kids a hell of a lot more than inanimate objects.
And also: what’s all this from some commenters about ‘taste’ and ‘distasteful’? I don’t get this dragging in subjective categories.
I Have 4 of these dolls and i LOVE them to death!!!! they rule… to bann them is just pathetic.. Im 14 years old.. theyre not meant for lil kids neway 15 yrs and up.. you all shud do a lil reserch b4 u bad mouth sumthing.. u mite not liek them but i think theyre the coolest lil things in the earth and im tryin my hardest to get more.
This is just plain ridiculous.
What some of you commenters don’t understand is that Living Dead Dolls are *NOT* for children. On the coffin packaging, it clearly states “For 15-year-olds and up”, so obviously, if you had some common sense, you wouldn’t give these type of dolls to, say, an 8-year-old anyway. (Unless you were *really* willing too, of course. Even then, it is extreme to give a young child such a doll.)
I, myself, *am* 15 and I *do* collect the dolls and I enjoy each and every one of them. It’s simple. If you don’t like the dolls, don’t buy them. Nobody is holding a revolver to your head, but, seriously, banning the dolls is just crazy.
thats right
There not for kids it says right on the coffin
“for spooky kids age 15 and up” I collect them
and I don’t find them too bad.
and it shouldn’t be there decision on what people should be able to bye or sell.
and besides their JUST dolls