A few months back I posted a cute little picture of a vintage doll I’d sourced at a flea market. She’s a peg doll modelled on a Hollywood starlet circa 1950s but the eye-lashes, pouting lips and tan-coloured wooden face wouldn’t look out of place on Instagram in 2017.
But the common reaction to her original appearance – I have since given her a jolly makeover – was one word.
“Creepy”.
As someone who has loved dolls since the year I first clapped envious eyes on my sister’s Tiny Tears, I couldn’t see what they were making a fuss about. Since that original doll, I have posted pictures of dolls of all different sizes, faces, ages and dippy grins and yet and the word ‘creepy’ keeps popping up like the hem on a doll’s dress (why do we always check out a doll’s underwear?).
A quick bit of research reveals there is widespread pediophobia (fear of dolls, not fit-bits) in our culture. In 2014, a bit of hysteria even broke out in San Clemente, California, when dolls started to appear on people’s porches bearing an uncanny resemblance to the children within the house. The act was eventually traced to a local woman who had scattered the dolls as a ‘kind gesture’ – by which time many of the parents were in counselling.
You don’t have to search very hard to find possessed scary dolls in literature and the movies. Arguably the most famous remains Chuckie from Child’s Play. I am not going to probe the plot of a slasher movie (I am just about to eat eye-balled shaped roasted tomatoes) but a so-called Good Guy doll gets possessed by the soul of a psychotic killer.
And there’s the nub. There’s the belief – much more primeval than we think – that behind the glazed, glass-eyes of a cute looking doll likes the malevolent spirit of a ghost/killer/independent financial adviser.
According to writer Cari Romm dolls kindle fear because they lie ‘Smack dab in the middle of ‘uncanny valley’.
Uncanny Valley is a phrase coined by robotics engineer Masahiro Mori in 1970. It describes the inexplicable revulsion we feel for things which appear human – but not quite. It was first used to explain the uneasy relationship we have with ‘humanoid’ robots but readily transfers to any inanimate object with a face; be a skilfully executed wax-work of Dr Crippen to the monstrous ‘eye’ on a damp patch which follows you round the room.
Before you run to mamma and insist she leaves Baby Annabelle out for the wolves (sorry, my head has gone all B-movie horror now) you have to understand that this is only a theory; it’s not a fully scientific fact with a PhD behind it. But it probably explains why, at Pollock’s Toy Museum in London, people avoid going into the dedicated ‘doll room’ which is stuffed with glassy-eyed specimens from across the world and time zones.
Ken Hoyt, who worked there for seven years, admits a fair few visitors skip the room and head straight for the gift shop – especially in the cold, dark days of winter.
‘It’s like they’ve gone through a haunted house,” he joked with writer Linda Rodriguez McRobbie
‘It’s not a great way to end their visit.’
Interestingly, visitors to the doll room don’t crawl out on their hands and knees in a state of witless fear. They are more likely to laugh about how crazy it is that dolls creep them out – especially the life-like ones. Hence we all love a rag doll (not human-like) but we are unnerved by cherubic bisque-faced dolls with blonde locks and non-blinking eyes (small wonder a small study by Frank McAndrews found doll collecting to be one of the creepiest hobbies).
‘We shouldn’t be afraid of a little piece of plastic, but it’s sending out social signals,’ McAndrews told McRobbie in her excellent article ‘The History of Creepy Dolls’.
‘They look like people but aren’t people, so we don’t know how to respond.”
Ironically, the uncanny realism of the ‘living’ doll (thank you Cliff for history’s creepiest song) explains why some people love dolls – they engender strong bonds of emotion – and why others fear them and all who collect them.
“We’re creeped out by people who have these kinds of hobbies,” McAndrews observes. ‘What kind of person would willingly surround themselves with human-like things that are not human?’
Well, I have to hold up my hand here. I loved my teenage dolls. The life they led – gymnast/deep sea diver/air hostess – was a rehearsal for my grown-up life as a risk-adverse journalist. I loved them so much, I have never ascribed anything negative or ‘creepy’ to a smiley faced doll.
Until I came across two tiny white dolls in an auction.
The pale, naked figurines had an air of Gothic horror about them which disturbed me to such a delightful degree; I had to own them. Fascinated by their history – they simply described by the auction house as ‘German bisque faced dolls with articulated limbs’ – I looked on the internet for anything vaguely similar only to find they are ‘Frozen Charlottes’.
People of a delicate constitution should look away now.
Frozen Charlottes were porcelain dolls originally manufactured in Germany to provide a bit of extra fun to babies’ bath-time – they are naked, flat and usually light enough to float and often sold with a miniature bath or shower. However, the doll became associated with a popular poem of the day called ‘Young Charlotte’ which was written by American ‘humorist’ Seba Smith in the 1840s.
It recounts a macabre story of a young lass who ignores her mothers advice when she fails to wear enough clothes on a wintry night – so far, so Friday night out in Newcastle – and freezes to death on a sleigh-ride with her sweetheart.
“Young ladies think of this fair girl,
And always dress aright,
And never venture thinly clad
On such a wint’ry night.”
Once linked to this ‘creepy’ story, the sales of the re-named ‘Frozen Charlottes’ grew exponentially. The dolls – which sold for a penny a time and could slip into the pocket – were often produced in tiny little coffins with accompanying shroud. To add to the fear-factor, in Britain it was the fad to bake them into the Christmas pudding. They were generally small enough to slip down a relative’s throat although there are some which measure more than 18 inches plus. Once into the hands of the little ones, they were given home-made clothes and invariably placed in dolls houses. There was even a male version called a ‘Frozen Charlie’ (the name of Charlotte’s unfortunate beau who died of a broken heart).
So far, so very, very creepy.
What made them popular with parents is the parable which came free with every toy. Every time a youngster received this supposedly ‘fun doll’ it came with the unwritten warning ‘listen to your parents – or you could end up dead’. Which is nice but probably not one to add to the gift tag.
As times moved on, the more macabre ‘Frozen Charlottes’ in their coffins were phased out. New models resembled conventional dolls with elaborate faces, hair accessories and posh hats. Like mine, some of these dolls had articulated limbs (known as a half-frozen Charlotte). The doll’s popularity extended into the first half of the Twentieth Century when suddenly – anything to do with the wars? – the popularity of the little corpse dolls declined.
Today, Frozen Charlotte dolls are highly collectable. The little porcelain frames are very delicate and brittle and ‘broken Charlottes’ are often used in art tableaux or re-purposed as jewellery. There are even people making new frozen Charlottes from their own moulds. There’s also a lively trade in ‘excavated Charlottes’ which were abandoned in their hundreds in Victorian rubbish tips (they are so delicate, they really don’t make good toys).
As to their value…Etsy has a well-preserved Frozen Charlotte available for £19.87. But you can pick up a job lot of damaged ones for around £20-40. New ones – made to look old – cost just a few pounds.
It’s ironic that we now view innocent, cheery dolls as creepy simply because something in their lifeless eyes reminds us of our own mortality. The Victorians, however, were more than happy to embrace dolls made deliberately to remind them of death. A mortality tale free with every doll? It’s perhaps not a sentiment John Lewis will use in their Christmas adverts any time soon…
