April 1, 2017

"Do I get your vote?"



A women's suffrage postcard that I ran across this morning as I was reading about Kewpie Dolls...
Rose O'Neill, a Midwest native who had worked as a writer and illustrator in New York City, initially conceptualized the Kewpie as a cartoon intended for a comic strip in 1909. According to O'Neill, the idea for the Kewpies came to her in a dream. The comic, featuring the cherub-faced characters, was first printed in Ladies' Home Journal in the December 1909 issue. O'Neill described the characters as "a sort of little round fairy whose one idea is to teach people to be merry and kind at the same time." Their name, often shortened to Kewpies, derives from Cupid, the Roman god of erotic love.] After the characters gained popularity among both adults and children, O'Neill began illustrating paper dolls of them, called Kewpie Kutouts.
... my interest arising out of a clue in an old acrostic puzzle: "Doll named for a love deity." I'd never noticed the Kewpie/Cupid connection.

27 comments:

Gusty Winds said...

Is that an aborted baby walking on a cloud in heaven? What a creepy foretelling of modern day feminism.

traditionalguy said...

Love Dolls make the world go round. Thank God for them all.

traditionalguy said...

Reminds me of Dolly Parton.

bridgecross said...

Creamy mayonnaise. Yum.

Fernandinande said...

A racist caricature.

Fernandinande said...

"You've got a point there, but if you comb your hair the right way nobody will see it."

That's what I'd tell a Kewpie doll if I ran into one in a dark alley some night.

Fernandinande said...

Notice the primitive sash, forerunner of the t-shirt message.

Fernandinande said...

Notice the primitive sash ...that says "women suffer".

madAsHell said...

This is how the slut walk started.

Laslo Spatula said...

Kewpie Dolls grow up to look like Reese Witherspoon.

Except the ones that grow up to look like Rosie O'Donnell.

I am Laslo.

Fernandinande said...

I was thinking of how there’s a lot of animosity toward Kewpie dolls in the world right now.

I want everyone try to be more open, accepting, and respectful to Kewpie dolls. You don’t know what they’ve been through – and they don’t know what you’ve been through, nor do they care — so we all deserve respect from Kewpie dolls.

Gahrie said...

Repeal the 19th

Fernandinande said...

So a Kewpie doll walks into a bar and the bartender says, "There's guys around here walkin' bowlegged 'cause they like to look at a Kewpie doll lamp."

Fernandinande said...

What would artificially-intelligent Kewpie robots do? (After they take over the world and wipe out humans, of course.)

Inquiring minds are pretending to need to know.

robother said...

Cupid, the unborn yearning to be born, as the kindler of human passion.

Fernandinande said...

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Kewpie
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Kewpie Brigade!
"Charge for the dolls!" he said:
Into the valley of Kewpie
Rode the six hundred.

Kewpies to right of them,
Kewpies to left of them,
Kewpies in front of them

Michael K said...

"Repeal the 19th"

Boy are we paying for that mistake !

Birches said...

This post really needs an abortion tag.

Gahrie said...

Boy are we paying for that mistake !

All four of the Progressive amendments were....it's time to repeal the other three.

Mary Beth said...

That's interesting that the name based on "Cupid". I had always assumed it was a shortening of "cutie pie" (cu' pie), with a vowel shift at some point, changing the long I sound to long E.

I think of Cupid as an adult who is in love with Psyche, not an amorino so I never saw the resemblance between him and the doll. I mostly try to not look at the dolls/cartoons because I think they're creepy.

Unknown said...

Reminds me of a defunct excellent vintage hamburg joint in Toledo called Kewpee Hamburgs. I believe there is still one open in Lima, Ohio.

YoungHegelian said...

Look at the protest sign the doll is carrying. It's all wood. The "pole" is a 1x1 square & the "sign" at looks either to be a soap box or a rectangle made of the 1x1 squares with stiff paper nailed to it with the message.

Either way, you couldn't march very far carrying a sign like that. It would be too heavy, especially for a woman, with the weight far too high up the pole to maintain balance while marching. That's the sort of sign you take to a location & "picket", i.e. stand in place with your sturdy sign held in front of you.

I've never seen an up-close of those early 1900's protest signs. I just thought they were like modern ones, i.e. a paper message at the top of a light-weight pole.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

"Either way, you couldn't march very far carrying a sign like that. It would be too heavy, especially for a woman, with the weight far too high up the pole to maintain balance while marching."

It would be even more difficult for a Kewpie doll who is marching on a cloud.

YoungHegelian said...

@exile,

...who is marching on a cloud.

Then again, maybe clouds add some sort of buoyancy, ya know. Like carrying an object in water....

Quaestor said...

Their name, often shortened to Kewpies, derives from Cupid, the Roman god of erotic love.

God of erotic love? Hmmm. The Romans considered him a god of desire, longing, obsession. It could be a desire for anything — love, wealth, success, victory in war, what have you. Venus was much more the deity of erotic love. This is why the Kewpie makes sense in the context of that antique card. It symbolizes the desire of women for legal equality and not a promise of a blowjob in exchange for a Hillary vote.

Quaestor said...

Cupid's name derives from Cupido — I desire, as in I desire Anne Hathaway. or I desire a fresh-baked apple pie. One is definitely erotic, the other not so much — unless you're Ben Stiller.

tcrosse said...

Cupid's name leads to cupidity, a fine word for avarice.