Scrappy Badger

scrappybadger May 11th, 2007

Though it was actually created a couple of years ago, there is a video enjoying a bit of popularity at YouTube right now. Doll Face features a robot who ventures from “her” box to investigate a tv screen and begins emulating the images of female faces it displays.

I don’t think it is any accident that the robot has female features or that her first smile appears after she has correctly applied lipstick, rouge, and eyebrow penciling. She obviously smiles of her own accord, happy with her likeness to the woman on the television screen, since the melancholy look of the onscreen woman never changes.

The smile disappears as quickly as it came, however, when the tv channel changes to a new face, one with even more makeup. The robot again tries to make her image match the one she sees, pulling more and more makeup out of her box. It takes twice as many of her robotic arms to apply the makeup this time while another pops in the appropriate pair of eyes and her skin is shaded to an acceptable shade of whiteness. This time, though, she doesn’t smile; rather, she looks expectantly at the television – hoping, it seems, to see a reflection of her new self.

The channel switches again, and as happened each time before, the tv moves farther away from her and she adjusts herself to get a better view. This time, though, she has run out of robotic extensions and can no longer reach the television. Distressed and obsessed by her desire to follow the tv, she extends her body until it breaks, leaving her in pieces on the floor with one half of her face still perfectly painted.

The images, coupled with the music, hauntingly recount what happens to so many women as we sidle up the mirror, inspecting differences that are too often interpreted as flaws. The ritual to correct the flaws, to hide the difference, and to conform to an acceptable image of beauty is carried out over and over, and not a few end up broken, mentally or physically, in the process.

Interesting, too, that she comes equipped with an arsenal of cosmetics. She reaches into the patriarchal knapsack to retrieve her tools, and they are all there. Safe and sound.

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