Connect: As Arnold Schwarzenegger campaigns to become governor of California, a toy-making company has announced that it's manufacturing a George Bush doll. The doll, 12 inches high and due in US stores by mid-September, is being made by the Hong Kong outfit, Blue Box Toys. The model is part of the company's "Elite Force Aviator" series.
It's designed to remind buyers of Bush's swaggering May Day visit to the aircraft-carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. You remember his performance? It was cringe-inducing, with Bush in a flight suit, survival vest and parachute harness, jauntily carrying a helmet and oxygen mask as photo-op props. Meanwhile, the plane carrying him was, of course, piloted by a real aviator.
Anyway, the doll's full title is "George W. Bush: US President and Naval Aviator" and it depicts Bush in all his PR regalia, down to a tiny helmet and oxygen mask. So, for a mere $39.99 (€36), you can have a foot-tall plastic replica of the great elite naval aviator. It is intended to evoke notions of George the Lad, George the Dude, George the Hero.
A spokesperson for Blue Box, Lauri Aibel, is reportedly claiming that advance orders for the Bush doll are "coming in at a record clip". Apparently, this brisk business is occurring despite the fact that the company recommends that only people aged 14 and over "use" the Bush doll. ("Use"? Try your own imagination.) It adds that, after all, the doll is an "adult collectible item".
Mind you, the "adult" in "adult collectible item" hints, wisely too, that it's something that should remain wrapped in brown paper. There is something undeniably obscene about this doll, principally because it's modelled on a person who is not a military aviator, much less an elite naval aviator. As such, it is a gross form of second-phase deception. What adult could possibly want it? More pertinently however, it's doubly alarming that as Action Man Arnie wants to be a leading US politician, the leading US politician, George Dubya, is being cast as Action Man. Funny in one sense, this is sad in another. It seems like the cartooning of American politics is unstoppable and terminal. Right-wing tough guys rule OK? Must it be as blunt and crass as that? It's unfair to suggest that most Americans cannot see through the embarrassing attempts to portray politicians as Action Men and vice versa. But there is something seductive about Big Arnie and the Bush doll - they promise simple, straightforward solutions to complex problems. Pretending to be uncomplicated, they are, in fact, hoodwinkers.
It's as if a Terminator mindset is being stoked in the US. Hollywood made Ronald Reagan famous and he went on to become governor of California and later President. Now, Arnie Schwarzenegger is dreaming of the same route while George Bush throws Arnie shapes. Although Bush can't be blamed for the doll, his swagger can be blamed for its sheer inauthenticity.
Even a brief search of the Internet, shows that the "Bush the Aviator" doll has been preceded by others. You could, if you wanted to, buy a talking Jacques Chirac doll known as "Le Worm". It makes silly proclamations such as: "I'm the leader of Old Europe"; "Go ahead, boycott France, I don't care" and "I'm a little puppet". Hilarious, no doubt.
Then there is a Tony Blair doll, known as "Our Talking British Ally". It blurts such breezy, Blairish guff as: "On our way down here, Senator Frist was kind enough to show me where in 1814 the British had burned the Congress Library. I know this is kind of late but 'sorry'." On the doll's tape, laughter and applause follow this tripe.
Voodoo dolls with Osama Bin Laden's face are also on offer online. There are Saddam Hussein dolls available too and you can imagine the penetrating and provocative wit that accompanies these. Still, it's difficult to imagine who might buy any of these dolls, especially as they are not ultra-cheap "five-and-dime store" products.
Eleven-and-a-half years ago, I heard Arnie Schwarzenegger doing a warm-up speech for Dubya's daddy during the New Hampshire primary. To the delight of his largely teenage audience, the body builder (how precious do you want?) and actor derided Democrats opposing the war being waged by Dubya's daddy against Saddam Hussein as "girly men". Cue grunting supporters.
It's true that the Terminator and the Elite Force Naval Aviator are not "girly men". They are not men at all. They are merely plastic personas, perhaps alter-egos of Arnold Schwarzenegger and George Bush Junior. Yet the fervour inspired by such fictions is not so much, as is often suggested, anti-intellectual; it is anti-common bloody sense.
Surely it insults people for Arnie - a man who made a video telling creeps to doll-up in flattering trunks for body-building workouts - to complain about "girly men". Likewise Dubya, the war hero patriot who didn't even go to Vietnam. Genuine tough guys and war heroes - not the greatest doll-using constituency anyway - will, we must hope, deride this latest infantilising nonsense. We'll see.