I’m sure by now you’ve heard that they’re making crash dummies fat now. Those poor, expressionless, accident-prone saps used to be a healthy, sturdy, average size. But apparently real people didn’t stay the same kind of average, and the result was that the crash tests were meaningless. We didn’t need to know how best to protect people who don’t exist anymore.
Crash dummy makers were happily churning out pretend people using the same template and mold that they had designed in the 1950s. Back then, the average man was 5’9″ and could see his own toes, the average woman was 5’3″ and had B-cups that were filled with breast tissue only (or maybe a little bit of Kleenex, but no silicone), and the average child was told to “go outside and play” so much that he was burning off the 64 ounces of whole milk he drank daily. Running around in circles was not just an expression, it was an actual thing to do. There was only one flavor of potato chips, and deep-fried chocolate candy bars were a mere twinkle in some Scottish guy’s eye.
Here’s the story behind that: The first greasy candy bar was the deep-fried Mars bar, developed in Scotland. The American mainstream media started reporting on it as an example of how oh-my-god disgustingly unhealthy the Scots were. “Look at these crazy Scots! They eat like pigs! They’re dipping candy bars in batter and deep-fat-frying them! Isn’t that gross?” And we Americans went, “Mmmm . . . Fried . . . Candy . . .” Twenty years later, we’re having to make bigger crash dummies.
So a year or so ago, the crash-dummy makers went to Disney World, looked around and said, “Who brought a tire pump to life in America? We could fit two and a half of our crash dummies inside one real person. If that person wasn’t already filled with deep-fried Mars bars.” They decided to add some weight and girth to their dummies.
I’m sure their peers in the Fake People Consortium were not happy about this. They were on a path in the opposite direction.
Blow-up dolls had boobs and lips so inhumanly big, they fell forward in the line of duty. Mannequin makers were designing fake people that looked like a Picasso painting. They had long since removed faces and hair – and sometimes the entire head – from their store mannequins and were experimenting with making them look like mutated aliens from the Island of Misfit Toys.
I recently saw in a downtown San Francisco dress shop a mannequin with a giant eyelash growing out of her facial region. She was stark white and missing all other features other than limbs and a black 6-by-6-inch eyelash. I’m guessing it had been enhanced by mascara. (Why not? She didn’t have any other makeup to put on.) If there was a giant Cyclops eye behind it, it was closed. Possibly weighted down by the giant eyelash.
Mannequins, which used to be as close to real-looking as possible, are now just symbolic representations of the thing we hang our clothes on when we get dressed. The $1,344 Ferragamo black sheath that Eyelash Girl was wearing looked fabulous on her. No big surprise.That little black dress could just hang there taking the entire spotlight and not fighting with any detractors.
She didn’t have to get the dress to go to battle with adult acne, bad hair days, impetigo, oops-I-forgot-to-shave-mah-pits-this-month, and the fact that deep fried Mars bars are delicious and easily accessible in the US of A.
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Read more of Diane’s Just Humor Me columns here.Sign up for our weekly e-newsletter to get new blog post notifications. And if you like her blog, you’ll love her book, Home Sweet Homes: How Bundt Cakes, Bubble Wrap, and My Accent Helped Me Survive Nine Moves.