Think of her as the bastard love child of Ken and Barbie. Feral Cheryl hails from Southeastern Australia, where the term “feral” refers to hippie-esque environmental activists. She’s the whole-grain pseudoprogeny of Mattel’s white-bread couple.
Mattel released a similar doll last year called Butterfly Art Barbie (who has, you guessed it, a butterfly tattooed on her stomach). But when a dozen or so parents complained about the doll as well as the kiddie stick-on tattoos sold with her, the company removed all piercings and tattoos from its new line of youth-rebellion Generation Girl dolls.
That leaves Cheryl standing alone in her market niche, sporting the requisite counter-culture paraphernalia: multiple tattoos, nose ring, navel ring, dreadlocks, hair beads, and a crocheted shoulder bag containing the world’s smallest dime bag (which smells suspiciously like basil). Although Cheryl is not entirely PC — she’s thin (but not emaciated) and distinctively Anglo — her proportions orbit nearer to reality than Barbie’s. And while not exactly anatomically correct, she does feature a healthy tuft of hair Down Under.
One pleased Cheryl owner wrote to the doll’s creator, “Thank you for saving the children from stupid, anorexic, dumb-blonde dolls with big boobs who wear ridiculous ’80s-style clothes!”
Now if her creator could just take it one step further and give Cheryl a domestic partner: Feral Carol, perhaps?
