much loved

by , January 2, 2013

Happy New Year!  Check out this great photo set by Mark Nixon featuring pictures of teddy bears and other stuffed animals that have survived a lifetime of love and affection.

My favorites are the ones that are missing limbs and stuffing and discolored with age.  It speaks volumes about the emotional connection possible with objects.

Of course it’s also fascinating that they are all animals.  Why?!  I have more theories than I have time to write about now.  One is that a stuffed animal is a metaphor for dominance over nature, a story about our ability to domesticate things that could be frightening.  I mean, for real, bears, like, kill stuff. All the time.

What do you think?

  • Andy C

    I think a chunk of it is practical; bears have super-short legs for their size, which as toys makes them easier to make, longer lasting, and nicer to cuddle. They also come from where it’s cold, so perhaps that’s a part of it? As in, they have lots of fur (again good for cuddling), but perhaps they became popular before kids lived in centrally heated houses and so helped to keep them warm at night? And I think with bears the theme is more often bumbling and silly, rather than ferocious; think Baloo, the Bulgy Bears and Winnie the Pooh. All three, I think is fair to say, appear in stories where nature is (mostly) friendly to man.

    • davidwolter

      Good points, Andy. I hadn’t considered the idea of warmth before. Curious if you think the bumbling and silly bear characters are popular because in real life bears are anything but? I can imagine how giving a teddy bear to a child who is afraid of bears might do something to ease that fear…

      • Guest

        With all the NFL characters you’ve looked at, the common theme seems to
        be aggression with every animal pitted against the other. In Winnie the
        Pooh (and the stories including Baloo and the Blugy Bears) all the
        animals, and man, are part of a wider, friendly, interwoven nature, and
        stories are about the disturbing and restoration of order. Documentaries
        about real animals might show bears with their cubs; as gentle,
        defending their cubs; as protective, and catching fish; as patient. When
        you say ‘bears kill stuff all the time’, to me it seems that you are
        looking at things through the lens of NFL. It seems too isolating to say
        that stuffing a bear is the same as taming violence. If nature was made
        up of NFL characters, I think that would be true. But given the choice
        between NFL and One Hundred Acre Wood as a better representation of
        nature, I would choose the latter. What about all the stories, like say the BFG, where a
        big, simple giant is simply on the child’s side?

      • Andy C

        With all the NFL characters you’ve looked at, the common theme seems to be aggression with every animal pitted against the other. In Winnie the Pooh (and the stories including Baloo and the Blugy Bears) all the animals, and man, are part of a wider, friendly, interwoven nature, and stories are about the disturbing and restoration of order. Documentaries about real animals might show bears with their cubs; as gentle, defending their cubs; as protective, and catching fish; as patient. When you say ‘bears kill stuff all the time’, to me it seems that you are looking at things through the lens of NFL. It seems too isolating to say that stuffing a bear is the same as taming violence. If nature was made up of NFL characters, I think that would be true. But given the choice between NFL and One Hundred Acre Wood as a better representation of nature, I would choose the latter. What about all the stories, like for example The BFG, where a big, simple giant is simply on the child’s side?

        • David Wolter

          Thinking more about this… I think it requires another blog post. There’s something unique about American mascot culture and the way it embraces aggression. Thanks for your thoughts Andy!