busySo let's compare ...
Marvel action figures are now legally considered not human (toys) instead of human (dolls), which makes the tax cheaper.
Another economic factor is dolls vs. action figures. For years it was all but impossible to market human representations to boys, because they were called dolls. Then some genius invented the term "action figures" and it became socially acceptable for boys to play with such toys. Calling them "dolls" could have made them unmarketable.
Personhood is different; that's another category which may be considered both psychological and legal. Divergences between the two have ghastly results, as both Marvelverse and local history have indicated. Psychological personhood is sapience -- the presence of an intelligent mind, or soul if you prefer. It's often thought of as pigeonholes, but in practice, is more of a spectrum, which is very awkward. Legal personhood is supposed to match, but often does not. Slaves weren't legal persons, for example, despite being quintessentially the same as free humans. Marvel has very patchy standards regarding mutants; sometimes they are treated as legal persons, but very often they are not. The most salient character who consistently objects this is ... Magneto. Well, that's a bit embarrassing, isn't it?
From an anthropological perspective, of course, the concept is much broader: a doll is any effigy of a creature, human or something else, played with or otherwise handled in a representational way. It doesn't have to look representational, though: if a child picks up a stick and declares it to be a baby, that counts as a doll.
March 23 2017, 17:00:15 UTC 4 years ago