The eternal conflict!
This is a debate but it’s here so we can have a poll.
Debate: Doll vs. Action Figure. Go!
Seriously though 
Inspired by a Raising Hope episode reminiscent of synecdoche new york etc.
I was a boy who played with Star Wars, Transformers, and Smurfs action figures but also played with girls and their dolls and other toys and grew up eventually queerish.
But my action figure play was less violent and more social or intellectual. For example, my Luke, Leia, and Han (pre relatedness revelation) figures had a three way wedding under the auspice of a tree stump. And all my playthings endured a genre and trademark mashup (previously mentioned plus snake toy and dinosaurs and… ).
How did your youthful playthings interact, and how did that impact or resonate with your eventual gender/sexuality outcome?
Oh, I thought you were going to have us explain the difference. In my opinion, for something to be called an Action figure, it has to either do something special, or be posed in such a way that it appears to be in action. Otherwise, it’s a doll.
Criteria one does not include babies unless they also fit criteria two.
And I say dolls seem to have the most creative alterations, so I’m voting for them. Plus the function usually held by action figures was held by video games or intelligent robots in my childhood. Hence the Other vote.
Does it have the majority of the following features?
- sculpted hair (vs rooted hair)
- at least five points of articulation
- the ability to stand on its own
- accessories it can hold (as opposed to accessories to use on it)
- multiple paint apps (as opposed to just the eyes painted)
- very much smaller than life size (vs, say, baby dolls which are just about life-size)
If yes, it’s an action figure. If no, it’s a doll. Things like Barbies, Mego, and any figure you can dress are in grey area (I know GI Joe invented the term action figure - but these days… )
I tend to buy action figures for toys.
Action figures because they’re less boring. And often, they have a preestablished mythos, e.g. Star Wars or TMNT > toys. Dolls are usually created to be toys, and later on are sometimes given they’re own poor Saturday Morning shows.
Re: the second post, I have seen studies that suggest toy choice presages sexual orientation sometimes.
I had 12" Star Wars figures in the 80s. I’m not sure what it is about the Leia figure that distinguished it from my sisters’ fashion dolls, but it was definitely an action figure. I insist upon this point.
I never had any action figures. But my sister and I (and sometimes our cousins) played with Barbies until our tween years. We had *all *the bells and whistles. The limo with a spa in the back, that we would put real water into. A Barbie pool. My sister got Teacher Barbie, so we had the talking blackboard. A bunch of tiny Barbie-sized babies and little kids to send to classes. We had an entire kitchen set with utensils and food. Tons of Barbie clothes and high-heels. We had a few Ken dolls (plus some of the New Kids on the Block dolls), and Barbie’s ethnic friends Miko and Teresa. We had the gymnast Skipper set, with real bendable knees! (TM, pat.pend., all rights restricted) We had bedrooms and beds… seriously, everything you could ever need to pretend you were the god of the Barbie world.
We pretty much just did mundane stuff with them. Day to day life of raising kids, taking them to school, teaching them stuff, feeding the baby, chillaxing in the hot tub, making dinner, traveling to the club and dancing. We did have the occasional marriage and, very rarely, Barbie sex (by that time, we were arguably way too old to still be playing Barbies anyway).
I collect action figures.
You have toys.
He plays with dolls.
I voted “other” because…
A couple of years ago I attended to a Phillies game where they had one of those promotional give-aways. I told one of my fellow MLB fans that I’d been given a Shane Victorino Bobble-head doll.
My buddy raised himself up to his full height and yelled “It’s not a doll! It’s a COLLECTIBLE FIGURINE!”
I voted dolls for precisely this reason. My dolls were my friends. I gave them their own names, imagined their personalities, had adventures with them. I liked them because I thought of them as distinct people, not as characters in a pre-existing story. Between dolls and action figures, it was definitely dolls for me. Of course, I’m a very girly girl. I also briefly thought of choosing Other, because my overall preference is for stuffed animals, but I think that’s a completely different category.
The poll isn’t clear to me. Is it “which is better?” or “what are these things called?”?
Dolls are great because they’re good for major stage productions like “school” and “house”–stuff that simulates the “real world”.
Action figures are great for acting out outlandish scenes and stories. Fights? You use action figures.
I had both growing up as a kid.
Eh. Despite the supposed differences, it seems like nothing more than the gender coding of toys to me.
According to the wikipedia article, for whatever that’s worth, these GI Joe Action Soldiers and the like from that time period, are the reason the term “action figure” even exists. Because, dolls weren’t marketable to boys. I have a hard time seeing the difference between those things and traditional Barbies.
Kung Fu grip…
An action figure does things (fights bad guys, rescues people, etc.); a doll has things done to it (bottle fed to it, put in a new outfit, etc.).
At least, that’s my understanding of dolls. I didn’t have sisters growing up.