American Girl Contemporary Dolls Need to Up Their Representation Game
Kit Kitterage was one bad bitch. Kit was a tomboy, knew how to pinch a penny, and owned a typewriter. Kit was fab.
After years of playing with a knock-off brand Samantha, one Christmas I became the very proud owner to a Kit doll. Despite the fact that I liked the name Molly better, I looked up to Kit.
In fact, I looked up to all of the diverse historical little ladies (Kirsten, Addy, Josephine, Samantha, Felicity, Molly — definitely Molly). My friends and I would pass our paperback American Girl book series back and forth to travel to different time periods. We learned some stuff about America’s history and through the girl’s adventures believed kids really could make a difference and impact their community.
Apart from the dolls, I owned every American Girl magazine I could get my hands on. Admiring each D.I.Y. craft and story young girls like me submitted. It was aspirational, attainable and smart. I convinced my parents that the American Girl Club was a solid investment. I was lifted up in a powerful community that supported little girls to admire and talk about American history, respect intelligence and dream big.
About a year ago, American Girl announced that the company would be developing a new series of “contemporary characters” to grow with its consumers. While they kept the historical dolls, their focus shifted from past to present, and naturally, I was upset. Where were the historical little ladies who defended slaves, spoke out against child labor, and delivered news during typical times?
The historical dolls weren’t disappearing, but an American Girl spokeswoman, Julie Parks, claimed that the new dolls were developed in response to a consumer desire for “more characters and stories from today — with more experiences, more diversity, and more interests.”
I gave them the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps they will be doing great things for children! I told myself. Delivering diversity and speaking to historical issues in their current context (racism, sexism, oppression, homophobia, transphobia).
The biggest change I’ve seen so far is American Doll’s first boy doll, Logan Everett. Fair skin. Middle class. Handsome for a doll. I guess he plays the drums? And American Doll is #Proud. Consumers asked for a boy doll? They delivered! Cool. Hoping this is a step towards encouraging all little kids that playing with dolls is okay for everyone.
American Doll is also offering two new dolls in 2017. A contemporary doll, who’s a filmmaker, and a historical doll, who’s from Hawaii during WWII. Which is ya’ know, cool I guess. Glad that at least history is coming back. Each “18 doll will be priced at $115 each (about the same as they cost back then).
That’s one damn expensive doll. But I’m pretty sure kids still want them… or at least that’s what Kidscreen highlighted this month. An interview with Toys R Us’ VP, Jamie Uitdenhowen, revealed that kids are personally very excited about AG’s line of customizable dolls, Truly Me.
American Girl had a version of this when I was a kid. I would leaf through the magazine and see pages and pages of different hairstyles for blondes and brunettes. I have red hair, so there weren’t ever very many options for me. I didn’t think much about it other than a “hey, this kind of stinks that it says there’s a doll like me when there isn’t” and moved on.
I wanted to see if with this re-vamped “Truly Me” release, I could make a contemporary dream doll to please my childhood self . A doll with fully customized fair skin, curly red hair, brown, eyes and freckles that was, well, Truly Me. There’s definitely the demand for that, right?
The website hits you right at the beginning, “Together with a Truly Me doll, your girl can express herself and explore even more with a new best friend.”
I thought the new Logan doll was supposed to encourage all kids that dolls weren’t for a specific gender. There can be girl dolls and boy dolls! Girl owners and boy owners. If the Truly Me line limits dolls to “your girl”, then American Girl as a company is still not encouraging/targeting new play patterns for boys to play with dolls. Still just girls? Adult me was already not impressed.
As I started perusing the website I was frustrated. Sort By → Hair Color → Red. Four dolls popped up. Two with basically blonde hair (strawberry blonde I’m assuming?). Two with red. And not a’ one of those ladies had freckles. Lemme’ tell you, finding a redhead without freckles is like finding sushi at McDonalds. It’s probably not going to happen.
Out of the two red heads, one had wavy hair with green eyes and another had straight hair with blue eyes. These weren’t me at all! LIES.
I clicked the wavy, red-headed “Award winner” doll. Hoping I could change her hair style… or at least her eye color to a boring brown, but NO!
I couldn’t be the only one with this problem so I started to investigate further, sorting by each option.
HAIR COLOR
Blondes → 9! Some of them had freckles!
Dark Brown → 6!
Brown → 17!
Caramel (WTF Color is this? They have Caramel and they group Strawberry Blonde with Red) → 1
Red → 4. And a reminder, 2 of them were 100% Strawberry Blonde (a color MUCH more legit than Caramel).
EYE COLOR
Blue → 11
Brown → 20! No vibrant redheads mind you.
Green → 3
Hazel → Also 3.
And then last but not least…
SKIN TONE
Fair → 27
Medium → 8
Dark → 3
I was shook. Not by the amount of fair skin options, but by the lack of diversity in both the “Medium” and “Dark” dolls.
The actual choices for “Medium” and “Dark” skin toned dolls… “Dark” consisted of three dolls with darker skin. THREE. Each of the dolls had a similar light brown skin tone. Here I am, complaining about my hair color not being represented properly when there’s an entire RACE not being represented in the correct light.
Here are my suggestions to American Girl:
- If you’re selling that this doll is “Truly Me,” you seriously need to add more customizable options (More Skin Tones, Freckles, Hair Color, Eye Color). Give the girls what they deserve. And if you’re really trying to promote gender inclusion, add some Truly Me little lads to the mix.
- Don’t completely get rid of the history in your contemporary dolls. Important things in history are happening right now and it’s just as important for kids to get involved and be aware as it is for them to follow their dreams of becoming an artist. Don’t be afraid to tackle controversial issues in modern society. Be progressive. Set the example that young children in this world need.
- Continue to promote gender inclusion for dolls. I support it. But perhaps make future boy dolls a smidgen more likable, aspirational, and diverse?
- Continue to push diversity. Diversity matters. The way we represent society in pop culture (dolls = reflection of society past and future) matters.
The reason I’m calling this out is because young me loved, nay, IDOLED the American Girl company.
I want girls and boys of the future to be able to look back to American Girl Doll in a similar light. As a progressive company that encouraged play patterns for all genders, called out important contemporary issues with their new dolls while encouraging girls to dream big, and gave kids true visual representation.
Z is the company’s first Korean-American doll. Logan is American Girl’s first boy doll. But if American Girl wants to remain a leading doll line, it needs to remember what made it so successful in the first place.
And if you think representation for dolls is all a load of horse hockey, or, are just more interested in this subject, check out these articles: