Amerikkkan Girl Doll

The Un-Housed Doll

When I was an undergraduate PoliSci student, one of my professors asked us to write a paper on the American Girl Doll phenomenon. I learned more than I ever wanted to know. For starters, that the girls who own these dolls can take them to the American Girl Doll Store and go to a beauty salon to have the doll’s hair styled.

In my paper I focused on the idea that children were encouraged to purchase services for things that they would traditionally have done for themselves and I related this to the American economy at large. For instance, AGD owners pay to have the doll’s hair styled. But wasn’t one of the thrills of doll ownage before AGD that you could style her hair? Or, in my case, cut it with scissors and color it in with markers to give the doll a psyche patient/Debbie Harry look?

While our economy increasingly turns out disposable products intended to last only weeks before being replaced, I wrote that even the creative aspect of having and caring for dolls was being farmed out to a corporation, for a hefty fee of course.

Other students focused on a few of the other issues AGD brought to the surface. For example, these dolls run upwards of a $100. When a little girl has one, it gives her status – everyone knows her mommy/daddy can afford to give their little angel one of these ridiculous dolls. What happens to the girls whose parents can’t afford these dolls? Are they ostracized? Maybe not, but at the very least, questions of class come into play in the AGD discussion.

Now, it seems that AGD has just introduced a $95 “Homeless Girl” doll. All of the AGD come with a book that tells the owner her story. So there’s a Depression Era doll, an African-American doll, blah blah. So now there’s a Homeless Doll. A $95 homeless doll.

At first I was incredulous. I thought to myself : “This is fucking so STUPID!”. But I was forced to reconsider my stance after reading this article. The New York Post – bastion of red-faced, blustery conservatism – has gotten their panties in a bunch over this doll too. They say the doll is trying to “politically indoctrinate” their children. What to make of this?

The NYP says the story of the doll – that the mother is left by the father and slides down the economic ladder until the girl and the mom are living in the family car – teaches women that men are bad amongst other things. Well, of course, this is ridiculous. But now I’m left wondering what to think. I think the NYP article screams of white male privilege. How dare AGD hatch a character that represents, if not a section of the owners of AGD, at least some of the families they might know!

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with AGD humanizing the homeless, especially in a demographic that is likely growing up with the “Poor People are Lazy” story of how the world works. But, then I’m left with the irony of the $95 homeless doll, clutched to the tiny bosoms of girls whose parents represent the upper 1% of income. I have no conclusion on this. I suspect the answer is gray and complicated and more than I can wrestle with while at work today. But I am interested to hear what folks think. If you read this and you have an opinion, I’d like to hear it in the comments.