American Girl's Hidden Scandals

#americangirl #girloftheyear #taylorswift

This week we’re talking about my latest obsession and also my oldest obsession, American Girl Dolls. Turns out they’ve had quite a few controversies since I stopped keeping up as a kid and they send me down a wild rabbit hole (at least to me). This is the last video I filmed before bar prep so enjoy this last sense of sanity. H2O season 3 is next but anyone’s guess as to when I can upload again. Thank you all for your support and patience. Trust me, I’d much rather be making videos all the time, but I do still have a big girl job that comes first. Love you all and let me know in the comments which doll you had as a kid. I feel like you can tell a lot about a person based on the AG doll they liked the most.

Music: Mediocre Mall, Sassy Shells, Verisimiltudinous Valley by Trash Kid

[JuanWonton]

When I was a young Black girl, I was in love with Addy and her story. I was in third grade when I was introduced to American Girls, and the fact they had a Black girl, a Black girl who made the hard choice to become separated from the rest of her family for a chance of freedom, after her brother and father had been sold to separate slave owners was absolutely amazing.
I went to a pretty much all white school, and everyone there tiptoed around racism, and here was a book story that said "Here's a girl that went through what no one wants to talk about. She lost her family, she decided to be brave and run, and even in freedom she faces racism. But she learns how to read, and she finds Black friends, and has a Black teacher, and her father comes back and Addy teaches him how to read! And he teaches Addy how to love the earth again! Her brother comes back after fighting in the war for the freedom of other Black people, and he lost his arm, but he's still her brother. Her family reunites with her baby sister and her aunt, who they had to leave down south, and there's hope for a brighter tomorrow!"
Anyways, Addy's story is important, and more people should actually read it, instead of going "Oh, they made a book about slavery. That's in poor taste." Like... pick it up. It's a story about hope.

[khazermashkes]

I didn’t wake up this morning thinking that I wanted to hear a law student explain the nuances of capitalism and privilege using American Girl dolls, but I definitely needed it

[KolkoCat]

Almost all the American girls stories went into so many heavy topics. I sobbed when Kirsten’s best friend died of cholera in the books. I remember one of the kids stapling his fingers in the Samantha movie, Emily going through the bombing of her city, Kit worrying about being evicted and seeing that in the movie really shoved the reality of homelessness in everyone’s faces…

[playroompals]

Don't forget the Logan scandal. Logan has the Kaya face mold, he's the only doll besides Kaya to have this mold. Kaya is the only Native American doll and her mold is special because it doesn't show teeth as showing teeth in her culture is a sign of aggression. So American Girl took this special Kaya mold made with her specific culture in mind and they slap in on a white dude, and not only that the only guy doll at the time. To me that just smacks of disrespect to Kaya and the whole people group she represents.

[kilignear]

Former AG employee here, I loved this video!!!

I started there during 2017 so I was very personally invested in the Gabby-Tenney discourse, lmao. I wasn't around for the late-2016 rumours BUT I heard there was tons of discourse online at the time because of Tenney leaks, so I feel confident that she was GOTY and they had to pivot at the last minute because people were pissed. The fandom can really be a wonderful, progressive place devoted to positive change!!!

AG definitely has a diversity problem, but I think part of it does legitimately have to do with sales. I worked in a very diverse city but the dolls of colour always stayed on the shelves WAY longer. A memory that's pissed me off for years is when a woman saw the Z doll on display and said she was beautiful, which she is! But then she saw the real-life young model on Z's book, her reaction was "oh no this doll can't be asian, she's too pretty. She's definitely white." I also had a lot of parents ask me to pick a doll that looks like their child but then say I picked one with skin that's too dark. I think it's part of a larger societal problem with where generational wealth lies and the association of American Girl with upper-class white families, as well as just a subconscious response of either 1) white kids defaulting to what they themselves look like, or 2) non-white kids being trained to not like their own features? Like, Luciana was the coolest doll they've maybe ever had but I still had to actively convince people to buy her.

*I'm not giving AG a pass though*, it was just frustrating to see even their meaningful attempts fall flat. I'm still really pissed that they put out an empty BLM statement in June 2020 about being committed to diversity while having more than half a year to rework GOTY 2021 but still just going with Kira, their most bland blonde GOTY to date (IMO). We all know they did it with Gabriela last minute, couldn't they muster up SOMETHING to make Kira less boring? I'm still annoyed by how nothing she was...

Anyway thank you for talking about the Gabby incident, non-doll people need to KNOW

[neonmoonie]

I do think American Girl has done much better this year. The goty doll for 2022 is Corrine Tan who who is a Chinese-American girl and her books cover the topics of post-covid racism towards Asian communities. Corrine even has a brand new facemold so she doesnt look like any doll from before. She's also getting a movie later this year. I do fully agree though, Gabriella was a big fuck up and I hope their future dolls are more diverse and well thought.

[annab.]

These babies were too expensive for my family growing up, but my friend had, , dozens? That could be an exaggeration but she had SO many all piled up and didn't even remember all their names. When I was slightly older a family friend bought me a gift certificate to build-a-bear and so they became my obsession.

[thesebastiansession]

Growing up a Type One Diabetic was REALLY hard, mostly because of the lack of representation for me. I didn’t have anyone that I could relate to in media, but AG had a T1D kit and my favorite doll could share the experiences I had. That kit had everything I used irl. One of my best childhood memories 😔

[pinkolivetree]

I wasn’t into American girl dolls for long, but my first experience was with Kanani, a Hawaiian doll of the year. I just remember being so thrilled that a doll had hair super long like mine, past the waist even as like a 6 yr old, that I instantly connected. I wish every girl had an experience like that where they could just relate and connect to a doll who made them feel seen

[katiepatrick]

My favorite character was 100% Kit. I have no idea what drew me to her so much, but she sparked a life long hunt for a roll top desk like hers. I was googling like crazy hunting for one I could convince my parents to buy. Now at 23 I just inherited one that originally belonged to my family from the same time Kit was from. Life has a funny way of working out sometimes

[ashlynalingh]

Also the 2020 girl of the year Joss actually is deaf and wears a hearing aid, I grew up being partially deaf with lots of surgeries and I think it’s really cool that she has a hearing aid. Granted if you want to get any other doll a hearing aid you would have to send them to the doll hospital to have a hearing aid put on which I kind of think is really silly.

[livywoodward]

I have a "just like me" doll from maybe 2010. I adored her. We had matching pajamas and I used to save up to buy her outfits. I'm from the UK and heard about them through a friend who is of Indian heritage. Her Dad bought her a "just like me" doll while travelling in the States because he'd never seen a doll that looked like his daughter.

[clarityvee]

I loved AG growing up, Marisol, the girl of the year for 2005 was my girl, because she looked like me. She even lived in the same area as me. I know she’s not perfect, but growing up as a Mexican girl in a mostly white area, it felt nice to see a girl like me, and I didn’t have to wish to be a pretty blonde girl for once. I remember I was even reading her book in a waiting room, and someone asked if it was me on the cover. I think I donated her years ago since I grew too old to “play” with her, but a part of me misses her lol.

[juliabutler]

I swear to god I also remember Taylor Swift having a blue guitar but when I just looked it up, I think it's because the "teardrops on my guitar" cover had that same turquoise blue color and I just associated it so much with "Taylor Swift" and my only reasoning for how this blue guitar association started.

[misspinkpunkykat]

There was also one where there was a homeless girl. None of the profits of sales of her went to help homeless children so people complained.

[MsPoseidon]

I 100% agree the whole Gabriella incident was horrible from American girl lol like that was really outta pocket, the first black girl of the year doll and your going to reuse a truly me doll. The first girl of the year to be 100% a recycled truly me doll, they could have given her different eyes, different hair, but no they redressed their old truly me doll in a new outfit and sold her. I remember people looking at her body tag and seeing like 2013 on it and stuff like she was litterally recycled. And personally I was pretty upset about that because I was so excited to hear about the first black girl of the year and then what we got was a slap in the face. They pretty much said "a black girl of the year doll isn't worth the development, budget, unique designs that we give to our white dolls" it was very disrespectful.

[poundkake]

Not me, a 6ft3in carpenter, passing my time during my workday by learning about AG doll controversies.

[Cowthatwenttomarket]

There’s rumors we are supposed to be getting a black 1920s historical doll this year or next year. I hope they continue to diversify their lines. I do think the new World By Us line is a good move as well.

[hopel]

The first disabled American Girl doll (goty) was McKenna. They say in the movie that she has dyslexia. I am also pretty sure it says she has a learning disability in the book but I don’t remember, but I know in the movie for sure they say she has dyslexia. It was a pretty big part of her storyline too since the movie was based on her struggle with dyslexia and managing gymnastics.

[LilyLewis]

The Taylor Swift one is new to me, but I've heard about the Luciana scandal before. Honestly, I think both cases are pretty weak, especially when it comes to the clothes argument- in 2018 you couldn't go anywhere without seeing galaxy print and holo clothes, and purple streak hair is also like Tumblr girl 101 fashion. Same with the 'Taylor Swift' doll allegation; that's just what the popular fashion was, so of course both a really popular musician and a Girl of the Year doll were wearing it.

I was obsessed with AG as a kid, I loved the historical dolls so much and would get a lot of their books. Samantha was my favorite too, I loved her clothes so much (still am obsessed with Victorian/Edwardian fashion). I've finally fulfilled my childhood dream and got a Samantha doll recently off eBay, currently working to fix her up.

It makes me really sad how many of the historical dolls have been discontinued/archived, I loved them so much as a kid and I think they're just... better? They're more diverse than the GOTY collection, educational, and just something different from a lot of other dolls.

With Addy having a harsh backstory... it's true but I think that kids should be able to learn about that, a lot of the historical dolls deal with overcoming historical challenges- immigration, poverty, war, etc. Honestly I also wish they'd gone harder for Molly- and bring up more about WWII in Europe- but you can't complain that her story didn't go hard enough and say that Addy's was too hard at the same time. But with how much schools like to gloss over and lie about terrible periods in history like slavery, I'm glad we had a company that was trying to bring up some of these issues to kids.