American Girl: Truly Me Dolls
By: Jillian Gray
★ The American Girl company headquarters are located in Wisconsin, Illinois. The brand has 12 anchor stores throughout the nation. In 1986, the brand was launched by Pleasant T. Rowland, who had a vision to produce educational dolls that came with books. Originally the stories generated a look at girlhood throughout the past. She hoped to inspire young girls, to embody positivity, and express it throughout their lives. Rowland described her collection of dolls to be “magical moments filled with goodness—moments that will nourish a little girl’s spirit, send her imagination soaring, and make her dreams come true.” The brand continues to paint smiles on young girls' faces. Initially, the doll line consisted of only three historic girls, Kristen, Samantha, and Molly. Each doll came with a book, explaining herstory.
★ Rowland created dolls to represent the pre-teen, adolescent girl prior to the beginning stages of puberty. The dolls have no bulges on their bodies to suggest feminine features. It is described that the dolls resemble, “a nine-year-old girl with round full cheeks implied a pre-sexual status” (Zaslow pg 47). The limbs of the doll are hard, non-bendable plastic. They have soft stuffed stomachs. The head is manufactured with the same plastic as the arms and legs. They have eyes that blink when the doll is tilted upright. Her hair is made from synthetic fibers, and between her lips peak two buck teeth.
★ By 1995, the company began expanding, releasing two new lines the Bitty Baby, and what is now known as the Truly Me doll. Bitty Baby, is a baby doll which is marketed for girls ages three and up. The Truly Me doll is a doll that the girl selects based on resemblance to herself. The age range for this doll is eight years old and up. For many years, girls were able to select a doll that resembled them from the American Girl catalog which is mailed out monthly. At first, consumers began to give the brand negative feedback on the doll options “After receiving criticism that its dolls were predominantly white, able bodied, and Christian, the company started to diversify its dolls” (Lopez). The company has since tried to incorporate many different ethnicities, and cultures into the brand by expanding skin tone variations, hair styles, and numerous other facial features. Below is an image of the selections presented in the catalog.
★ Girls are presented with choices consisting of six skin tones, eleven hair styles, and six eye colors. A pro written about the American Girl Truly Me doll is that, “The dolls come in a vast selection of skin tones, hair color and eye color, which can be mixed and matched so the doll resembles its owner.” (Neporent). You may also choose your face shape and even add freckles for no added costs. If you need glasses, or braces to complete your look, that is an upwards charge of an additional ten dollars. In the past several years, the brand has created a studio online where girls have the accessibility to create their doll.
★ The site is limited to many physical features. Having only six skin tones is not marginally representative of American girls. Our country is founded on migration, and a mix of people from all over the world, different cultures, and colors. The brand certainly embodies the white ableism persona of a young girl. Brown, the creator of SOLHOT, an after school place for girls of color to go, and be free and safe stated that “the problem is that Black girls are not typically included in the conversations that shape our lives” (Brown pg 20). This is widely noticeable on the American Girl website. The brand offers two dark skin tones for Truly Me dolls, one for Bitty Babies, and less than half of the Historical characters are girls of color.
★ Stemming from, not every girl has straight hair. The brand offers eleven different hair options, but all derive from a natural straight root. The American Girl curly option is curled straight hair. The brand offers no textures, nor natural curls or waves. In an article written by a woman of color, she explained her journey of saving up for a doll, and helping her mom in the salon all summer. Her writing critiqued the doll's hair. She emphasized the ideal of having straight hair within our society. She wrote, “I'd also have to love my own natural texture. Her strands would be knotted when I picked her up from the corner of my daybed, no matter how gently I handled her. I wanted another doll” (Clark). Not every girl is born with naturally pin straight hair, nor does she lust to have straight hair. It is upsetting for girls who desire dolls that look like them. American Girl dolls are defining figures of girlhood. For girls to be disappointed after spending over one hundred dollars on a doll is unjust.
★ Branching off of Clarks statement, I can empathize with her. For my tenth birthday, the only thing in the world that I wanted was an American Girl Truly Me doll. All of my friends had received Truly Me dolls over the holidays, and they were spitting images of them. I was so jealous. I can remember ripping her out of the box and instantly hating the way she looked. She was so pale she looked deceased, and her hair was straight from the root, and curled on the ends. She had three little freckles on her cheeks and did not at all look like me. I can still feel the tears streaming down my face, and my mother instantly raising her voice and complaining that I am always unhappy, and never grateful. My hair has always been the trait that set me aside from my friends, and made me stand out in class photos. My entire life people have always asked where my hair came from, and I had no idea. I had been teased that I was the mailman's daughter. It was not until I got my doll that I felt ashamed of my hair, that it was not pretty, or non-desirable.
★ From that moment on, I felt as if beauty came from straight hair. I spent many years coming home from school, and sticking a flat iron to my head. I never went to a dance, or a holiday party with my natural curls. My biggest misunderstanding is thinking that I must straighten my hair, to then curl it to fulfill society's idea of beauty. I try hard to be someone I am not, and have destroyed my natural beauty, my bounce ringlets that portray me.
★ However, the option of eyes on your American Girl doll is very versatile. As I mentioned before, there are six eye color options. Girls with heterochromia have the option to select a different color per eye to match their own. Unfortunately, there is only one eye shape and size. Girls of asian heritages are misrepresented, by being forced to choose bug eyed dolls. Currently the brand offers two options for eyeglasses, but four options for sunglasses. They value the ability to be able to accessories your doll, rather than to honor her prescription. For an extra ten dollars you can provide your Truly Me doll that ability to see with only a pair of pink or orange glasses.
★ Furthermore, if you wish to have hearing aids on your doll she must be sent to the hospital for surgery at an added cost. The starting cost to send a doll to the hospital is forty five dollars. Installation of a hearing aid is an added fourteen dollars per ear. In this way, “disability in the lives of girls, disabled girls and their experiences are portrayed as abnormal” (Stienstra pg 60). Many families nationwide have been outraged by this consumeristic tactic. Needing to send the doll to the hospital for a visit, as well as the added charge to drill the aids in her head, portrays that “disability has been included merely contributes to the neoliberal individualism and consumerism of the brand” (Schalk pg 44). This affects many girls who suffer from hearing impairments. Melissa, and her big sister started a petition to influence the company to create a doll with a disability in 2014. The family was able to attain over 145,000 signatures.
★ The brand denied the appeal. In 2020, six years later the doll of the year Joss Kendrick was introduced as the first disabled doll available for purchase. Joss, was only available to be purchased for that year, and the brand is now once again, no longer selling a doll who has a disability. Within her book, it comes across to the reader that her disability, is a subject briefly devoluged, “discomfort is naturalized as a normal feeling for nondisabled people which can—and, indeed, must, under the dictate of ablenationalism—be overcome through increased interaction with people with disabilities” (Schalk pg 39). The brand does this to protect able bodied girls, and explain to them that it is normal to feel weary of disabilities. It only further “trumps sex and gender among girls with disabilities and that this leads to the invisibility” (Stienstra pg 50). Disability is not something to be feared, rather it should be embraced by society and the American Girl brand. When creating a Truly Me doll, necessities should not be a hospital trip, or an added costly accessory. A marketing ploy of the American Girl brand is to sell disability as an accessory.
★ Currently, the site offers no dolls sold having a disability prior to creation/purchase. Incorporated into her storybook, she may have a disabled friend, but the main character is always of able status. A variety of disability aids may be purchased on the site ranging from guide dogs, wheelchairs, hearing aids, and medical kits for diseases such as diabetes and asthma. These accessories are, “products imply that they are intended to represent primarily temporary rather than permanent disability” (Schalk pg 44). Even if you purchase a Truly Me doll, with hearing aids initially, her book does not include the aids within the story. Disability is completely misrepresented, by the “inclusive” brand.
★ American Girl’s, Truly Me doll as an analysis of girlhood, representative of what the girl can and should be in society. She represents a can-do girl, capable of anything and everything she sets her mind to. The American Girl doll, shapes girls to be successful, by providing plentiful options, for outfits, and play scenes, from the kitchen, to school, to travel, to career paths. She creates power, by resembling you and who you can become through play, and educational stories. In many aspects, she also devalues girl culture, by misrepresentation. In relation to the field of girlhood studies, the doll is mirroring girlhood. She is a young girl herself going through life, while learning new meanings, and overcoming obstacles. Those who study the field of girlhood, grasp a better understanding of girls through playful interactions with the dolls.
★ Concluding, the American Girl, Truly Me doll is a prime example of a girlhood artifact. The doll is gendered towards girls. There is a limited amount of male dolls, and a sparse amount of masculine accessories to purchase. No option is live to create your own boy Truly Me, that feature is only available for girl children. The brand is fake woke. Offering only six skin colors, and no hair textures, or natural curls. The brand fails to represent disability as anything other than a removable accessory. The dolls are limited to ableist features, they must be purchased acquiring all limbs, flawless skin, and smiling faces. Briefly, to state a few populations misrepresented are those with down syndrome, cleft lip, and vitiligo, excluding many more. It is unfair for a national, now even global brand to label a doll as Truly Me, since it does not identify all girls.
References
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Brown, Ruth Nicole. Black Girlhood Celebration: Toward a Hip-Hop Feminist Pedagogy. Peter Lang, 2009.
Clark, Ashleé. “We Were American Girls: What Addy Taught Me about Black Hair, Freedom and Myself.” Salon, Salon.com, 17 May 2021,
https://www.salon.com/2021/05/15/we-were-american-girls-what-addy-taught-me-about-black-hair-freedom-and-myself/.
López, Canela. “American Girl Just Introduced Its First Doll with a Physical Disability and Named Her 2020 'Girl of the Year'.” Insider, Insider, 28 Jan. 2020,
https://www.insider.com/american-girl-doll-with-hearing-loss-2020-girl-of-year-2019-12.
Schalk, Sami. “Ablenationalism in American Girlhood.” Girlhood Studies, vol. 9, no. 1, 2016, https://doi.org/10.3167/ghs.2016.090104.
Stienstra, Deborah. “Trumping All? Disability and Girlhood Studies.” Girlhood Studies, vol. 8, no. 2, 2015, https://doi.org/10.3167/ghs.2015.080205.
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