Sonny Angels, Fan Girls, Doll Culture & Girlhood

By: Lilly Bowman

I argue that Sonny Angels reflects girl and doll culture and contributes to the culture of girl fandoms. Sonny Angels have become increasingly popular in recent years to the point even SNL made a skit on these plastic, chubby, hat-wearing cherubs. Sonny Angels (pronounced "Sunny") has a huge young women fanbase and the community includes girls of many different intersectionalities.

Sonny Angels challenge the standard stereotype that women can't be childish or have childlike things. I am exploring how Sonny Angels reflect girl and doll culture, as well as how they contribute to the culture of girl fandoms. My main argument is that through consumerism and fashion preferences, Sonny Angels allow girls to form communities and express themselves through both physical and digital media. This research approaches Sonny Angels through a critical doll studies framework.

How Sonny Started

Sonny Angels are made by Toru Soeya and emerged in the Japanese market in 2005. The brand Sonny Angels started as a more baby doll-like product with a heavy inspiration from the German baby doll Kewpie (Dreams Inc., n.d.). There's no concrete data but shortly after Sonny Angels turned their baby doll into a 3-inch blind box cherub. These cherubs have different hats, and sometimes these cherubs even have a shirt or are fully clothed. These Minifigures hit the market with the intent to be mini-boyfriends to Japanese women in their early 20s (Surbano, 2024, Para. 5). These women were seen as lonely and in need of healing so Toru Soeya made a doll that young working women could keep at their desks, in purses, pockets, and around the home to be a source of healing.

Many people, including the Sonny Angel community, often forget that Sonny's Angels was made to enforce the stereotype that girls need to be saved by men and boys and that young women and girls to be "whole" need a boyfriend. The company has since changed its product marketing to be "he may bring you happiness" (Dreams Inc., n.d.) which is the first thing you see on their online site under the brand name. The boyfriendification of Sonny may have been dropped because of changes in society for women, girls, and the LGBTQ+ community or because of the pedophile backlash this company faces for making cherub dolls. Either way, the company still encourages its audience to bring these dolls into their everyday lives and even encourages their community to post about their dolls on social media.

The Culture around sonny angels

The American boom for Sonny Angels which brought these minifigures into today's pop culture started to happen in 2020. This might be seen as a coincidence, that with everyone who was stuck inside in 2020, Americans found other cultures but I argue that Asian Americans found comfort and community in Sonny Angels because their community was facing an increase in racism due to the racism surrounding Covid-19.

New York Times Article "Taking Comfort in Sonny Angel Dolls" interviewed "Judy Gao, 20, grew up in Beijing and moved to New York to attend N.Y.U. "When I moved to New York, it was like we had the Covid pandemic, Asian hate crime — it was so crazy and overwhelming," she said. Finding friends who shared her love of Sonny Angels was a solace for Ms. Gao. "It's healing my inner child," she said" (O'Neill & The New York Times, 2023, Para. 10).

She describes finding community through her intersectionality, intersectionality is defined as when someone is part of more than one minority that causes more problems that get overlooked (Crenshaw, 2018). This concept is rooted in Sonny Angels because its original target was Japanese women and it is even more important because of the expansion of the Sonny community. Part of Sonny's new outreach is the queer community and the general girl/women community. This shift and overall expansion of the Sonny community is most likely the reason the brand got rid of the boyfriend aspect of Sonny Angels.

This New York Times article also describes how people find their identity in Sonny Angels, which is unsurprising since they are fashion dolls like minifigures. I found that the quote "Saint Luv, 24, waited in line, he pulled out a doll whose head was adorned with jelly beans. "It reminds me of me," he said, beaming at his prized doll. "Just a colorful boy" (O'Neill & The New York Times, 2023, Para. 22) matched my claims even though the person identifies as a boy.

Fashion dolls typically allow women and girls to experiment with their fashion, and explore what they like. Notably, dolls are also loved in queer communities, especially in the drag space. Dolls are often inspirations for drag, often the first time people can experiment with clothes.

Doll Studies and Sonny Angels

Fashion and decorative dolls are used as accessories for bags and decorations around the home, which is nothing new for girl culture and girl history. In the means of Sonny Angels, what you decide to display on your bag or shelf and how you dress up the doll can contribute to your own style and how you want to be perceived. This phenomenon is nothing new for girl identities as Peers in her "Doll Culture" article writes, "Dolls can function as aspects of their room decor, housewares, accessories, and even jewelry. In the latter context, one may include the small figures on beaded chains and tassels popular for decorating mobile phones and also pens and pencils" (Peers et al., 2008, Pg.25). Other than being an outlet for girls to find community and identity, these figures contribute to and should be included in girlhood as a devalued subject conversation.

Dolls and their Fandoms

Dolls and communities or, in other words, fandoms are studied through Girlhood Studies and its umbrella Studies (Girl Fandom and Doll Studies). This matters to Sonny because to understand Sonny's effect on culture we have to understand how it is devalued in society. Ysabel Gerrad analyzes girl's fandom stereotypes in "Groupies, Fangirls, and Shippers: The Endurance of a Gender Stereotype." In this article she dives into girl fandom culture and how it indulges its stereotypical names. In Sonny's sense, I will be using Gerrad's research on fan girls to explain how Sonny Angels are devalued in society since it relates to girlhood.

Fangirl is defined in this article "as a verb, intended to describe (and deride) 'a youthful, (hyper) feminine, and performative act of cultural consumption marked by excessive displays of embodied effect'" (Gerrad, 2022, pg. 2). A paragraph later, Gerrad sheds light on the fact that these words are used to "devalue fans, fandoms, and behaviors discursively positioned as feminine" (Gerrad, 2022, pg. 2). Not only do girls see society turn their nose at Sonny Angels, but they also have to be seen as a less than fandom. An example of this treatment can be found when we look at how Swifties are treated as obnoxious fangirls in society but the behavior of male sports fans is seen as normal. Now Sonny doesn't get the extreme hate as our example fandom does, but Sonny's are seen as weird and childish with society's social constructs.

Social constructs affect all cultures but in this sense, we are talking about the American constructs. Social constructs are ideas or concepts that exist because people in society agree that it does. This kind of thinking leads us to misunderstand and overlook not only Doll studies but specifically Sonny Angels and their impact on culture.

Girlhood and Sonny Angels

Being devalued by society is unfortunately a part of girlhood and why girlhood is a field of study because girls and women have been overlooked for centuries even with girlhood being studied now. Girlhood is a gendered phenomenon influenced by social, political, economic, and historical contexts. This means Girlhood studies studies how girls adapt to and perform cultural understandings and discourse in girlhood. Sonny Angel contributes to girlhood because dolls are studied for how they contribute to girlhood. In this sense, Sonny Angel supports and negotiates against social constructs regarding girlhood. As well as they contribute to how intersectionality can change the perspective of girlhood and dolls.

To understand how they contribute to doll studies and girlhood, we must understand exactly what a Sonny is. Sonny Angels are a blind bag mini-figure baby dolls that have a fan base mostly of young women and girls, but I would like to argue that Sonny's Angels might be seen as a new phenom but actually, they are bringing dolls back into the women's hands.

Dolls as material text are understood in many different ways Zaslow writes "Today, dolls are understood as complex texts that "represent layered versions of realities, mediated by the often-contradictory ideologies, values, or worldviews of doll creators, producers, consumers, and players."10 More recently, Robin Bernstein has suggested that dolls be studied as scripts that encourage certain kinds of play behaviors" (Zaslow, 2017, pg. 37). This foundation is important to understand how dolls have affected society.

In recent years and decades, dolls have been a thing of status and a tool for little girls to play with fashion and other scripted play. Peers in "Doll Culture" describes the history of dolls which is important in understanding that Sonny Angel's are just bringing back old trends in the doll world and girl culture. "Although it is assumed that women will put aside dolls upon leaving their girlhood years, there are myriad male and female interactions with dolls, from work-based to leisure, from closeted secret activity to hobby to commercial enterprise" (Peers et al., 2008, Pg. 25). This statement perfectly encaptures the Sonny Angel brand, the brand, and scripted play made so Women and Girls can have a doll that heals them and serves as decorations around the home.

Decorations and Dolls

Talking about doll trends, the fact that Sonny is meant to be a decoration made for everyday use isn't anything new. "Dolls also overlap into the category of decorative figurines and statuettes for children and adults, especially the many types of non-jointed dolls and dolls with elaborate porcelain, resin, or plastic detailing" (Peers et al., 2008, p. 25). Since dolls are made for decoration, trends based on status and identity start to form. An example is, "During the 1920s, it was trendy for adult women to carry dolls in public, especially in urban areas, as a fashion accessory, and perfume flasks, purses and handbags were produced with doll or teddy bear faces" (Peers et al., 2008, Pg. 28). Not only does Sonny make stickers of their dolls, they also make bags designed to show off your collection and keychains of their figures.

Fashion Dolls

Along with the decorative appeal, these Angels are also fashion dolls. Sonnys are like the young women's version of LOL dolls, a little girl's fashion blind bag doll. Forman-Brunell talks about fashion dolls and how women have contributed to doll culture in her article "US History of Dolls". Fashion dolls that started in the colonial period are geared towards women's fashions. "The wood and wax figures of adult women modeling the latest fashions for the well-heeled and their skillful dressmakers circulated among European courts; they had yet to become girls' toys" (Forman-Burnell, 2020, pg. 670). She then explains how slowly dolls changed to emulate girls and babies, which is how we end up with a chubby baby boy cherub being fashionable.

Sonny and Social Constructs

As a doll, Sonny negotiates and contributes to social constructs. They emulate the thinking that girls need to be saved and healed by boys, as well as negotiating social constructs, because the figure has male genitalia with rosy cheeks and long eyelashes, which contribute to these dolls being androgynous in presentation. This could be part of the reason the queer community loves these dolls. The scripted play of Sonny, the androgyny, and the fashion doll aspects allow Sonny's fangirls and community to see themselves in these dolls.

Analyzing these fashionable cherubs, how the fandom interacts, and how Sonny's prompt spaces for girls with many backgrounds allows us to understand how Sonny enhances our understanding of girl culture and girlhood. It proves that just because a girl leaves behind girlhood to enter womanhood doesn't mean she has to let go of her femininity. Fashion dolls are inherently feminine, and because these figures also become accessories and decorations, they allow women and girls to express their feminine identity in their daily lives. While also simultaneously creating a community in person and online for girls of all ages to express themselves and their interests that society makes girls hide.

Pomerantz, in "Girlhood Studies," specifically her section named "The Need for Girlhood Studies," explains the societal divide between women and girls: "This admonition to grow up reinforced a division between girl and woman that elevated the latter at the expense of the former. Women's studies programs often bear the stamp of this division, only recently incorporating courses on girls and girlhood due to high demand" (Pomerantz, 2020, p. 846).

In recent years, especially since the 2023 "Barbie" movie came out, we have seen this divide of girlhood and womanhood shrink. Sonny Angels is also helping to shrink this divide of ageism in girl culture. They enhance the understanding of how girlhood never really leaves the girl, even when she enters womanhood. Zaslow even writes about how dolls reflect women in society, "Dolls embodied the timely questions about the role of women in society" (Zaslow, 2017,p.. 44). Sonny's reflection on today's culture is an age-old example of dolls and figures representing society.

The big picture of Sonny Angels

Sonny Angels is paving the way to understand doll culture in digital media as well as doll culture in fandoms. Fandoms and communities, because of social media, have become more diverse, even if fandom culture pushes consumerism. This diversity allows girls of all ages to have a community and identity through a common interest. In this sense, Sonny Angel’s community has not only changed the close-minded intentions of these figures, but they are also changing the view that to be mature, you have to leave your childish interests behind. This stereotype applies heavily to women and older girls because males are allowed to like their boyish interests in adulthood. Dolls have been changing politics for centuries, just quietly, and as this topic grows, o will explore irl culture and its societal impacts.

References

Crenshaw, K. (2018, June 22). What is Intersectionality [Video]. Youtube. Retrieved September 15, 2024, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViDtnfQ9FHc

Dreams Inc. (n.d.). Sonny Angel. Retrieved November 9, 2024, from https://www.sonnyangel.com/en/

Forman-Burnell, M. (2020). US History of Dolls. In D. Thomas Cook (Ed.), SAGE Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood Studies (ebook ed., pp. 669-673). SAGE Publications.

Gerrard, Y. (2022). Groupies, Fangirls, and Shippers: The Endurance of a Gender Stereotype. In American Behavioral Scientist (Vol. 66, pp. 1-16). SAGE Publications.

O'Neill, S., & The New York Times. (2023, April 6). Taking Comfort in Sonny Angel Dolls. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/06/style/sonny-angels-dolls-tiktok.html

Peers, J., Mitchell, C., & Reid-Walsh, J. (2008). Doll Culture. In (Vol. 1, pp. 25-38). Greenwood Press. https://search.worldcat.org/title/Girl-culture-:-an-encyclopedia/oclc/299047538

Pomerantz, S. (2020). Girlhood Studies. In D. T. Cook (Ed.), The SAGE Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood Studies (1st ed., pp. 846-850). SAGE Publications. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/rutgers-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6161445.

Surbano, E. E. (2024, September 27). Meet Toru Soeya, the man behind Sonny Angel. Prestige Online. Retrieved December 14, 2024, from https://www.prestigeonline.com/th/people/toru-soeya-sonny-angel-dreams/

Zaslow, E. (2017). Playing with America's Doll: A Cultural Analysis of the American Girl Collection. In Playing With America's Dolls (Situating American Girl: Tools of Socialization in a Changing Culture, ed., pp. 35-63). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56649-2