American Girl
The American girl doll are obviously stereotypical versions of each group of girls that they are trying to represent. Sometimes these stereotypes are pretty close to reality. Kirsten’s similarity to myself kind of freaks me out. To start with we have the same last name. She is Swedish American and I am also of Swedish/Norwegian decent my grandfather coming over from Norway when he was young. We also both live in Minnesota and have that wishy-washy blonde/brown hair. I suppose that is not too strange since those are all pretty common characteristics to find in Minnesota. However this could give young girls the wrong idea allowing them to stereotype other girls into categories based on what they know about the dolls. Obviously not everyone relates so closely to these dolls.
I did have an American Girl doll when I was younger. I picked a girl to look like me, as if Kirsten wasn’t enough like me. I wanted a doll with brown eyes I guess. However I never bothered to read the books for the other girls. I know a lot of girls probably do but I’m sure a lot are like me and just didn’t care to read them. So they are missing out on any message that these dolls might send. I think that it is also important to remember that these are “American� Girl dolls. So they are trying to keep them within US history. Looking at the girl from New Mexico for a second I wondered why she wasn’t just from Mexico until I realized they are American Girl dolls of course. They are trying to give girls a little American history while still respecting the traditions customs and hardships of moving to America. They also try to find topics that are educational but also that are easy for these young girls to understand and relate too. They are not women they are girls who probably wouldn’t understand a lot of concept that they might be important to learn about later. I mean really how old are you when you stop playing with dolls? I know I was pretty young.
I think they do a good job a representing different backgrounds for these girls. However they have some room for improvement. They didn’t have to make Addy a slave girl that does seem like it would deter a lot of young girls from wanting an Addy doll. This is true for the servant girl doll as well. I’m sure girls of the time who were servents had to be strong and these were important parts of history but its just kind of weird. They also could have added some more racial diversity to one of the best friends dolls or something. From reading the profiles they sound like they do a good job of making the girls strong role models who follow other strong female role models. Overall I think these a pretty good dolls for young girls, better than Barbie by far.