Because of Courtney, Liz, and Mindy, I present

[throwingpens]

THE AMERICAN GIRL DOLL POLL

Poll

Apparently there are more dolls/books now? But Kit was BRAND NEW when I was 9 and I thought it was super cool that she had freckles like me.

Please rant about how great your favorite character is below.

Comments

[yumytaffy]

I picked "other" because I am American and, at least in this case, not terrible. I just wasn't into the American Girl dolls for various reasons. For one, price. (Seriously, guys, they are so expensive.) Also, as a minority, I just always felt it was a little off for them to be called "American Girls" when I didn't see myself in them. Now, I wasn't hurt about it, and I don't begrudge anyone for liking them. Everyone has their reasons, is what I'm saying.

I know this is a much larger discussion for another time and way too deep for what I know is a lighthearted discussion about dolls growing up. It's just my two cents. (Hey, guys, I had other toys growing up! I was a child who played with things! I even had a Build-A-Bear phase!)

And now I'm going to respectfully back out of this post because I'm afraid of what fresh hell will be rained down upon me.

[throwingpens]

Thanks for your input! But can you tell me about your build-a-bear phase?

The mall in amarillo has a knock-off build-a-bear place and it is...amazing. But I've never built a bear.

[lizinstereo]

They are doing a terrible job with diversity. They've had so many opportunities and they've shied away due to controversy. It's been years and there are no Asian American dolls. An Asian best friend doll, but no Asian doll as the star of her own series.

That's why I was so thrilled to see a doll that looked like me.

I do understand what you're getting at and it makes perfect sense. A doll is a doll is a doll. The imagination and play is what counts.

[saucydiva]

You know, I like to think I'm aware of things. I'm pretty well-read and I read a lot of tumblr and I think I'm pretty well on the look-out for racism, sexism, etc, etc, but I will admit I just went through all the historical dolls and it didn't occur to me that they didn't have an Asian-American one.

(They do, as opposed to when we were young, have a Jewish one, a Native American one, a hispanic one, and another black one, and about eight more white ones).

[lizinstereo]

And most of the white ones are blonde with blue/blue grey eyes! Get it together, Mattel.

[throwingpens]

The lack of an Asian-American girl was something I noticed when we went to buy books for the Mini-MexiTraegers. They do have *A* single Asian-American JLY doll. Maybe two. But the fact that I just noticed it recently makes me feel like this...dumbass (?)