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I Hate This Boy American Girl Doll
By
Rebecca Fishbein
Published Feb 14, 2017
Modified Feb 14, 2017
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By
Rebecca Fishbein
Published Feb 14, 2017
Modified Feb 14, 2017
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American Girl Dolls now have a male in their midst—the makers of $115 vinyl dolls and their very expensive accessories have created their first American Boy. He is 18 inches tall, he is named Logan Everett, he plays the drums, and I fucking hate him.
Logan The American Boy Doll is part of American Girl's new 2017 collection, which comes out on Thursday and is "notably diverse," according to Huffington Post. Apparently kids have been asking for dolls with "more experiences, more diversity, more interests," so this new collection includes a modern Korean-American doll, a historical doll who lives in Hawaii during World War II, and "Girl of the Year" Gabriela McBride, an African-American girl who struggles with stuttering. Logan is part of a duo—his female counterpart, Tenney, is a singer in Nashville and will probably grow up to be Taylor Swift or something.
American Girl says the number one thing customers have requested over the years is for a male doll, hence the birth of Logan. On the face of things, this makes sense. Dolls aren't just for girls, for one thing—not only is doll play good for children's physical and social development, dividing children's toys based on gender amplifies sex-specific stereotypes, and that can have a whole range of negative effects on everything from body images to future occupations. Plus, girls are allowed to have friends who are boys, and so should their dolls.
Indeed, my hatred of Logan is merely personal. The thing about American Girl dolls is that they tell stories about brave and strong and occasionally cool things girls have done, like freeing abused horses and fleeing slavery and rescuing their friends from orphanages. It just seems to me like there are millions of stories about brave and strong and occasionally cool boys, and somehow the stuff the boys are doing always looks better than the stuff the girls are doing.
Encyclopedia Brown seemed way smarter than Cam Jansen, even if they both solved mysteries using their brains. Harry Potter was the Chosen One, not Hermione. The Little Mermaid gave up her voice for fucking Prince Eric, who was an idiot. HASBRO didn't even include Rey in their Star Wars: The Force Awakens collective figurine set and Monopoly game.
Now there's a boy American Girl Doll, and all the little girls will probably like him better than Tenney and come up with doll game plotlines that involve all the girl dolls having crushes on him and he invites Molly McIntire to one of his drumming gigs and she's SO EXCITED ABOUT IT so she wears her fancy tennis outfit and bedazzles her glasses to impress him, but he ends up making out with Samantha Parkington IN FRONT OF HER, so Molly goes home and steals what's left of her mom's wine ration and calls Linda and Susan to cry to them about how Logan hates her because her hair doesn't do the same cool flippy thing as Samantha's does.
Anyway, boys get whatever they want and now they have a stupid doll. Good for you, boys.
Happy Valentine's Day, everyone.
Tagged
american girl
american girl dolls
valentine's day rant
original
Rebecca Fishbein
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