American Girl Dolls, Polly Pockets, Class, and Privilege

I grew up in Madison, so I started getting American Girl catalogs shortly after the company was founded. I remember thinking several things as I paged through:

1. Holy crap, are these dolls ever expensive.
2. They're awfully nice, though. And look at all the outfits. And accessories. And books.
3. I would have given my right arm for one of these back when I was still young enough that I played with dolls.
4. I never would have gotten one, though.

(For the uninitiated, a very quick introduction: the American Girls company makes dolls, each of which goes with a set of books about a fictional nine-year-old girl living in a particular historical period. For example, one of the original dolls was Kirsten, a 19th-century Swedish immigrant who goes to live in Minnesota. In addition to the doll, there are outfits that correspond to the stories in each book, and a wealth of accessories.)

My mother was both fascinated and repulsed by the dolls. On one hand, she approved of the fact that these were dolls with outfits and accessories that weren't Barbie dolls. On the other, she was appalled by the prices. ($80 gets you one doll, the outfit she's wearing, and a book.) She also perceived the girls in the stories as being extremely privileged. I remember her grousing about the lack of "Suzie, the Little Sharecropper Girl" who'd have only one outfit and no accessories because her family was penniless.

The company says that the books are the heart of the company. This is BS, of course: the books are a marketing tool for the overpriced dolls. But they're surprisingly well written for a marketing tool. Molly has now read nearly all of them; I've picked up and read several, including the entire Kit series. And, I have to say, my mother was wrong that the stories reflect privilege. Most don't.

There isn't a Suzie the Sharecropper, but the character Addy (not one of the original characters, but added early) is a slave at the beginning of her story, and escapes to Philadelphia with her mother during the Civil War. The war ends partway through the series of books, but her family is not fully reunited until the last book. (Addy's mother leaves Addy's one-year-old sister behind with a relative when they flee.) One of Molly's favorites was Kit, the Depression-era girl: her father loses his business in Meet Kit and over the course of the series, he never finds a job. The family converts their house into a boarding house to make ends meet, and even with that extra money, they come close to homelessness. The books tell stories about making do and doing without -- in the Christmas stories, they emphasize friendship and family, and the girls who receive presents get mostly small tokens that they're grateful for.

But the dolls. Oh, my.

My sister springbok1 volunteered a number of years ago with an organization that provided services to single mothers in need. (I can't remember if it was a shelter, or a transitional housing organization, or what, exactly.) There were a number of children she worked with, and most had very little. One girl, however, owned an American Girls doll. Everyone knew what it was, and it was viewed as a mark of exceptional status. How could they not? Everyone knows how expensive these dolls are. The books are in libraries everywhere (because you know, they're really pretty good) and the catalogs of dolls are everywhere.

At the other cost extreme are Polly Pockets. Molly has a box of these and plays with them regularly. They're thumb-sized plastic dolls with rubbery plastic outfits you can (with some dexterity and patience) get on and off. They're dirt cheap. A set of several dolls and outfits will run you $10. A single doll with outfit (in a case with a keychain attached) is $3.

Last year there was a set with a DVD included. One of Molly's friends wound up with the DVD, and her mother groused to me about how utterly obnoxious the DVD was. Polly and her rich friends fly off to a private rich-girl island for a private rich-girl party! Ew ew EW. We bonded over our shared disgust for that kind of thing.

It's a weird thing, the values that are taught by a toy, versus the values that are implicit in the toy. Because the values that are TAUGHT by the American Girls collection are unimpeachable. The dolls originated in Madison, Wisconsin, and if you read the books closely you'll see them sneak in historically plausible liberalism. The girls themselves are plucky and independent, while maintaining close, loving relationships with their parents or guardians; they get into trouble, but usually out of positive motives. They fight with their siblings but resolve their problems peacefully. They learn that it's better to be a true friend than to be one of the in crowd, that it's better to give than to receive, that there's nearly always someone worse off than you (and if you try, you might be able to help them out).

Yet the values implicit in the toy are, There's always more to buy. If your parents really love you, they'll spend whatever it takes to make you happy. Dolls are so important, it's reasonable to spend $80 on a single doll.

The values taught by Polly are frankly awful. Clothes make the girl! You can never have too many clothes! Really, clothes are all you need, so long as you have lots and lots and LOTS of them!

But, the values implicit in Polly aren't too bad. They nearly always come in packs of two, so they can play with each other; friendship is clearly a big part of Polly's life. They're cheap and simple and compact: you can have fun without spending a lot of money and without taking up a lot of space.

*

Molly made it at least halfway through the series before she realized there were dolls to go with the books. In the back of one of the books, she found the postcard to send in for a catalog. I helped her fill it out; looking through catalogs of unattainable toys is in itself a pleasure of childhood, and one I remember rather fondly. So, she can have a catalog.