Sophisticated Argument About a Particular

¶ … Sophisticated Argument About a Particular Media Artifact

An 'American' Media Artifact: American Girl and "Kit Kittredge, American Girl"

Despite the recent downturn in the economy, over the summer a small film was a seismic, unexpected 'sleeper' hit. It had no special effects, no big-name stars. Yet anyone with a daughter, younger sister, or anyone who ever taken a stroll uptown in Manhattan where girls clutch dolls dressed in the same outfits as themselves dot the streets could have predicted this cinematic success. "Kit Kittredge, American Girl," was the first film released by the burgeoning American Girl empire. On its first weekend, showing at only five theaters, all of which boasted ticket prices over $20, the film earned more than $220,000, nearly $45,000 per screen while no other movie in the Top 50 that same weekend exceeded even $10,000 per screen" (Scott, 2008,p.1). The film is emblematic of how the American Girl brand has communicated an image of wholesomeness and idealized girlhood that has proved attractive to girls and mothers alike.

American Girl blends consumerism with fresh-faced enthusiasm, historical education with cuteness. The dolls are pricey -- more than $100 per doll, and can only be bought through the catalogue, website, or at special stores. They also have a dizzying array of equally expensive outfits and accessories. Some of the more elaborate ones, according to the website, can exceed $200, like a horse-drawn sleigh. But American Girl dolls and spin-offs like "Kit Kittredge" have proved irresistible not only to the apparent target audience of young girls from ages three to thirteen, but to also parents who wish to provide their girls with a strong self-image outside of the ones offered by the Bratz dolls and Britney Spears. Today's culture asks the question of young girls: "Who are you supposed to be, or to avoid becoming? A nerd? A ditz? A flirt? A tomboy? What kind of role models are those make-believe princesses, those Bratz and Barbies, to say nothing of the real-life Britneys, Lindsays and Mileys? Mean Girls, Gossip Girls, Girls Gone Wild, Girl Power, You go, girl! What's a girl to do? The short-term answer is likely to be: Go to the movies. In particular, to 'Kit Kittredge,' the first American Girl movie to be released theatrically" which is meant to offer a safe, child-friendly zone for American Girl aficionados and their friends to escape (Scott 2008, p.1).

Part of the appeal of "American Girl" is the femininity of its universe. In the film, Kit's beloved father is spirited away to look for work in Chicago during the Great Depression, and few brothers or male friends intrude. All of the main American Girl dolls have best 'girl friends' with their own plastic incarnations and their own accessories. Unlike Hermione Granger and Princess Fiona who are "permanent sidekicks in serial sagas owned by Harry Potter and Shrek," it is plucky Kit who saves the day (Scott 2008, p.1). Kit's prepubescent appearance and lack of sexuality is a comfort for mothers and perhaps some fathers who desire a traditional girlhood for their children. The dolls recall Victorian porcelain dolls, little-girl size, rather than fashion-doll size like Barbies. And of course, the actress who plays Kit looks exactly like the Kit doll.

Seeing the film is only one part of being part of the American girl 'world' of course. Not only do the dolls have tie-in books that are written at a high level of difficulty, and include historical subject material to make mothers feel better about buying the dolls (as opposed to books that are mere promotional tie-ins for the dolls). At American girl stores all over the country, girls and their mothers can eat at the American girl cafe, buy accessories for the doll, buy matching outfits for dolls and girls, and live in a world free of outside pressures of sexualized adulthood. A New York Times slideshow of the Manhattan branch of the store during the opening weekend of "Kit Kittredge" shows legions of young girls -- and young women, dining with their dolls and mothers in charming, although slightly eerie dining room scenes, made even more spooky by the fact that some of the girls look like and dress like their dolls.

The American Girl company's stated goal is "to create girls of strong character,' a mission as unimpeachable as it is vague," writes the Times ("Not a Doll by a Lifestyle," the New York Times slideshow, 2008). What this seems to mean is that "your daughter can play in a past where low-rise jeans are as unthinkable as high-rise apartments" (Catsoulis 2008, p.1). The American Girl dolls, both historical and the American 'girls of today' come in all races, hair types, and ethnicities, sa welcome improvement from the Barbies of the past, where the African-American dolls would sport the same features their white counterparts. But the price tag, according to some, still means that the demographic of the dolls is often white and upwardly mobile.

True, American girls are hardly anti-feminist or insensitive to social problems. Kit, for example, is surviving the Great Depression and is determined to become a great reporter. She writes stories that tell the tales of the struggles of her own family, and that of her friends, as well as the 'hobos' who inhabit her town. The film contains some charming details about the era when Kit lived, for example, the fact that hobos would make a sign of a fish bone to indicate that a house had 'good garbage' (Matsoukis 2008, p.1). Kit's world is not lacking in outside pressures: After all, the fact Kit's father, in the great tradition of absent fathers who force their children to assume extra (in this case cross-gender) responsibilities and burdens loses his job and must go to the Big City to look for work. This also shows that sometimes even the best of men may fail, and women must look to their own resourcefulness to 'make do.' Kit's mother takes on borders into the home and must work herself -- she is a role model and a tower of strength to Kit (Matsoukis 2008, p.1). And Kit is not only a great reporter and writer, but an amateur Nancy Drew -- rebuffed by the editor of the local paper, she continues to write and even catches the 'bad guys' at the end of the film.

Kit's own resourcefulness and generosity become models of adult behavior in a way that is inspiring to girls, but also to mothers who have internalized feminist ideals while still embracing a traditional model of girlhood. It is for this reason that American Girls have been called the 'anti-Barbie,' or 'anti-Bratz,' or antidotes to homogenized, sexualized ideals even though so much of the American Girl empire is based upon consumer ideology -- buying the dolls, books, accessories, going to the film, and going to the store to get the full 'experience.' (the stores also have their own theaters and beauty parlors for dolls and girls, as well as restaurants).

Of course, no matter how cool an analytical eye is turned towards the corporatization of childhood delight in playthings, "children's experiences cannot fully be recuperated through adult-centric approaches" "(Chinn, 1999, p. 307). Even when discussing Barbies, while adults may remember fairly decorous play with the doll, children are more apt to engage in gender -- and racially-subverting play with Barbies, doing everything from simulating intercourse between same-sex dolls, braiding even white Barbies' hair in African-American styles, or dismembering or 'scalping' Barbies: "The fundamental tension is between a commodity with a packaged identity and the consumers who put her to work in their own lives; the deliciousness of the images is their transgression of Mattel's carefully managed Barbie profile"(Chinn 1999, p. 307). It is as if Barbie is so perfect, so removed from ordinary, little girl's experience, that she is dehumanized and is thus safe to 'experiment' on: two little African-American girls in one anthropological study "wondered why there is no fat, abused, or pregnant Barbie, questions that were shaped by their being young black girls living in a poor and working-class, racially segregated neighborhood" (Chin 1999, p.307).