Dolls: Radical Dolls

In the children’s book, No Ordinary Sound. A nine year old girl named Melody Ellison
hears her older sister Yvonne described as radical. It’s the year 1964,
and Yvonne has come home to Detroit over her holiday break with a new Afro and new ideas about
civil rights. The Von’s Aunt Tish likes her new hairstyle.
Some people don’t like natural hair because it looks so different from what we’re used to to said she
looked at a van thoughtfully. I think that style suits your face. I’m going to open a salon here as soon
as I find a spot. I wonder if my future Detroit clients would like a style like that.
I’m not sure how many young women are as radical as our von mommy said, opening the front door.
What does radical mean? Melody asked. It means somebody who’s willing to raise her voice
of on said, willing to raise her hair to mommy, said as she went inside.
It’s a small but interesting moment and author Denise Lewis Patrick’s book, because Melody is
caught up in a different kind of debate about radicalism to Melody C is not
just a character in Patrick’s novels. She’s the newest release in the American Girl Company is B Forever
Line of Historical Dolls, which means that she is first and foremost a toy.
And ever since American Girl first announced their plans to develop the Melody Doll, she has been involved
in a conversation about the radicalism of the company itself, sparked by a 2013
article in The Atlantic that accused American Girl of not being radical enough.
For some onlookers, Melody is a response to that accusation. In the summer of
meant that American girl dolls are returning to their radical roots.
On today’s episode of Deafen Numbers, we’ll be exploring that claim. Is Melody a radical children’s
story? What does it mean to think about a doll in those terms? To answer that question, we’ll
think about the history melody represents, the kind of play she inspires and why it matters.
For author Amy Scheller, who wrote the 2013 Atlantic article about American Girl.
The word radical is tied up with political consciousness. Schiller writes that the company’s
stores once provided what she describes as a point of entry for girls who would grow
up to be, in her words, thoughtful, critical, empowered citizens.
American Girl has been around since 1986, and the toy company’s brand was built around its original
product, a series of dolls, all young girls that each represented a different moment in American
history. Each doll was accompanied by a series of children’s books, and each
character allowed little girls to learn about history through the accessible, relatable lens
of a girl their own age. While the approach may have been kid friendly, the issues the
characters tackled or complex and often difficult Victorian era Samantha struggled against
child labor laws. Civil war era. Addie escaped from slavery. Felicity lived
through the Revolutionary War. Schiller argues that these books confronted head on some of the
most difficult parts of history through engaging with these stories. Little girls were introduced to
issues of privilege, class, consciousness, racism and gender roles. And importantly,
they learned to see themselves as agents of change. In other words, they began to develop a political
consciousness. But Shiller argues that sensibility got lost in 1998
when toy giant Mattel bought American Girl and took the company in a different direction.
The historical dolls remained, but some of the most beloved characters were eventually archived to make
room for a new product lines which Schiller felt were bland in comparison. Now,
she wrote, the company’s identity feels as smooth, unthreatening and empty as the dolls
on their shelves.
Schiller closes her article with a call for American Girl to get back in touch with its radicalism
after the entry level critiques of capitalism. Samantha, Native American persecution. Kiersten
and traditional roles for women. Felicity Perhaps the time has come for a doll who takes her fourth
grade class on a field trip to Occupy Wall Street. OK, so Melody isn’t an Occupy
activist, but American girl’s newest character does seem to be in some ways an answer to Shiller’s
call. Perhaps it was the presence of big name activists like Julian Bond on the advisory
committee that designed Melody. But before that all was even released, she was being hailed as
depending on your perspective, either a new era for American Girl or a return to the company’s origins.
Part of the reason for this reputation is the narrative that Melodee represents set in 1960s
Detroit Melody is American Girls First Civil Rights era doll. The choice
of her historical moment was intentional 1960s Detroit would allow Melody to represent
civil rights in a new way. To understand the significance of Melody’s story,
we have to think first about the way civil rights history is usually represented. Melody was
debuted in 2016 in a moment when the nation was primed to remember the civil rights
movement. A number of major milestones like the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act
were hitting their 50th anniversaries, sparking commemorations and celebrations across the country.
Eva DuVernay is biopic Selma was released in 2014 and the 2015
death of Julian Bond prompted further reflection on the legacy of the civil rights era.
All of these anniversaries, public forums, movies and even just conversation about the civil rights movement
are part of what scholars call public memory. And while each representation of civil rights
history has its own nuances. Scholars of civil rights memory argue that there are broad trends
in the way we remember the civil rights movement. Taken together, these trends make up what
historians Lee Raiford and Rene Romano called the consensus memory of the civil rights movement.
That consensus memory tends to focus on the struggle of heroic, larger than life figure as like
Martin Luther King to end legalized segregation and gain voting rights in key battlegrounds
like Birmingham and Selma. Here’s how Raeford and Romano sum up this narrative.
Charismatic and eloquent leaders let a nonviolent movement of African-Americans in support of whites
in a struggle that sought to change legal and social rather than economic barriers to equality.
This outline of civil rights history is accurate enough, but framing the movement in this way has
consequences. It emphasizes individual heroes rather than the grassroots organizing
of local communities. It assumes that racism and discrimination were mainly a problem in the South
and it focuses our attention on individual prejudice rather than pointing us towards systemic or
economic oppression. These problems are often exacerbated and tax that present
the civil rights movement to children who are often assumed to need a version of history that is
simple, accessible and not too scary. Education scholar Herbert Kohl
has studied the way the civil rights movement is presented to children in literature and curriculum.
He argues that when African-Americans and European-Americans are involved in confrontation and
children’s literature, the situation is routinely described as a problem between individuals
that can be worked out on a personal basis. It is, one might say, whitewashed.
In addition, the traditions of community solidarity, risk taking and organizing in black communities
are passed over in silence. The teachers that Cole interviewed often
expressed fear that presenting more complex versions of history might frighten or disturb or confuse
children. But as Cole writes, the story is complex and it deserves
to be told with appropriate complexity rather than simplified or rendered innocuous.
And Cole questions the idea that kids can’t handle this kind of history. Rather, he argues,
children can work through hard and painful questions of history, psychology and culture. If
they are guided by a caring adult and provided with materials that challenge them.
If Denise Lewis Patrick’s books are any indication Melodee was designed to do exactly the kind of
work Cole describes set in Detroit. Melody’s story expands the struggle for civil
rights into the north. She grapples with the difference between the legalized segregation her relatives
face in the South and the more subtle but equally pervasive discrimination. She and her family
encounter in the urban north. Her story also reframes the civil rights struggle to
include not only personal acts of prejudice, but more systemic oppression as well, like
racist real estate practices that keep her family out of certain neighborhoods. Nor does the story
shy away from the frightening violence of the civil rights era, when the 1963 bombing
in Birmingham, Alabama, kills four young girls close to Melody’s age. She is so horrified
that she is unable to speak for several days. Ultimately, she learns to overcome
her fear and keep fighting a reminder that the bravery of all kinds of ordinary people was
what made the movement so powerful. At the same time, the books provide the reader with a sort
of community organizing one to one as Melody learns about different ways that a community might mobilize
in response to oppression, she is inspired by the words of Dr. King and the boycotts in the South.
But she’s equally moved by the activism happening on the ground in her hometown. She participates
in a local march and she starts a junior block club to help restore her neighborhood playground, a
project which ultimately teaches her how to level the power of public outrage against an apathetic city
council. And she experiments with financial activism, too. When her sister is refused
a job at the local bank because of the color of her skin, Melodie withdraws her money. Her
mother approves, saying, you know, your daddy says voting is a way to speak up for what we believe.
Money has a voice to what we do with it says a lot about what we believe.
But before we determine whether or not Melodee is a radical toy, maybe we should also consider the
actual doll like other American girl dolls. Melody is an 18 inch doll with
a soft body, possible’ arms and legs and long hair. She comes wearing what the American
Girl catalog describes as an authentic 1964 outfit featuring a bright
A-line dress and a headband for her hair. Melody’s other accessories, a felt hat with
ribbon trim, a patent purse, cattai sunglasses and a civil rights campaign button are available for purchase
to. As this description suggests, a lot of the fun of melody,
like most American Girl Dolls, comes from her outfits and accessories. You can buy her fancy floral
dress, her Christmas outfit, her play outfit, her story, pajamas and even her pet dog,
Bo. These accessories and outfits correspond to descriptions of melody
from the books. In fact, for the right price, girls can bring whole scenes from the novels to life.
In the second book, for example. Melody helps her brother, an aspiring Motown singer, record a song
in the studio. Little girls can recreate this whole scene with the purchase of a full recording
studio with headphones, a music stand and even a working microphone.
The scenes of Melody’s activism, though, are largely absent from the Web site and catalog.
You can purchase her equal rights and 63 pen, but that’s about it. No posters
from the march where Melodee sees Dr. King speak or signs from the picket lines she joins.
Likewise, the most challenging scenes from the book don’t translate easily into the language of outfits
and accessories. You can’t take the moment when a racist store owner accuses Melodee of shoplifting
and boil it down into a series of cute miniatures for purchase. This isn’t just a problem
for Melody. In general, the complex issues tackled in the American Girl books have never been
fully represented and the accessories available for purchase. And maybe that’s understandable.
Maybe it would trivialize Melody’s activism to turn her protest sign into a trinket to buy on
par with a sparkly headband or a set of pajamas. Nevertheless, it means that the dolls
encourage a kind of play that is decidedly tamer than the storylines represented in the books.
A girl inspired by the melody novels might take her doll and stage a protest, or imagine joining a
march. But that’s not what the catalog encourages or makes it easy for girls to do.
And of course, all of this play requires buying the doll in the first place, which will cost you one hundred
and fifteen dollars. And that’s just for the doll. Melody’s fancy winter coat is an additional
$34. And if you want her travel essentials, a suitcase filled with a towel and toiletries,
that will be 48. That recording studio, a whopping two hundred and fifty dollars.
In 2013, the Huffington Post ran a response to aini Scheller and her critique of American girls
lost radicalism. The article points out that the radicalism of American girl dolls
has always been limited, relegated safely to the past, undercut by the company’s
emphasis on consumerism and circumscribed by the limited audience that can afford to purchase
such an expensive toy. I have fond memories of my American girl doll. The author concludes.
But really, how radical is a one hundred and five dollar doll that only brings history alive for the elite?
The price has only gone up since 2013. And the question remains relevant. The
irony of debuting such an expensive doll in a city that recently declared bankruptcy is apparently
not lost on American Girl. In 2016, the company announced a donation of one hundred
and seventy five thousand dollars and dolls, books and money to Detroit public libraries. They
also announced that a free Melodee book would be available to any girl in Detroit who wanted one.
That’s a big step for the company, but what would be really radical is changing who has access
to a doll like Melody to begin with. And that’s exactly the kind of systemic overhaul
that a character like Melody might like fighting for.
This has been Death A numbers, a podcast created and produced by the Humanities Media Project and the College
of Liberal Arts at U.T. Austin and Liberal Arts Instructional Technology Services.
I’m Caroline Pinkston. Notes for the show, including links and photos can be found on our website. Humanity’s
media project Dawg I Themusic as enthusiast by Tourre’s. Thank you for listening.