There's nothing quite like the grip American Girl dolls had on Millennials during the mid-1990s and early 2000s.
Created in 1986 by the Pleasant Company, American Girl dolls were meant to model positive core values with dolls that resembled young women from various time periods across American history and different favorite hobbies, like horseback riding and cheerleading.
These dolls each shared a sweet, expressive face with bright, somewhat realistic eyes, and their figures resembled that of a young girl before reaching puberty. Because most of these dolls were "period pieces," they wore more conservative and modest outfits, showing very little of their bodies.
Each doll also came with a storybook about their life, their hobbies, and the time period from which they came, giving these dolls a special, educational edge.
Now, to celebrate 40 years in business, American Girl dolls now include a new "Modern Era" series.
Each of these is noticeably different from its predecessor, as they are shorter in height and noticeably thinner. Their heads are smaller and rounder, while their eyes are much more pronounced and jarring to look at. They also each wear currently popular clothing, most of them in short skirts.
The description for the Modern Era dolls reads:
"Discover the Modern Era Collection of 14.5-inch dolls and fashions."
"Felicity, Addy, Molly, Kirsten, Samantha, and Josefina reimagined for today."
Each doll is $90, with additional clothes and accessories sold separately.
It's unclear if the Pleasant Company intends to go in a new direction and create all "modern" dolls now, but fans of the original dolls were not happy about their new look.
From the shift to more revealing clothing to the dramatic body proportion changes, this new line of "Modern Era" dolls feels like it could easily devolve into body-shaming, fat-shaming, sexualization of increasingly younger women and girls. And all of these dolls look like they could easily exist in the same "clique" at their local school.
This seems like an unnecessary deviation from the original American Girl doll and the values and storytelling that were paired with them, especially when there are plenty of other dolls with no history or individuality.














@actingliketommy/X
@bunchofnbrs1235/X
@hartz_mike/X
@heraskevych/X
