60 min listen
Doll Play, Part 3: Packaging the Past with American Girl
Doll Play, Part 3: Packaging the Past with American Girl
ratings:
Length:
63 minutes
Released:
Aug 12, 2022
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
In the final installment of Ellie and Carrie's "doll play" trilogy, the sisters discuss the American Girl doll line, from its Pleasant Company origins in the pages of mail-order catalogues to its transformation, with the help of Mattel, into a consumerist behemoth of popcorn machines, solipsistic look-like-me dolls and other forms of late-capitalist foolishness. They focus on "Selling Multicultural Girlhood: The American Girl Doll, 1986 to Present," the final chapter of Molly Rosner's 2021 book Playing With History: American Identities and Children's Consumer Culture. As "didactic amusements", how do the American Girls' narratives distort and flatten the nuances of American history? How do they contribute and enrich American historiography, especially for young girls? Other works cited include Molly Brookfield's on American Girl Doll play and nostalgia, John Berger's Ways of Seeing (as always), Edmund Morgan's American Slavery, American Freedom, and Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States.
Released:
Aug 12, 2022
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (26)
Proximity to Fame & Fame by Proxy (Part 1) by All Each Other Has