Technologized Gender Becoming: An American Girl (Doll) Story

• In Event: Technologies of Becoming in the Gendered Spaces of Consumerism

Abstract

Drawing from DeCerteau’s concept of experience of everyday life, this paper analyzes several notable and successful American Girl products, concepts, and campaigns and discusses a radical change in levels of the gendered agency, social interaction, and buyer responsibility embedded in the American Girl “experience”: If the original American Girl featured premade historical characters coupled with drab period dress and books depicting diverse issues such as women’s suffrage or classism and attempted to introduce young girls to history and different viewpoints, the modern American Girl has customized its message: buy and become you -- by “follow[ing] your inner star” (the company’s slogan).

Analyzing the search for “inner star,” the author draws parallels between the selectivity of consumerist gender identity of the purchaser and Foucault’s idea of technology of the self, which serves as a mechanism employed by individuals and society that perpetuates the public consumption of and regulation of individuality. Now resembling the owner in every way, from hairstyles to real life social functions, like Facebook and dental checkups, the American Girl offers a relationship that extends beyond silly doll play and playing house in the bedroom. Sold as an intricate pallet of gender roles, social norms, and social responsibilities, the American Girl “experience” no longer invites the owners to project their identity on a fictional or historic character to understand real-world experiences outside their own, but, rather, calls to use the reality-rooted doll to join, partially create, and live a self-centered fantasy, woven with social becoming and consumerism.

Author

• Sergey Rybas, Capital U