Always Home and Uncool

A recent win­ner nom­i­nated Kevin, author of Always Home and Uncool.

The post nom­i­nated was pub­lished May 6, 2008, titled You Go, Amer­i­can Girl. Go Now.

Kevin is the father of a daugh­ter and son, but Kevin’s win­ning rant is about his daugh­ter, her future, fem­i­nism, and Bar­bie Dolls. Well, the dolls are both polit­i­cally incor­rect and can encour­age bulimia and anorexia.

Kevin describes him­self: “I’m a work-at-home, Gen-X dad who has been rockin’ the sub­urbs my whole life long. The cast includes My Love (the glo­be­trot­ting, exec­u­tive god­dess), Thing 1 (the Han­nah Mon­tana wannabe daugh­ter), Thing 2 (the sweet-or-sour son) and Murphy’s Happy Recap (the faith­ful canine companion).”

But this is all about his daugh­ter and this new line of polit­i­cally cor­rect dolls called Amer­i­can Girls. He explains: “For those with­out lit­tle girls or good credit lines, Amer­i­can Girl dolls were cre­ated by a mid-Western woman who wanted a bet­ter line of role mod­els for girls than the boda­cious air­line host­ess Bar­bie dolls of her day. She suc­ceeded. She suc­ceeded so well, she sold the com­pany in 1998 for $700 mil­lion … to Barbie’s maker, Mat­tel. Now the woman, Pleas­ant Row­land, is tak­ing her money and essen­tially remak­ing Aurora, N.Y., in her own Amer­i­can Girl image, much to the dis­plea­sure of some of the natives.”

The point is well taken. Could they offer up a doll and acces­sory line at a bet­ter price and more consumer-friendly atti­tude? No. Kevin states, “But, being in the Land of the Free Enter­prise Sys­tem, they tie all that whole­some­ness into sell­ing you not just the dolls at 90 bucks a pop but also the doll’s acces­sories (Own the slave girl doll’s bird in a cage for $18! Buy the hip­pie chick doll’s pic­nic gear for camp­ing out to watch bald eagles for $48!), life-size clothes for your girls that look like the dolls’ clothes, and more.”

We are not sure that all the prob­lems of young girls attach­ing their self-image and worth on the skinny mod­els they see on the inter­net or on tele­vi­sion are solved. Or, as this post illus­trates, the dolls the girls grew up with. But we know for a fact that a lot of young women’s eat­ing dis­or­ders are estab­lished in this entire process. A lot of thought here, and a great dia­logue is begun. The Ris­ing Blog­ger is proud to award Kevin our Post of the Day Award!

Review by Bud Weiser.

Tech­no­rati Tags: Post of the Day Award, The Ris­ing Blogger

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