The Politics of Playtime -- fundies tripping over American Girl

[apnu]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9937614/site/newsweek/

The Politics of Playtime
A grass-roots revolt against American Girl dolls gathers steam.

By Susannah Meadows
Newsweek

Nov. 14, 2005 issue - Tracie and Richard Cross have four daughters, who have seven American Girl dolls between them. Every time a new American Girl catalog arrives at their Ft. Worth, Texas, home, the girls fight over who gets it first. Last Christmas their dad gave them wooden beds he'd made for the dolls. The girls adore them, but their parents, like so many other conservative Christians, love them, too. Unlike curvaceous Barbie or the tarted-up Bratz dolls, an American Girl doll, which comes with a whole book about who she is and the period of American history she hails from, teaches wholesome values. A few weeks ago Tracie read on the company's Web site that it was donating $50,000 and proceeds from its I CAN bracelet to Girls Inc., which sounded like the kind of nice thing American Girl would do. But when she clicked on www.girlsinc.org, Tracie was crushed to find an endorsement of Roe v. Wade and language supportive of homosexuals. It struck her that politics had invaded playtime. "I feel like there's nowhere safe," says Tracie, who has vowed not to buy anything from American Girl as long as it's affiliated with Girls Inc. "I have to have a clear conscience."

By the time Tracie told her girlfriends about the Girls Inc. link at the high-school football game, a tempest was brewing among other conservative Christians around the country. Last week the outrage had spilled onto a half-dozen Christian Web sites—including James Dobson's influential Focus on the Family site—and set off an explosion of mom-to-mom e-mails. "Girls Inc.," one mother warned, "is pro-abortion and pro-contraception and pro all the other lies the secular world wants our girls to believe." Roman Catholic schools in Brookfield, Wis., and St. Louis canceled American Girl fashion shows, where girls were to dress up like their dolls. And the Pro-Life Action League of Chicago called for a boycott of American Girl, which is owned by Mattel. The group is also planning a demonstration outside the Chicago store on the day after Thanksgiving. Though the league has requested that members leave their graphic signs at home, some are vowing to show up with them anyway.

(more...)

I, personally, don't like American Girl. I don't like the gender pushing they do on little girls, and I don't like the white wash education in the little books that go along with the doll. Having said that, I love it when fundies feed on "classic" conservative icons like American Girl.

:popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:

[phantom power]

1. As usual, they aren't really offended that "politics has invaded...

playtime." What they're offended by is that it's politics they don't agree with.

If that website had linked to some anti-abortion language, they wouldn't be crying about how "politics has invaded playtime," even though that would be just as political.

[apnu]

2. oh yeah, you can smell the hypocrisy from here.

These are the same dunderheads who get all bent because a couple of homosexuals in MA want to get married. Like that really effects them in whatever backwater hole they are squatting in.

I try, I really try hard to give these people the benefit of the doubt, but I can't stand ignorance. Where I find it I feel compelled to stamp it out. Where I can't stamp it out I have to ridicule it -- that's the only way I stay sane around here.