![Promotional image of Courtney Moore at the Mall.]() |
| Let's go to the mall! |
Time Keeps On Slipping Into The Future.1 It's Black History Month, pay reparations on my soul.
It was just thirteen scant years ago that the announcement came down the pipeline for the newest American Girl Historical Doll to be released in five years, with the most recent being Kaya pushing Felicity off her horse and letting the AG world know she and other Indigenous Americans were here first, redhead, now get in the archival vault. And the speculation was all over what era would be picked. Would she be of the 1920s? The 1830s? Maybe they'd finally stick someone between Addy and Samantha, since we'd kinda skipped forty years of history there and clothes and culture had changed a lot, even if black people were all living in our underground bunkers until the Civil Rights Movement.
Nope, none of that was correct. Instead the new girl was going to be from the far flung era of...
The 1970s. The historical era of bell-bottoms, disco, President Ford, avocado colored interior design, and fondue. Her name was Julie Albright, she had long blonde hair and brown eyes, she liked the Brady Bunch and basketball, she lived in San Francisco--our first Californian Historical--and her parents were recently divorced.2
Now I hadn't been in the fandom very long--and the only place there was any fandom outside of AG Over 18 was AG Fans (from which I'd been banned for rampant public paganism) or AGPT--and that mess I still need to go in on, how the mighty fall like a Fall Out Boy song--but the reaction was, from the more middle aged sectors of the fandom? Melodramatic flailing.
"How dare American Girl say my childhood is historical! It wasn't that long ago!" was the outcry from quite a few women--mostly white--who had been celebrating the anniversary of turning twenty-nine for the past decade or so and had forgotten how to count. Those that weren't clutching pearls over having to realize they (as late boomers/Early Gen X) were way above their dirty thirties and had been kids nearly forty years ago were instead running around in circles and fainting in the pews, because Julie's parents had committed the awful sin of ending their marriage and American Girl was daring to endorse/condone/promote the breakup of good marriages and stable homes. You know how Kira B.'s books were controversial over women marrying women? Yeah it was kinda like that. We had the same levels of outcry from the homeschooling conservative ladies who were terrified of their eight year olds learning about poor people, over the portrayal of women daring to seek no-fault divorce instead of remaining miserable housewives. Women ain't supposed to do anything but take pills and stay married to shitty men that treat them badly, I guess. Karens gonna Karen, Beckys gonna Becky, and conservatives are going to whine that we're destroying the family and all of America by daring to let a woman have a right or something.
Yet, among all the lamentations, weeping and gnashing of teeth, and the rending of calico peasant dresses, marriage certificates, and Have a Nice Day shirts from Nice Old White Ladies, Julie--and Ivy, the superior Julie--came out Fall 2007 with much fanfare, six illustrated books, and quite a few outfits and accessories. The predictions failed and her release did not suddenly turn people who were ten in the seventies into dust when they had to explain to their own target-aged kids about the US Bicentennial, Title X, the 1976 Election and record players. AG Life went on, and after Julie came Rebecca, Caroline, Marie-Grace and Cécile, a lot of retirements, characters out of the vault, the start of BeForever, Maryellen, Melody, Nanea, the end of BeForever, this blog, and a whole slew of white Girls of the Year.
And in February 2020, American Girl announced that they would release a new historical character from the newly minted vintage era of...
The 1980s. Historical era of Care Bears, Rainbow Brite, My Little Pony, wanting your MTV, VCRs being stupid expensive, Walkmans, designer jeans, Cabbage Patch Kids, President Reagan--the second worst president that's ever been president in my lifetime--and hanging out at the malls and watching Saturday Morning Cartoons. Because it was that or go outside, and outside didn't have air conditioning and Nickelodeon.
And as the news came down the pipeline that American Girl had declared another generation "historical" everyone looked at the fully Gen Ex kids and waited to see how we'd react.
We rejoiced. At least, in my corners. I'm sure somewhere online, a collector fell face down on her bed and cried into the body of her lopsided Kirsten doll with the uncombed hair and shitty hair loops because American Girl was stating the 1980s was now historical and she believed American Girl history should remain firmly before 1940, as it was when Saint Pleasant was still in charge of the company and everything was made of balsa wood and glass but Samantha and Molly's shoes still sucked and Felicity's books wouldn't say outright that Rose and Marcus were enslaved so folk could say deadass to my face that they were just "hired servants." But I haven't been on AGPT in over a decade now and I don't let people who suck that hard around me unless they want to get bodied.
Anyways. I rejoiced.
My friends and I in that late X early Mill chunk were hype for the news. Unlike the 70s kids who'd been swooning over the fact AG had slapped their asses with the history label, a good portion of us were excited to be folded into the canon of a company we'd known about since we were kids. Many of us had been right around that target age of eight to twelve when American Girl launched with three dolls and required mail ins and calling and $85 for a doll was asking for a lot so no, we did not get the West Germans. Many of us didn't get our first dolls until we were older--if not fully grown--but we cherished our gangs and had memories of pouring over the catalogs and hoping for tiny doll plates. We put on Whitney Houston and Prince and Debbie Gibson and A-ha and talked back and forth about our childhoods in excited voices as we pictured tiny Trapper Keepers, acid wash jeans that zipped at the ankles, scrunchies for days, side ponytails and Get in Shape Girl leg warmers--and we were hot to be here for every neon poisoned, acid wash, Swatch Watch minute of it.
And we pretty much got it.
Baby Boomers in 2007: nooooo the 70s isn't history nooooooooooo you can't say we're old nooooooooooooooooooo
GenX in 2020: hehehe courtney go beep boop
I'd long ago created Kimmy Kim and her best friend Tyanna Lewis as my representatives of the 1980s, because the fact is that history and historical events keep popping off every day.3 And Courtney--in all her Valley Girl Southern Cali glory--was going to join them as part of the AGGiRL on day one. As more pictures of Courtney and her collection came out and more information leaked, I just kept here and there bouncing in my seat and going "dolly play the Pac-Man" because dolly indeed, play the Pac-Man. She had curly blonde hair--mistaken for red early on, because lighting was off--and blue eyes--mistaken for hazel, same lighting off--and was wearing leggings and ankle boots and acid wash skirts.
My body was ready and my wallet was squeaking.
![Image of my three 1980s characters. L to R: Tyanna Lewis, Courtney Moore, and Kimmy Kim.]() |
The AG Brat Pack. L to R: Tyanna, Courtney, and Kimmy.
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Courtney Moore launched on the website about a month before my birthday, and Bae--who buys me one AG doll like, every half decade at most and the rest of the time tells me "I love you but I can't tell your dolls apart, honey, I'd probably buy you a double of something you already have"-- gave me a shopping limit, an upgrade to two-day shipping in place of paying for ear piercing since I owned a power drill so she'd be here in two days, and an "I love you, this is your Big Birthday Thing" since we didn't get to do what I wanted on my birthday anyways and I was hitting a big birthday milestone and there was a pandemic out there that'd been ruining my entire year since March. She got here that Friday and I was up for the FedEx delivery and took pics of her arriving like I had with Edith and DeeDee four years prior, meeting the girls like her already here and they formed the AG Brat Pack even though I haven't actually watched The Breakfast Club.
Step 1: Courtney's Collection
Step 2: Joy
When AG Seattle4 put things out in the store the weekend of the 26th, I went, got the giveaway extras--a scrunchie and some crafts5--and got even more of her collection then. In fact, there's not a lot of her smaller stuff I don't own, and that's more of a matter of balancing my desires for other things across the brand and things being constantly on back order. Or not ever arriving at AG Seattle, weep.
I love Courtney so much, guys. She's now in my top Ten Historical Characters. Maybe Top Five. There's kind of a Fog of War there in the middle. Maybe someday I'll do a proper ranking of Historicals and Why Neth Likes or Doesn't Like Them, and everyone can tell me why I really should appreciate Molly, you guys, because Nanea is a SJW promotion of a tiny part of American History that didn't apply to as many people as much as turnips and tap dancing. The shit I be reading with my own eyes. So in this post, we're going to cover her entire collection that's out now. Including the three new cute and fresh things that just came out recently, are already coded onto the Wiki because we work that fast--me and one of the content mods almost overlapped, we were so hype--and that I won't have personal pictures of until I place an order later in the month and wait two weeks for its arrival unless I want to pay a hit extra for two-day shipping.6
This post is probably one of my longest posts, right up there with my covering of the BeForever release in 2014. I, unlike some people in this fandom, know that on the internet we are made of words and don't show up cutting off my own fingers. There's no limit on how many letters we can use to type the whole word out instead of going "skskskkskss lol u say 2 much." I mean, character limits on Discord, but you can type twice! Even paragraphs! Boo boo, we gave up netspeak way back in the days of MySpace in the transition onto LiveJournal--but I'm pretty sure you weren't even potty trained when that was the hotness, if you were even so much as weaned. They don't even use that shit on Twitter and for years we only had 140 characters and could post via text message. In this thread I will--ahem.
Ahem. If you don't want to summon my death glare, keep your name out from behind your teeth. I've hexed people for less. I don't know why you keep trying to waste my time.
Are they gone? Good.
Get some snacks, yo. This is a double sided 90 minute cassette, with Side A about Nonsense in the Fandom and Side B about The Stuff. Moonwalk under the cut, and let's talk 80s, babies.
Including how I'm coming for everyone's necks today because these damn children have no idea how anything before 2000 worked.
Side A: Bitch, Bitch, Bitch, or Heinous 1980s Takes From Internet Infants
Before we get into the collection itself, let's talk about people who don't know shit about the 1980s because they don't even qualify as Millennials. Yes, collection--but it's been nearly a year of nonsense around my girl and I have a fucking lot to say. If you don't want to read me bitch about shit from the 1980s, you're on the wrong blog.
Yes, I'm talking about you, AG Fandom Zoomers/Gen Zers. And if you're about to say "okay, Boomer" dismissively, you should try again. I'm tail Gen X/first year Millennial, depending on if the chart counts my birth year at the end of one generation or the start of the other. There's no cusps in astrology but there are in generations, and I'm right on that shit. I am married to a Millennial, I've dated more Millennials than Gen X (though honestly, it's a mix) and a lot of people I know and are part of my life are Millennials. My big sisters? Solidly Gen X. My younger sister and brother? Definitely Millennial. Me? *Libra Sun hand wiggle* But I generally prefer to consider, if I must pick one side of the fence to fall on, declare myself Gen X. For several reasons, a few of which are listed here:
- I wasn't online more than sporadically until tenth grade, and not constantly until college. Internet didn't become available on a commercial basis until I was in high school, and we had computer labs that we went to as separate sections in the school. Hell, I still mostly used a computer lab in college since I didn't have my personal computer until the second half of my college life. It closed for twelve hours between Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.
- I learned to type, write, play, and do sporadic--but never invested, never was my thing--coding on an Apple ][e as a child. This was also the same computer I played lots of MECC games on, including Oregon Trail--that's what my micro-generation gets called a lot, the Oregon Trailers--and Number Munchers. That error sound plays in my head all the fucking time when shit goes wrong. My first video game system owned was an NES, with the first I ever played on at home an Atari 2600 and my first ever played anywhere an arcade that had Pac-Man and Karate Champ.
- I was out of college before the 2008 crash (but still ended up affected by layoffs later on).
- I was an entire adult when 9/11 happened.
- My first election was 2000. Oh my god was that a shitshow. Guess who's so happy that 2020 didn't end up close enough for the courts to get involved. I was having flashbacks.
- Technology changed a lot in my formative years from middle school to college. I remember when personal music switched from mostly albums to mostly cassette tapes to mostly CDs and onward to MP3 players and now Spotify. I have felt the pain of hearing a good song on the radio, buying the whole tape, and going "oh, that was the only good song on that entire album." I can tell you my first ever owned tape I paid my own money for--Totally Krossed Out--and first ever owned CD--Dangerous. I had a boombox with a dual tape deck and made my own mix tapes.
- I was of sound age and coherence when the Simpsons debuted, and many of their Gen X jokes during the Golden Years of Seasons 2-12 apply to me.7
Everyone keeps skipping over us. Politically, socially, economically, in battles of generations, etc. Gen X are those neglected middle kids that constantly get overlooked while the media spits back and forth between our parents/older siblings and our younger siblings. But it's okay, fine, I guess. Our generation is literally defined by being left out, so yeah. We'll just take care of ourselves like usual, we're latch key kids anyways. We'll just make our own after-school snacks and eat them watching the countdown on VH1 while you two fight back and forth about who's destroying what this week. I know the noise a virtual dying duck makes when it plummets to the ground, remember when Disney Channel was a premium channel you only got a preview for four times a year for about two weeks and the movies were going through some shit, and my first streets were Sesame and my first Neighborhood was Mr. Rogers. I'm the Stephanie between DJ and Michelle Tanner. If you're going to insult me and what I know about Courtney's era, the least you could do is do it properly.
I digress. In the time between Courtney being naught but a silhouette in a Mattel shareholders public meeting and being a whole collection to buy and post articles about on Oprah Magazine about how we really do love a good arcade cabinet and remember She-Ra the first time, no less than five bad takes came across the pipeline in this fandom. I'm narrowing it down to that many, at least. And since this is the post about Courtney, I'm going to bitch about them. This is why I'm tired of the youth--and yes, I'm now of the age that I can say I'm tired of the youth. I've been saying that for like four years now. Y'all need to get y'all's shit together. Take me on.
Track One: Your Music Playlists About The 1980s Are Bad (and You Should Feel Bad)
![The boombox scene from the movie "Say Anything."]() |
This isn't playing Carly Rae Jepsen, you microwave potato.
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Go ahead and pop on the Spotify playlist of Music Courtney Moore Would Actually Listen To for the duration of this entire post. It's twenty-four hours long and afterwards you can pull up more slick 80s tunes. My bestie Boom--who is damn near the exact same age as Courtney--made this list, and many of us in my group have contributed to it. It covers a good chunk of the 1980s8 and is not very far past 1988. A couple 1989 songs. Look we wanted Rhythm Nation. That shit rocks. And most importantly, it is a lot more accurate than the horseshit we saw in this fandom and wanted to square up about the moment we had to stare at it.
Look. You might be "vibing" to whatever recent Broadway OST or 2010s artist you've hyperfixated on this week. And fine, if you're going to do that, do it. Music can be good across generations. But unless that shit came out in the actual 1980s, it is not what would Courtney would have actually listened to in her era. It's just what you think about rattling in your skull right now. A little hat tip from a person who remembers listening to Thriller right after it released: an artist being born in the 80s does not qualify a person as an 80s musical artist, no matter how many times you think it does or slap that 1989 album or the other one that dropped this summer during the pandemic on on the playlist next to some Tangled and Dear Evan Hansen shit. You're terminally attached to the internet, the least you could do is Google what music actually came out in the 1980s and realize that Willenium doesn't qualify and you want He's the DJ, I'm the Rapper. Her books state Madonna and Whitney Houston, and you're over here putting some shit on from the Home movie soundtrack and Wreck it Ralph.
Oh no baby what is you doing??? And I thought seeing that Addy's "Playlist" has Christina Aguilera and songs from the live The Wiz--not even the 1970s OST--on it was going to be where I woke up and chose violence today. Fuck's sake, children.
If you're crowdsourcing your music about an era from people who were born when the year started with a 2? Then y'all probably don't know the 1980s unless you've actually been doing something like a research--and for all that of Gen Z being terminally online, you Gen Zs don't like to listen to your elders. At least my excuse for not listening to my queer elders were that way too many of them were dead or dying. This isn't my first pandemic the government looked away from because the "right" people were being affected in the administration's eyes and they made human health a political game.
Here I am writing a book set in the 1990s--a time I remember quite well--and going "it sucks I can't use this song for the birthday party set in March '97 since the song wasn't out til Dec '97, guess I'll get over it and find another party song" and these fucking infants are going "TAYLOR SWIFT AND THE WICKED OST IS BIG MID-1980S VIBES."I'm going to be your Sledgehammerand beat down this bad take.
*bonk* go to horny bad music jail.
If you are going to do an 1980s Playlist, do it right or don't do it at all. Pick better music. Accurate era music. Listen to something that came out before you started gestating while I was still in high school. Taylor Swift and Beyonce on a 1980s playlist makes about as much sense as putting the Weeknd or Dua Lipa on it unless they're doing an eighties cover. And I remember when Destiny's Child had four members.
Like what you want, I don't give a shit, I actually unironically listen to Fall Out Boy and Spice Girls. I have looped Hamilton for three weeks--but I wouldn't put "Yorktown" on a Felicity playlist.
If you are claiming to make a "1980s vibes" playlist and what you like to put on there came out after 1992 what you like isn't 80s vibes. I've giving you a three year buffer and you're still fucking it up.
Track Two: We All Want AG to Embrace Diversity, But Your Black-and-White Takes Are Stupid
When the rumors that we were getting an 80s doll started popping up in late 2019, there were hopes she'd be black or Asian American. We didn't have a name or an appearance, just an era, and so all the hopes flew around. Shit, even I was hoping for a black or Asian American. Melody was holding all of the Blackness--other than Addy, who'd been cubed--and Ivy, the only Asian Historical We'd Ever Had, hadn't even gotten pajamas in her collection. The 1980s would have been a good era to cover either one of those angles. Hence, you know, Kimmy and Tyanna.
Then the silhouette popped up and I saw those 80s perm-like curls and said "okay, let's see how they make me like this white girl." More on hair textures in a tick. Then in June, images of her books and the doll leaked from a red-tinted Facebook post from someone not realizing she hadn't been released and offering her for sale, and I said "son of a bitch, they did it, she has video games!" and started to make a checklist of what I wanted to get for my birthday as more and more came out.
On the obverse, way too many people started shitting the bed with bad race takes.
Yes, she's white. She's a Classic Molded, Blue Eyed, White Girl from Cali. Was I exactly super geeked over that upon the initial reveals? No. I hella get people being disappointed by her appearance. Before we saw her silhouette, I wanted her to be a doll of color as well. But she's not, she never was, and we got what we got. Her being biracial or Asian was less rumor and more hopeful fabrications. I got over it. And I didn't and still don't begrudge anyone who saw her and went "I'm going to steal Courtney's clothes and put them on a DoC/Black Doll and write my own stories, what the deuce AG." Aisha exists as my 1970s girl for a reason.
But oh my gods, the level of bad takes. I'd rather bitch about the shitty music takes. At least those don't involve faux concern about diversity while shouting over people of color and our white allies in the fandom who've been doing this work in AG for years and still embraced Courtney.
The disappointment and upset of Courtney being revealed as white is a fair take. I'm not even going to argue that point. It's legit.
But the mere idea that anyone who came around or chose to be excited or happy for her anyways, and even wished to seek to add her--or her components--to their collections at all being seen as "proof" that those people "clearly"don't support diversity whatsoever is not only not anywhere in the same continent as a fair take, it's dumb as shit.
The goddamn fucking audacity of the sub-30s in this fandom who went around on Tumblr and Instagram yelling at the Gen-Xers that being any level of hype for Courtney instead of slapping on fake woke points meant that those collectors "don't really support diversity in American Girl" was present like a shit-filled diaper in a packed elevator. Just out there with they whole chest in front of my salad, saying "any support of Courtney means you should take Black Lives Matter off your profile because you're a hypocrite." And when folk who have been in this fandom for a long time said "well having a white girl for this era this isn't exactly great, but it's what it is, we like her on some level" spoke up, we got told, and I nearly quote?
"Liking Courtney or her collection at all invalidates any DoC support, and you pointing out you're black and have supported DoC to the point of creating popular tags asking for diversity isn't enough if you get [Courtney] at all and you're just justifying your lack of care, unlike us who are more enlightened and are truly
for social justice. "Wow. One even said without a hint of self awareness, "I'm not a kid, I'm 26, I know race better than you ever could, and you're just justifying your lack of care for Blackness and never cared about doll diversity ever."
Not even a hint of nuance. They were out here going "You either care about black dolls XOR9you care about Courtney and not black people at all and are an unrepentant racist" and any shades of grey got a triple down on that shit. I know those books are a bad take on BDSM but fuck's sake, children. I made a slight effort on Tumblr to explain anything when I thought someone might listen, but the fandom there has become dominated by people who weren't even a fetus when I got to put "-teen" after my age and they've been dragging their takes straight out the garbage disposal since 2015. Out here with big vibes of:
AG Tumblr/AGIG: we need to listen to black collectors in the wake of the BLM 2020 Protests and care about them, they aren't being heard--
Me, a person who's been getting shit in this fandom since for speaking up for Black Collectors and Representation the whole time: I know AG could and should do better, and they've said they will, but wanting and caring for what Courtney represents doesn't invalidate the work for diversity in AG. We can do both--
AG Tumblr/AGIG: no not like that. you probably just want Courtney to smother your guilt over not wanting black dolls to be released. *shoves me aside into a wall* now like we were saying before that annoying old bitch opened her mouth, we need to listen to the voices of black collectors and support them--
"We need to listen to Black collectors" but "we won't listen to collectors that tell us we might be wrong if we can be Brighter Blessed Than Thee on Race Now."
And to me, of all people.
I have a large 18" doll collection. I have fifty-plus dolls of various brands--but dominantly AG--that either are black by canon story or I created as partially to wholly black. I did this in part because I never had a doll like me growing up with AG, considering I was a completely-not-technically teenager when Addy was released as the first Doll of Color and was the only black doll from the company for eighteen years. I've been pushing for diversity on this blog alone since 2015 when I wrote the post #AGDoCGotY: Because Representation in AG Lines Matter (still the post on the top of my blog) and before that in late 2009 when we got images of Lanie and I was like "for fuck's sake, AG, this makes how many white girls in a row?!" Shit, I've been in the trenches speaking out about the problems in Fandom since 2006 when my actions in speaking for my faith got me banned from the only message board at the time for AG.
People can be upset. But when they turn around and snipe that me and mine ain't as woke as them for being happy our early childhood is now in the AG canon, when they say me and mine don't support diversity, when they say things like "she's sick and bitter and old, why is she in the fandom anyways, she shouldn't say anything to us because we're doing the work" when I have the receipts of the work I've done for over a decade? If y'all are refusing to listen to anyone who's been doing the work out here for a long time, including me—a prominent collector and blogger who's been talking about AG's racism for years even when it served me nothing but hate as recently as the Before Times of 202010--because I dared say "I like Courtney and feel that, even with her being a white girl, she is going to represent my childhood and so I want her in my collection"? Especially to my ass?!
Yeah, nah. Fake Woke Shit, bitches.
You're listening to nothing but your own dumb shit, acting like you're somehow the new and sole arbiters of who really cares about diversity and who doesn't, treating it as though it's a zero sum game and we haven't learned for longer than some of y'all have been a double digit age how to deal with balancing AG desires verses diversity since the mid-Aughties. It’s an extremely stupid point of view to say that buying anything Courtney means you hate diversity. I have every right to be sick and pissed at the people misusing social justice terms in this fandom to get socially woke points and in the same breath call me and many others not woke enough or say "they don't care about diversity" for being excited about it being our turn in line, even if our turn is a white girl.
In this house we stan DoC and Courtney too, because we don't do fake woke points on Tumblr.
Track Three Interlude: Full Blown Doll Conspiracy, and Do You Know How Anything Being Made Works?
But if it was just "ew, white girl" I'd be done with this point, and I'm not. Because there was an even worse take. Strap in.
See, several people claimed that the images of the doll we were seeing weren't the real doll at all. The first images that came out were from someone not realizing they had an unreleased doll and trying to sell her on Facebook, then realizing "whoops" and pulling the shots down. They weren't clearly taken, the doll was in the box, and there was a red tint over them from poor lighting. So Courtney looked a lot like Maryellen. Like, a whole lot. I still have the images somewhere around here on my phone, trying to focus so not pulling then up, but they really did look like she had reddish hair and greenish eyes. And coupled with the Classic mold, it gave off big Ellie vibes. This was later clarified with better shots but until it was?
In a full blown conspiracy, people in the fandom started saying "this doll is to throw us off the path of what the real doll looks like! She's really a black/Asian doll with curls! This is but a fake shop!" People were claiming that the French translation errors on the accessories box or the doll's images in the box not matching the company's well-posed and polished silhouette or the book having no author on the cover11 were tip offs, and that all these little "tells" were proof that someone in the company or on the internet had decided to redress their Ellie with handmade clothes and made a perfectly shopped matching book cover just to fuck with us, the collectors, and the real collection would change to something accurate to 1980s as determined by a half watched play of Top Gun and a TikTok from someone born in 2002. That AG had sent that doll out to throw us off the path to the real doll.
....y'all just be getting on the internet and saying anything. People gave themselves these wild ideas and then when things didn't meet their expectations based on their own ideas they had entire fail meltdowns and the wackest takes.
The most egregious was this absolute lubricated brained child who, when all her hopes and dreams for the doll were not in fact tweaked by later information from American Girl themselves, said something along the lines of "they should pull a Sonic the Hedgehog change after seeing the feedback and outcry in the wake of stating they were going to embrace diversity and redo the entire doll into something else like a black character or an East Asian one. They have two months to fix it. That's enough time. They just need to give up releasing the doll for the holiday season and take the loss rather than release a failed doll."
Baby Jesus goddamn Christ as a chicken wing.12
![Meme: "That's not how this works, that's not how any of this works."]() |
That's not how any of this ever worked.
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Do you know how manufacturing works? That Courtney was in design long before many of the people in this fandom claimed even to care about diversity in June 2020, and that AG generally spends years designing every character and their collection and Historical Characters can take up to three years or more? That by the time we saw a leak at the end of June, hundreds of thousands of the dolls, books, clothes, and accessories were already on boats across the Pacific and in warehouses ready to be packaged for day-one shipping the very moment AG hit publish on the site?
Do you, Nutpea Brain, think AG can just--on some upset feedback on social media--unbox all the things, redo an entire doll, redo all the illustrations and texts to re-describe them into whatever your little peanut brain imagined, and then--I dunno, store the now-useless heads in a warehouse something like the Indiana Jones vault until they decided to make a new doll for Girl of the Year with that appearance? Or just click and redo all the old designs like the doll is a digital movie? And then just eat the costs of the entire redo of a doll at the last minute they've sunk that much work into? Sitting here in Galaxy Brain takes of "cancel the whole release RIGHT NOW AG can afford to lose money on it and redo the product."
Haven’t we already had the last minute pivot to create a DOC before because AG went into panic mode (*cough Gabby cough*) and it was panned across many as a disastrous rush job and the fandom all said "this is trash, we won't support it, we want real creations of DoC and not a Truly Me pulled from the line and redressed!"? Gabby had the collectors left right and center falling all over each other to be the loudest to say "SHE'S JUST A REDRESSED 46 DON'T BUY HER SEND A MESSAGE TO AG!" even as many black people were going "this is clearly a pivot from the NBC callout but you know what we'll fucking take it"--and now the new fandom thing in the rush post the nation realizing the wind is shifting towards support for BLM (which has been a thing for like 7 years now, not just since the most recent extrajudicial executions), is "WE NEED A PIVOT, AG NEEDS TO SEND A MESSAGE AND REDO EVERYTHING COURTNEY RIGHT NOW WITH TWO MONTHS UNTIL RELEASE" while many black people and other PoC were going "getting another white girl in the historical line up ain't great but you know what we'll fucking take it."
Dragged if you do, Dragged if you don't. Goldfish out here like "damn, y'all ain't got no memory, couldn't be me." Courtney was already done in manufacturing when the protests were going down, we do what we must because we can.
We're watching them taking AG stores to the farms upstate where they can run and play in droves because the company took hard losses on their unpopular choices on underpants and eyeballs, eating what had to be thousands if not millions in product to tamper down bad publicity, and this I Am Very Intelligent child thought they could and should just toss an entire character and ditch millions in product at the last minute at the last second because she saw a Classic Mold with blue eyes and got upset.
I know I've said this more than once already on this post and I haven't even gotten to a single Caboodle or cassette tape, but fuck's sake, children.
There was no goddamn way AG was going to pivot to the Blasian Stranger Things inspired doll your febrile brain stewed up in two months a la Sonic Movie Redo Style because you were sad that Courtney was white and likes Care Bears. The Courtney leaks weren't a false flag, a psyop, a redressed Maryellen with a dip boil to fake you out while they actually made her out of a #85, or what fucking ever you thought.
Oh and the Sonic revision led to severe last minute production crunch to the level of ten to seventeen hour workdays with no days off and likely contributed to the unceremonious death of the Vancouver division of the MPC Studio, losing people their jobs. But go off, I guess, you got a better looking digital Sonic to add to your next ugly Pinterest collection and thought this would work for a physical production of dolls, accessories, and books.
Someone get me my candy cigarettes.
Track Four: Why Are Y'all Shook That This History Story Has History In It
American Girl Historical Characters focus on history. I mean, it's right in the name again, we've dropped the BeForever branding now, we're back to calling them Historical Characters. You'd think that would tip folk off that, you know, history would happen in these books.
But apparently the youth were taken out by history happening in a historical story.
![Promotional image of Courtney. The background has a chalkboard stating the date of the Challenge Launch and Disaster.]() |
Wait, bad things happen in history?
I thought we were just going to watch Punky Brewster. |
One of the first promotional images of Courtney that released were her in a classroom set up with her Pac-Man lunchbox and unicorn binder and a chalkboard--we didn't have marker boards back then--with January 28th, 1986 - Challenger Launch on the board. And some people actually used Google for a second and subsequently freaked the fuck out that American Girl was going to cover the Challenger Disaster in a book for a doll. I'm finna get a little heavy here, but don't worry, I'll follow it up with talking about Care Bears.
What was the Challenger Disaster? Wikipedia and everything else in the entire world has covered this since the very moment of what happened that heartbreaking day, but the summary is thus: as part of the ongoing Space Program that had been happening for several decades that time, the Space Shuttle Challenger took off on that date thirty-five years ago with a crew of seven. Headed by Commader Dick Scobee, the crew included the first teacher to go into space, Christa McAuliffe; the second-ever African American person in space, Ronald McNair; the first Asian-American into space and first person of Japanese descent, Ellison Onizuka; the first Jewish-American and second-ever woman in space after Sally Ride, Judith Resnik; Michael J. Smith; and Gregory Jarvis.
The takeoff was at 11:38 AM Eastern Standard. Seventy three seconds into its flight, with multiple students in schools in classes across the United States and several homes watching the broadcast of the take off, the Challenger broke apart, subsequently killing all seven crew members aboard. The Challenger Disaster grounded shuttles to space in the US for nearly three years, until I was in the start of second grade, and ended the Teacher in Space Project.
And I saw it. I was five and getting ready for my afternoon classes in pre-school. And not understanding that people had, you know, died? I asked my mom--who'd stepped out of the room--if I could turn the channel to Sesame Street13 because the space ship had exploded and the "show" had ended. My mom came out in disbelief, saw that I hadn't made it up, and started crying. I started crying, and she thought it was because I was realizing that people had died but I was crying because she'd started to hustle me to school and I was upset that I didn't get to watch Sesame Street. Because I was five.
My older sister was not five. She was in upper elementary school, just like Courtney. And--just like Courtney--her class and several other classes at our elementary school had gathered to watch the launch live together. Like Courtney, she was surrounded by her classmates and teachers and several teachers aides watching it as it happened. So everything was real quiet at school and I didn't understand why until that afternoon when my older sis and I walked home and she was very, as the youth nowadays say, shook. She and my mom had to explain to me that it wasn't a TV show, real people had really died. Worse yet? I grew up in Houston. Where Mission Control is. And I can tell you for the cost of toast that I bet a non-zero number of students were on a field trip there at the time.
So yeah. I saw a historical event that young, and have memories of it, and it wasn't until I was a little more mature and able to read more about what happened that I grasped the sheer gravity of what had happened and what I'd seen.14
Is it a dark, morbid part of American history? Yes. Is it more than a little traumatizing? Yes, especially for people older than I was at the time. Am I shocked and horrified that American Girl covered it?
...fucking hells on bells, no.
I'm not any more surprised or horrified that American Girl covered the Challenger Disaster in a fictional book than I'm surprised that that Addy's cover the Lincoln assassination, Nanea's books cover the attack on Pearl Harbor, or that Melody's books cover the Sixteenth Street Church Bombing. Those last two are still active in living people's memories, along with the Challenger Disaster. And yes they're hard topics and heavy topics and awful events including the causes and aftermath, and even just thinking about the Sixteenth Street Terrorist Attack and hearing my mom talk about it makes my throat lock up. I still can't watch Selma because it opens there--I tried and the generational trauma that Black Americans carry made me freak the fuck out. I may never be able to watch 4 Little Girls.
But I'm not going to sit here and act shocked--shocked!--that history is shown in a history book or portrayed by dolls in stop motion on YouTube and say they're trivializing history by *checks notes* showing it happened. The Challenger Disaster happened. It killed seven and affected millions. And American Girl, having chose to set their 1980s historical the year the company launched, decided it'd be remiss to ignore the history of the year.
AGIG Teens: they don't cover enough history in these books
Also AGIG Teens: THEY'RE COVERING HISTORY IN THIS BOOK?!
History shown in a history book? Who'd have fucking guessed?! Next you'll tell me your platform game has platforms in it, the first person shooter involves shooting, and there's an awful lot of Marios in this Mario game.
Whew, we've been through a lot. Let's talk about Care Bears.
Track Five: Eighties Kids Actually Remember The Eighties (feat. Popular Things Have Always Been In The Brand)
![Promotional image of Courtney's Bedroom.]() |
Pop Culture: Historically Verifiable.
|
The full, widespread explosion of children's popular culture--in the US, at least, that's what I tend to study what with being American and all--didn't really start to take off until about the early 1970s or so.
Oh, there were things made for children, mind--you can trace that back to Felicity's Little Pretty Pocket Book--and children's toys and play goes back to, you know, all of human recorded history.And the seeds of modern children's pop media culture developing has some of its earliest origins in about the 1930s with the widespread dissemination of radio and the development of Little Orphan Annie,15 one of the oldest US children's radio programand various toys and brands for children. But much like television was invented in 1927 but full-scale commercial television broadcasting didn't start in the US until two decades later and wasn't in more than 50% of homes until the mid 1950s,16 children's pop culture wasn't exceptionally distinct from the overarching American pop culture until about the 1960s, with it really taking a grip and branching off in the mid to late 1970s. Children having their own widespread media culture of their own, for them? Kinda is a "it started with Gen X" thing. Sorry, Boomers. The Mickey Mouse Club only slightly counts. Folk can't decide if the Madame Vice President is a young Boomer or an elder Gen X and she and President Obama are the closest Gen X have gotten to the top two leaders in the US. You're giving my generation this.
Yes, children had toys, movies, games, and other things for them that they were nostalgic about--always have and still do. But before then? Children--adults, even--could have vastly different experiences across the country depending on their culture, class, household, race, and location just to name a few differences. A family, could live in, say, Honolulu, Hawaii and their ten-year-old daughter have a completely separate childhood experience of World War II than someone in Invented Town, Illinois. We were wearing gas masks with stamped money and citizenship ID cards, you were skipping rope and flinging briefs. We were under martial law and upset they were accusing the Japanese of being spies, you had a tap recital and a British houseguest with actual PTSD. When your great-grandparents were immigrating to the US mine were no more than two generations removed from being enslaved and living as sharecroppers in Tennessee. You know, that kind of thing.
Much like me and my siblings are the first generation of my family to be born post Voting Rights Act and so have had the legal ability to vote without racist restrictions,17 I am part of that firstish generation of kids who had a semi-unified popular culture that spread from coast to coast. That mix of music, media, and events--and that many of us can look back on and go as a group "yeah, I remember that!" and commiserate together in our nostalgia. Even that's not completely universal, because black me growing up in Houston, Texas doesn't have the same experiences of an Asian American in the Pacific Northwest or a white girl in the upper Midwest or a Latina girl in California. But there's some things that we can, as a group, look back on and remember media parts of together.
American Girl, to its credit, nowadays does a lot to get the era right and capture a snapshot of what it was like when they start creating a historical character--especially with more recent eras where people are alive and have very good memories of the time they're portraying. This isn't Pleasant Company, we actually have internet for research and not foggy memories of a by-gone era in one white woman's head that lead to lines like "but white people need the land too" and mushing the 40s and 20s together to make the 1930s. Those of us that lived through the eras are not that old, historical though we might be. The Seventies Kids Remember, the Nineties Kids Remember, and oh man do the Eighties Kids Remember.
Which is why when it comes to 1980s pop culture for a ten year old girl? It would behoove people who don't even remember the 1990s because they weren't even in third grade when they ended--if they were even born at all--to not tell those of us who have the memories of the time that we don't know what was really popular.
I'm being told what was "really 1980s" and how Courtney doesn't represent them from people who fetishize Iron Curtain countries that banned "Western influence", can't tell goth from emo from punk, get upset when their makeup is tied back to drag culture when it clearly is because their reaction to drag culture is "ew drag," got their "knowledge" of the era from a sci-fi Netflix show and two trading cards, and think BDSM lock necklaces and Playboy Bunny print titty tops with joint cup-short skirts on cloth sausages capture the Y2K aesthetic when it was more like "that's a lot of denim where we don't expect it, and no one's shirt is going past their midriff."
Let's say it again, for old times: fuck's sake, children.
It's just more of the hot late Millennial/Gen Z takes of "we could listen to someone older than us trying to teach a thing they know but we think we invented everything and having to actually be humble might make us learn a thing" yet again. Primary historical sources? I can't read suddenly, I forgot.
The most annoying ones are those kids thinking that Stranger Things is the only 80s aesthetic to have and think Courtney was going to tie back to that. It went on for months. Eleven. Waffles. The Upside Down. D&D. Ghostbusters. Spoop. And constant expectations that American Girl was going to sit down and use a TV show as the basis for everything from character design to the true popular designs of the era. Fuck, I am never going to watch that show now. They already never represented my childhood, had Missing Black Girl Formation, and I already cringe from sci-fi horror/spook style things because they make me uncomfortable, so I had less than 10% interest in the show. Now I'm just like "now I am not doing it" because months and months of seeing what came out of the mouths of the people who claim they know the 80s by watching one TV show set as a retro through one specific, science fiction lens, just leaves a bad taste in my mouth like mixing Pop Rocks and New Coke. Take that show away from me.
As a person who actually lived through the 80s and remembers a lot of the widespread pop culture and fashion? Courtney's got a damn good grasp on it, if not a perfect one, down to the jean jacket and neon scrunchies. I say it again: Do. A. Research. Eighties Kids have been going on about their childhoods online since we were able to make Geocities sites and trying to identify which My Little Pony we had on Dream Valley (RIP). I've got a Cherry Merry Muffin doll older than these kids trying to tell me they know what the eighties were like. Who's Cherry Merry Muffin, the children say? Hmm. Guess you actually don't know what was hype in the 1980s.
Then you have the people who saw any popular references at all and decided this entire company was just pandering and grabbing anything to appeal to those bratty, false nostalgia 1980s kids who--um--saw people die in space nationwide. Awkward. Statements like "Why is Courtney wearing Care Bears when cartoons were baby stuff at that time" when no, it was was not baby stuff, ten year olds actually did that and we weren't doing tween stuff, we were still being kids a lot. People claiming that making references to The Goonies was pandering, because they never watched that as a child, they were too busy complaining that Little Women had a romantic plot line in the second half. (Is this a kissing book?) And the people who said that American Girl was not researching hard enough into what was popular because they didn't like the common things like video games and the popular music, they were too busy reading Samantha Learns a Lesson to later inflate their knowledge of what happened in the book thirty-five years down the road.
As I said earlier, there have always been things in the collections that reference things of that era--it's just the most recent characters that have a whole lot of the pop culture, especially Julie and Courtney. Every single historical has things that are made up of things popular from their time, some of which might be accurate before AG got their shit together and started doing proper research--and the eighties had popular media culture, including those base and common video games. You're just pissy about the era because it's a lot closer than what you deemed "history" and Felicity's enjoyment of tea cakes and Sam owing a stereopticon doesn't hit as hard as Courtney liking video games. Y'all sitting here like:
Rebecca: gets a goddamn phonograph for her birthday and acts in a silent film in New York, owns a Kewpie Doll, goes to Coney Island
Collectors: how quaint! how droll! how very charming!
Courtney: personal electronics are cheaper than they were, so I have a Walkman and like video games and Care Bears and go to the mall.
Collectors: That. Is. MAHOGANY PANDERING.
Sam outright name drops Alice Roosevelt and how she thinks of her in the first book. That was 1900s popular culture. That's historically the same as Courtney caring about Madonna. Just because the people who know the pop culture of the time are alive now doesn't make it somehow pandering, you unwashed wet washrags on a tile floor for a week.
Hidden Track: Black People in the 1980s Didn't Wear White People Perms
![headshot of Keishia Knight Pulliam as Rudy Huxtable.]() |
Pictured: Rudy Huxtable, as portrayed by Keshia Knight Pulliam.
Not Pictured: Natural hair or spiral curls. |
This last point is more minor than the rest, hence it being a hidden track. But I want to talk about it, because it's still something y'all doing wrong. I'm pretty much going to tweak the Instagram post I did way back in July 2020 on the topic, because I was thorough on the point even with my thumbs typing it out.
As I said above, I don't got a beef whatsoever with people who took one look at a Classic Mold Blue Eyed Blonde White Girl and decided that they were going to represent the 1980s with a DoC. Be the doll East Asian, South Asian, or Black, a lot of folk on IG have done this and are tagging the posts #MyCourtney. Good for them. I did the same for the 1970s.18
That being said? Your sidestepping from Courtney to TM #85 dolls to represent the doll because you're tied hard to the spirals seen in the silhouette aren't very accurate to how young black girls wore their hair.
Source: was a young black girl in the 1980s, with a sister--two of them--who were older than me and none of us were wearing our hair naturally in the 80s.
I've seen way too many youthlings--and some folk old enough to know better--claiming that TM #85 fits as a better "Courtney" because a curly haired girl from the 1980s, if black, should be natural haired to match the silhouette. They even said that AG should suddenly replace Court with her at the last minute when, uh, how'd that work for your people and the Gabriela purchases, hmm? I will be Lawry's level of seasoned salty about that.
Whew, have I have been making more than some faces at that. Because? We didn't have curls like #85. She's cute, her hair is lovely, but she doesn't fit the reality. Little Black Girls and AFAB children of the era didn't wear our hair natural in the way black children do it today. Yes, the 70s were Afros, puffed and not. I have gorgeous pics of my mom with her hair fluffed or in cornrows, my older sister as a toddler with Mickey Ear puffs, and my dad with a magnificent afro. I haven't permed my hair since the end of high school and I haven't blow dried or flat ironed it at all for nearly ten years. Hell, I most of the time wear multicolored braids in a protective style.
But kid me? There was no way my mom was going to let her little girl's hair go unpressed minimally.
The backlash from the 70s wasn't just against gender neutrality and a return to the fitful dreams of the 1950s in the midst of that Reagan era shit. It also led to black girls like me being expected to have our hair straightened or "controlled" to fit in. Damn near every little black girl was either seeing the business end of a pressing comb or the white stuff once she was old enough to "graduate" to perms. If you were too young to have "perm"--that is, relaxer, not the curly perms white and straight haired people got--then you got pressed, and if you were too young to get pressed you got brush ups and braid downs and your mom might have even fussed that you didn't have "good hair" if it wouldn't behave. Y'all, there were women who tried to perm toddlers hair if it was too "thick" or "nappy"--and Just for Me weren't coming for another half decade, so this was adult level perms that probably had lye in it.
And you thought we were doing naturals?
![image of Tempestt Bledsoe as Vanessa Huxtable.]() |
Pictured: Vanessa Huxtable, as portrayed by Tempestt Bledsoe.
Not Pictured: Natural hair or spiral curls. |
Curls like 85s? Would have been one of those special occasion things. Easter at best, maybe picture day, and still wouldn't have been today's kind of natural. It would have been hair that was pressed/permed flat and the curls put back in, for a proper control--and that wasn't every day wear. The closest to "curly" like 85 would have maybe been a jherri curl, which would have been short and drippy and high maintenance. We made so many jokes about activator.
A kid might have box-style braids if her mom was kind of a hippy and/or Stevie Wonder was an icon to her, but they were probably beaded at the ends, hence Tyanna's appearance. But even that was a controlled thing and not as widespread as braids are now. The majority of black mommas were not letting her child go out "nappy headed." Black folk acted like "natural hair" and afros and puffs and braids were something some people had done but we'd lost to the conservatives and if we were going to integrate, we were going to go back to short conservative cuts on men and straight hair on women and the children would do the same. Ages 0-5 was brushing, bows, and barrettes, 5-10 was generally the same but a little less juvenile, and by 10 you were having your hair reliably permed every six weeks or pressed every Saturday night because you were not going in the Lord's house with your hair looking wild. Now hold your ears and don't squirm while I press this part of your head or you will get burned.
Getting my hair done as a child smelled like Blue Magic and Pink Lotion, and I got my hair pressed a lot. I started getting perms in late elementary/middle school, but I was just awful about them because the moment I felt the burning on my scalp I started screaming for it to get out now now now and the hair dresser had to get the neutralizing shampoo and get to work right then before I had a total meltdown in the chair and started screaming. No perm was sensitive enough for me. And they cause chemical burns. I still can point to the spot on my head where I once ended up with a quarter-sized burn. Also? Perms meant no getting your hair wet for about a week before, no washing it for about two weeks after, and no swimming for upwards of a month after (because the chlorine mixed with lingering chemical would break your hair off). Summer generally led to a lot of black girls, if we had access to a pool, just going wild and free over the summer because lmao who's spending two weeks not getting my head under the water in Texas, just press it.
I hated perms so, so so much. I would go as long as possible between perms and once braids started getting popular again in the early to mid 1990s I'd beg my mom to have anyone put them in and leave them for months--yes I'm tender headed, yes it'll hurt, yes my head'll be sore but braids in for six to eight hours of work means no one was putting perms in my head. Black folk didn't get back into that natural swing until around 2000--and I was a pretty early adopter of it and still got a lot of "so you're not doing your hair nice anymore" way back then, and all I was doing was not perming my hair anymore.
Truly Me 85 as "Courtney" is inaccurate to what black girls were doing with their hair at the time and comes off like a pallet swap. Nor is putting thick spiral curls on an East Asian doll accurate--something on which I will defer to East Asian people of the era. And don't get at my ass about exceptions to the rule, pointing that out doesn't make you an interesting person. As the Tweet from Iron Spike states--they're talking about POSE but it's still applicable--
Did people rock naturals in the 80s? Sure, obviously. Were they considered remotely fashionable, or even acceptable? lol FUCK no.
It's too bad dolls like #18, #1, and #45 are hard to get. That would be closer to accurate, with straight hair and/or bangs. #1 and #18 especially.
But #85? No.
*~*~*
The conclusion of all this before I even get into the collection--over eight thousand words, hours of labor--is that I just want the people born after the historical eras I lived through to do their research before they get on this here internets and say goddamn anything.
I know research is hard. I do a lot of it for a lot of things, not just on American Girl. Learning that Houston was the smaller, less relevant city for my 1840s Texas character meant moving things to Galveston. Learning that black people were pretty much banned from Oregon until the 1920s meant my Oregon Trail short story of a freed family traveling west post emancipation wouldn't work and I'd probably have to send them to California at best and might just have to stick to a plains state. Learning that Yuma, Arizona, wasn't actually a city until the 1850s for a flash fiction set a decade earlier was a blow to my plans and led to a deep dive into Mexican history. The research undercutting me was a blow to my plans each time.
I still did it and I still do it. It's fundamental to do your damn research for being historically accurate with history, and the era you want to represent--and "I just want to feel things, whine that the AG Wiki won't violate copyright,19 beg for copyright-questionable .pdfs of books while complaining AG doesn't sell books, and get distracted by an Avatar the Last Airbender/American Girl moodboard crossover because I've decided Uncle Iroh did a war crime and think it's cute to say so, tee hee" as your explanation for your nonsense ain't it, chief.
Too many Gen Z people in this fandom are the generation of "I'm not going to listen to people older than me who know history and information, they're stuffy and boring and killing my style, and I know everything and don't need your help!" And I'm reading that, looking at AG fandom, and going "wow you're spot on like a dalmatian." The youth want to say they know history--in this fandom, in historical events, in just what was popular--but don't listen to those of us that lived it for four seconds or even do a google search if it means losing half a point of vibe.
I get older and the teenagers and just turned twenty somethings stay the same level of annoyance.
I don't do this to shit on Gen Z across the board. I try not to shit on the youngsters, what with remembering covers of calling Gen X the Me Generation and saying we didn't listen to people that knew things. Some of you sit down and listen and I get the information in your heads.
But way too many of y'all do not want to listen to your elders even as you complain AG doesn't teach enough about history and focus too much on the moderns. I'm tired and my joints hurt.
Have I got that alllll off my tits now? I have? Huzzah! Now let's talk scrunchies.
Side B: High Tops, Acid Wash, Care Bears, Clear Phones, and Nearly Accurate Mini Mollys: Courtney's Totally Tubular, Radical, 1986 Collection
I've just said a ton about Courtney. More things will be integrated into the text as I hit them.
Into the Courtneyverse.
![Photograph of Courntney and meet accessories.]() |
Like totally dibble.
|
Courtney's Meet Outfit and Courtney's Accessories: Courtney's meet outfit, according to the canon, was purchased at her local clothes store, Valerie's, located in the fictional Orange Valley Mall.
Courtney spends a lot of time at the mall. In the 1980s the mall was the place to go to waste time after school, after work, and on the weekends. Unlike now where the mall is the place you go/went when they don't sell the shit you want online and/or don't want to wait the week for shipping, and you really gotta have a Cinnabon, and you used to go and try on clothes before you bought them but pandemic. Back then if you lived within any traveling distance of a mall--and your probably did--and were between the ages of ten and twenty, you blew chunks of spare time at the mall. Adults too. With a considerable lack of curfews and "you must accompany your under-eighteen child" going on, parents would freely drop all the kids they could manage at Giant Mall Place with some money to mill about for four hours while they went out to exercise class, bought stoves from Sears, or watched The Golden Child. Free range children could burn quarters in arcades trying to get to the next level on coin-muncher games, get cokes and snacks in the food court, buy all the clothes and clutter and books and music they wanted--on cassette and albums--and depending on the place, get the air conditioning they didn't have at home.
It was a weird time. Definitely not a simpler one. Pay phones, smoking sections in restaurants, Nancy Reagan, and urban legends about needles in the coin slots alone, eesh.
Southern Cali--where Courtney's series is set--was the home of the 1980s mall rat valley girl. Courtney is more of a video gamer, artist, and daydreamer, but she still has a fashion and it's in her clothes. She pulls the Valley Girl look off with two layered shirts--one plain tank, one graphic crop--an acid wash skirt, pink tights, a hot pink scrunchie--how else were you supposed to get your hair out your face and decorate your wrist as well?!--and white slouched ankle boots. Oh and blue panties. I'll put those in my Historical Underwear post after I finish this one. The mix and match potential of the set is great. which is great considering the majority of her release outfits. As for her accessories, she's got Lip Smackers on a cord--peach--four plastic bracelets in four colors, a campaign pin because her mom's out here running for mayor--women in politics!--a mix tape she made herself with a decorated case, and a Personal Cassette Player"Walkman" with attachable corded headphones. See, back in the day we didn't have Bluetooth ear buds, everything was wired to each other and didn't go in your ear, just over it.20 All very fitting for her era.
![Photograph of the cover of "Courtney Changes the Game."]() |
Books! Still not just packing ballast!
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Courtney Changes the Game: Courtney also comes with her first--and until the third, it was the only-- book out. Read about women in politics! Courtney's cooler avatar, Crystal Starshooter! Pac-Man! Recycing! Huey Lewis and the News! Sexism in politics! Blended families like President Biden's and Vice President Harris's! Trouble with stepsisters! Men who can't cook! Getting your ears pierced! And also learn about the Challenger Disaster and how it shook Courtney, her class and her family, which I already went in depth on. Unlike all the other historicals out now with the 2019 book designs, her book isn't abridged. Except for the fact that it only covers about a month in the 1980s. I'll hopefully eventually get to it in my books reads here, but I have already read it all up multiple times. And sometime soon I'll get...
![Promotional Image of "Courtney: Friendship Hero"]() |
Real heavy21 topic in the second book.
Stock Picture until I get my own.
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Courtney: Friendship Superhero: The second book is the book that makes me think AG went with a white girl for the 1980s for the same reason they did with Kira B. and the Gay Aunties that are Gay.
I know AG, and AG leans conservative. Not conservative as in "donates to GOP causes and hates black people, immigrants, and abortions," or "how dare you let my eight year old know she has stuff in her no no square" but conservative as "hesitant and cautious about how they're going to make you take your historical and social medicine." Hell, the fact that they made a serious "Black Lives Matter" statement, followed by "we need to do more in diversity initiatives and representation" and are sticking to it is a huge step. They're still getting mewlback from people who think Black Lives Matter is out here trying to impose socialism, throw all the police into the Atlantic, and force their lily-white daughters into being gay married to black women now that the Vice President is a multiracial woman of color. I'm actually going to devote a whole post to AG's diversity initiatives among these Retrospecticuses. Retrospectici? Throwbacks. It's that important to me as a Black queer woman. I'm glad AG acknowledged their lack of black and other DoC and said they will be making up for it, and I'll talk more on that when I do that post.
I'm also glad as hell AG did this very somber story line with a white girl. In the back of Courtney Changes the Game, all that was said about her second book on the conflict was When an issue with Issac comes between Courtney and Sarah, Courtney doesn't know what to do. Can she support her new friend without losing her best friend?
That literally could have been any eighties problem they wanted to tackle. Gifted programs. Mutually assured destruction. The Iran Contra Scandal. Just Say No. Hands Across Americaand the irritation of slacktivism that traces down leads to shit like endless black squares in the BLM tags before people go back to posting about Skittles. Feelings about the Smurfs. But AG swung for the fences.
When Courtney meets Isaac Wells at the arcade, they form an epic friendship. Isaac has awesome ideas to add to Crystal Starshooter's game world, and he gets along great with Sarah and Kip, Courtney's two best friends. When Isaac needs help fighting a real battle called HIV, Courtney is quick to support him. But doing so puts her friendship with Sarah at risk. Being brave and bold is complicated. What would a superhero do?
Emphasis mine. Her second book covers the first pandemic I lived through, the HIV and AIDS crisis. And Athene's Grey Eyes and Kore's Fury, I am so glad AG did not do a historical HIV-positive storyline with a character of color.
I ask the youth to listen to the current queer elders from Gen X because when I was a baby gay full of feels I didn't even understand I had? Too many of my queer elders of the Baby Boomers were dying and being killed by AIDS. I can't begin to cover the devastation HIV and AIDS caused when it was left to run rampant through the queer community--especially queer men--and called "the homosexual disease." There's so many documentaries and most are targeted towards adults--And The Band Played On, both the book and the movie, are good resources, as well as the more recent documentary and book How to Survive a Plague.
But I can tell you this. The reason Ronald Reagan is 210% in the Bad Place is because when queer people said "please help, we're dying"? He and his administration laughed it off and said queer people deserved it and it was a punishment for their lifestyle "choices."Conservatives loved that AIDS were killing gay people, because they "deserved" it for being nasty and not heterosexual like God intended. It was only when it started to affect more than just queer and gay men that research even started to happen and progress to stop the destruction began, and by then thousands had already died. It's only now that we can say "it's a chronic illness that needs a lot of management to not kill you" instead of "it's a disease with a 100% fatal rate within less than a decade." And that's only in places like the US. In Africa it still has high "100% fatal rate within less than a decade" stats.
Sound familiar, my little ones?
HIV and AIDS were scary. But what was even scarier was the way people acted about it and hearing anyone had it back then. Shit, as late as my post college years people were still making jokes about AIDS widespread. Some people still do.
And too many Gen Z people were saying that AG wasn't going far enough by having a child with HIV instead of a gay uncle or her obviously gay teacher/father/secret Cousin Oliver. Out here like:
Kids born after 1995: we know how AG could conquer an AIDS story line with openly gay men, we know how to talk about these things :) AG is playing it safe if they don't talk about being gay with AIDS.
Me: I have tales of how no one in my gifted 5th Grade class--each of us doing topics on "social issues of the day"--who picked the HIV and AIDS Crisis in the early 90s could talk openly about HIV past that people got it via "many methods including blood transfusions" and how you couldn't get it from a toilet, because anything more than that was banned in my Texas school--and it was only the gifted classes and upper grades who heard much about it22--but sure, let's have Courtney's suddenly never seen before gay uncle have AIDS for the Tumblrs, that'll be great.
And not to shove the youth into lockers some more, but this one idiot claimed that AG touching this historical topic was a bad idea and cited a fucking YouTube personality dunking on the Captain Planet Episode "A Formula For Hate."
I've got to say it again. Fuck's sake, children.
There are people alive right now who remember being children during the 80s and early 90s and the way AIDS and HIV were talked about--and in a whole lot of cases, not talked about, due to censorship--and Gen Z is trying to tell our own history back to us.
One disorienting thing about getting older that nobody tells you about is how weird it feels to get a really passionate, extremely wrong lecture from a much younger person about verifiable historical events you can personally remember pretty well.
(Tweet posted by user @sameoldstory, posted Nov 16, 2020.)
That tweet can broadly apply to 50% of what I've written in this post.
It would behoove the younger gens to listen to voices from an era in living memory when it comes to these topics, and not their own nonsense. The stigmas were and are heavy. Comedians across the spectrum made tasteless, ignorant jokes on stand up. Kids made tasteless, ignorant jokes on the playground. Adults made tasteless, ignorant jokes among their friends. People were and still are discriminated against. Horrible misconceptions spreading uncontrolled have led to and keep leading to infections spreading uncontrolled in some places, including the ongoing lie that the cure for AIDS is to have sex with a virgin. I hope you don't think there's an age limit, and if you did I'm sorry to break the awful news to you.
And at the time in the early 90s? A show aimed at children saying anything at all was a huge deal. Captain Planet--while very clumsy in their execution--was doing something many adult-aimed TV shows were not even attempting, and trying to inform children about the facts they could talk about so they wouldn't be out here being scared of catching HIV from other people through casual contact, in an era when schools would hear a child caught HIV and would have other kid's parents insist on having them expelled or significantly segregated lest their children catch it through sharing a fork the person might have touched. Read the summary of the episode. Go on, I'll wait.
Back? Yeah. The episode is literally "Teenage kid who plays basketball has HIV, The Themed Villain snoops through his medical and finds this out, and then takes advantage of widespread ignorance to turn people against him. The townspeople do what happened to many people and assume the kid will infect everyone in the vicinity through touching a basketball until the Planeteers summon our Fave Blue Dude to say 'you can't get aids from a water fountain' and the town gets their heads out their asses. This is followed by a Planeteer alert that can be teal-deered to "For the love of god, stop trying to isolate people with HIV, the Power is Yours.'"
Maybe media like Captain Planet wasn't the best goddamn media to explain to kids about how you couldn't get AIDS from sharing a drinking glass, but considering a whole school stigmatized and bullied Ryan White out of school for having HIV and this episode aired a little more than two years after he died, let the clumsy exist. Instead of, you know, looking back with modern eyes and expecting perfect wokeness. Must be nice to look at an era in living history where several thousands died in agony and go "I'm scared they won't talk about it perfectly" when I as a child could barely know anything about it at all.
Only in 2015 did the United States change its lifetime ban against blood donations from cis men who have sex with other cis men to a twelve-month deferral since last MSM sexual contact--but indefinite lifetime bans remain in place for sex workers and IV drug users right now, in 2021, in the US still.
And Gen Z and a non-zero number of late Millennials are out here saying "I think I know how to talk about AIDS better than Gen X."
Gods, I hope Generation Beta--if they have time for it or even exists--comes up to the Zeds and go "why did you horde toilet paper back then, Mom? Everyone knows Coronaviruses aren't spread through toilet seats and you just needed to wear a mask. Also ew, I can't believe people in your generation had to be told to wash your hands. No wonder you were dumb enough to vote for a terrible actor as president." Then you can have the psychic damage I'm suffering right now.
Courtney's book might not be perfect, but it's history. Real history. Devastating history. And AG's taking a huge step in saying anything about HIV at all. I fear how many Courtney are looking at book returns when some asshole parent reads the phrase HIV and wets their underpants.
Once again, I've had to get somber. Can I get back to clothes and accessories please?
![Photograph of Courtney in pajamas and three outfits made from her mix-and-match outfits.]() |
Woof she's wearing the same shirt three times. Not a lot of mixing it up here.
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Courtney's Awesome '80s Collection: Courtney went and pulled a Moddie Mix and Match at launch and, instead of set packaged outfits, went for the a la carte method of dressing her up in the latest fashions. The wardrobe covers the vast majority of her launch looks and consists of:
![Photograph of two outfits made with Courtney's mix and match wardrobe.]() |
Back in my day we just called them fanny packs,
but I don't think that goes over well in the UK.23 |
All of it various forms of bright, lace, ruffles, neon, denim acid wash, and accurate to the fashion. Hell, the pants are so accurate to the era it took me me several minutes to wriggle them over Courtney's legs. (Alas, the pants are no more and have already been retired.) My one quibble is that the T-shirt as it is manufactured, if worn over the leggings, actually isn't long enough for the accuracy to the 1980s. When we wore t-shirts with leggings, they were large and/or long enough that went down to out hips so as to cover our butts and play them a faux dresses. Then we either belted them in the middle or had side-clips to pull the shirt over. And if you didn't have that kind of money to waste on a unitasker, you used a scrunchie. Those things could and can do it all.
![Photograph of two outfits made of components of Courtney's Mix and Match wardrobe.]() |
Parents just don't understand.
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How much of this do I have? Between Bae, my own purchases, and birthday gifts from friends--I have every piece. Mix it, match it, swatch it, watch it, swap it, pop lock and drop it. Guess who can do the limited wardrobe challenge! I like practically every piece of it.
![Photograph of Courtney's Care Bear Pajamas.]() |
Care Bear Countdown.
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Courtney's Care Bear Pajamas: When she wants to be the cutest kid at the sleepover, Courtney pulls on a flannel-and-fleece Care Bears Nightgown, a matching scrunchie--she has so many!--and scrunch down socks. Emphasis on the down. Fam. Fam. Push the socks down. They are intended to pool around her ankles as shown in literally every display and image around them, not be pulled up over her knees. Pulling them up is up there with twisted around plaid skirts and wearing the collar over the pinafore. You're doing it inaccurate, and you're doing it wrong. I'm embarrassed for you. It was part of my birthday gift, because I get all my girls some PJs. Some need them made, but we'll be on that later.
This and the Mix and Match clothes covered every single one of her clothing options at launch, and we're talking about the rest after the accessories, so let's talk mini dol--
oh wait
![Catalog image of Courtney's Legwarmers.]() |
Early Adoption Bonus.
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Courtney's Legwarmers: Did you get Courtney online early in release? Then you got a bonus pair of hot pink legwarmers to expand the mix and match styles! They came in the cutest box that looks like a mixtape and might be gone now. A nice add on.
Now let's talk dolls and lunch boxes.
![Photograph of Courtney's Pleasant Company Doll.]() |
It's Mini Molly! (Not pictured: the catalog that fell over and down a level.)
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Courtney's Pleasant Company Doll: Hey guess what else happened in 1986? A little Company called Pleasant launched with three nine year old characters from three historical eras, and catalogs got shipped across the nation to likely households who might have children in the age range to want a doll that wasn't a baby or a Barbie. Unless those households were Black. Those people could wait another seven years. Thirty-five years later the company has been owned by Mattel 60% of the time it's existed and I'm talking about doll arcades and constantly irritated by people insisting they have a Pre-Mattel Kaya.
I'm also talking about Mini Molly. In--what I presume--are Courtney's later stories and stated in the pamphlet with this, she receives the gift of a Molly McIntire doll whom she relates to because Molly's dad is away from her overseas and Courtney's dad is living three hundred miles up the California coast outside of probably Palo Alto to go code what will be the future internet, I can only assume. (That, or Reader Rabbit.)Pint sized Forties Girl not only comes with her classic meet outfit, glasses and semi-accurate copy of Meet Molly,24 but a reproduction 1986 catalog where Courtney's circled what she wants and all of it contained in a era-accurate box with the ribbon around in, unlike us plebes nowadays that have window boxes.
Molly might be one of my least liked characters, but I like this mini version of her. And this one has the new nifty plastic bodies, which I prefer miles over the old cloth bodies. My buddy got this as part of my birthday gift--she refused to let me get "just a little bit of her things." Watch my Instagram for an upcoming picture of Courtney in Cosplay.
And for those who wonder what a character having a miniature of another character bodes for the AG greater universe, hakuna your matatas. We've had mini dolls for dolls since the year the last millennials were born. They were advertised as dolls for the moddies for years.
![Photograph of Courtney's Pac-Man Lunch Set.]() |
*insert Pac-Man "monch monch monch" sounds here*
(not pictured: the cheese puffs inside the can)
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Courtney's PAC-MAN Lunch Set: Courtney--according to her pamphlet with her school things--has to pack her own lunches nowadays since her mom is busy with her campaign for mayor. Welcome to the real Gen X-perience, give your boomer moms a break from having to do everything for all the kids while Dad can't even cook hot dogs. So she's packed a bologna and cheese sandwich on white, those lying ass red "delicious" apples--the worst25-- a container of non-denominational Cheese Puffs in its lidded container, and a prepackaged brownie in wrapper for dessert. Then she puts it all and her drink in her plastic semi-authentic lunchbox with matching thermos--the original 1980 one was metal, this one's plastic, how dare--and prepares for a day in class learning from Mr. Garcia about long division and why the continued Cold War led to the US curbstomping at the Olympics two years ago.
Organic food? In the 1980s? No. We ate out of the four food groups evenly--just as much bread as meat on the plate--and ads in the corner store said "Candy is good for you, eat some every day." Um, we didn't even have instant ice packs. Whatever you packed for lunch that day was going to sit unrefrigerated for upwards of three or four hours. We can't be packing cute little bentos and yogurt to sit and be warm all day. Cheeze Balls count as dairy and ketchup is a vegetable.
A gift from my friend for my birthday.
![Photograph of Courtney's School Supplies.]() |
I don't want to sound like a queer or nothing--okay I do--but I really think unicorns are awesome.
(Also pictured: the catalog that fell over and down a level.) |
Courtney's School Supplies: And to learn about those wily Soviets and writing descriptive essays? We've got a unicorn and rainbow emblazoned binder with rings for notebook paper--included--a pink pencil case with space for the three pencils--writing with a pen in class isn't until fifth grade--and a hole to simulate sharpening, and three pencil topping erasers that I can smell in my memories from the good student giveaway bucket: pink cat, blue poodle dog and orange triceratops dinosaur that is not in fact a rhino I didn't go into deep dives on dinosaurs to have you call this a rhinoceros. Not pictured: the two folders with a rainbow and a dolphin and the puffy stickers, one of which is a rainbow with a face.
....Courtney is going to have a very interesting time in the 90s and 2000s when she has her first crush on a woman. I have this set and it's super cute and I will never use the stickers.
![Photograph of Courtney's Caboodles and Hair Accessories Kit.]() |
| Caboobles with noodles.26 |
Courtney's Caboodles and Hair Accessories Kit: You gotta have awesome hair for an awesome era. And banking on the brand name, we've got a Caboodles branded case with a lot of nail stickers, two scrunchies, the Dreaded Banana Clip, hair spray, a pick, another tulle bow, and faux makeup because stepsister.
I don't have this, because this was never, ever, ever in stock at AG Seattle. Not in the four months AG Seattle was getting shipments, and it definitely won't be there the last weekends they're open. So now I'm going to have to order it and wait for backorder to clear it to my house. If I even bother, because for all I love the caboodle I have a full sized one I store stuff in, and you're asking a lot of me for a banana clip I'm unlikely to use and a couple more scrunchies.
....damn it, I really love scrunchies. I've never stopped wearing them. Can I just make scrunchies? I might just make scrunchies and buy a full sized Caboodle.
Interlude: Everything after this either came out and I didn't get a good picture, came out and never went to AG Seattle and now won't, or came out after the 25th and won't go to AG Seattle. Or it's downstairs and I don't feel like getting it out for this post, wait for the reviews. Catalog pictures it is! As The Brand New Heavies say, get used to it.
![Catalog image of Courtney's Pajamas, Sleepover Accessroy Set, and Care Bears Sleeping Bag Set.]() |
Sleepovers involve music, munchies, Care-A-Lot and cootie catchers.
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Courtney's Care Bears Sleeping Bag Set: We did a lot of sleepovers in the 80s. Even the kids that didn't always like me often invited me to sleepovers where we laid on various spots on the floor and talked about random shit and I didn't use the white girl's hairbrushes. And I hosted several. We were sleeping in other peoples houses left and right in all the brands we could pimp from the time our parents realized that if the kids were at someone else's house they could go clubbing. So when Courtney goes next door to sleepover at Sarah's house--or have Sarah over her house, someone, anyone watch these kids--she is going to be coordinated: pillow, bear, and sleeping bag, all emblazoned with the Care Bears.
This counts as bedding. And Care Bears were for everyone. Everyone. Baby stuff? Honey, no. Nothing in the 1980s that was animated was for babies. We were earnest folk and we loved animated everything, even though 90% of it was glorified toy commercials to get us to buy brands created by Hallmark and the occasional anime we didn't know was anime. You know what the kids trying to grow up too fast in the 80s who thought Care Bears were baby shit ended up doing? Wasting their time acting too grown while were were being funky. Courtney would have probably had more than a few My Little Ponies in her collection if Mattel and Hasbro weren't at odds for #1 in the Toy World. So instead we have to present her to my pony shelves. Good news, Courtney, there's four generations! We don't talk about bronies. Fake ass pony boys don't even know what a flutter pony or a so-soft is. They probably like them rusty as fuck Beddy-Bye Eyes.
Next on my order docket, because it was never at AG Seattle.
Courtney's Sleepover Accessory Set: Are you just going to lay here on the floor without tunes? What is this, the 1940s? We have personal music now. We've had records since Rebecca's era. Fun fact! People thought recorded music was a bad idea back then. Before widespread recording, the only way to hear a song was to play it live yourself or see it performed. When the phonograph came along, there was a lot of criticism, and just not about the sound quality. From the article:
Some social critics argued that recorded music was narcissistic and would erode our brains. "Mental muscles become flabby through a constant flow of recorded popular music," as Alice Clark Cook fretted; while listening, your mind lapsed into "a complete and comfortable vacuum."
[...]
Others worried it would kill off amateur musicianship. If we could listen to the greatest artists with the flick of a switch, why would anyone bother to learn an instrument themselves? "Once the talking machine is in a home, the child won’t practice," complained the bandleader John Philip Sousa.
Feel free to read more at the link above. This later carried on when people said people taping TV shows and music from the radio would ruin live television and album sales. We're always ruining society with how we consume our music.
Anyways for this Friday night's sleepover we're sipping fruit punch--c'mon, those would be cokes--and munching on a cool ranch chips--which debuted in 1986 like American Girl, Jurneee Smollett Bell, and Lady Gaga. We've also got a cootie catcher/fortune teller--I can still fold those in my sleep, we did a lot of things in paper in the 80s,27 gotta do something when there's only one computer and someone else is playing Zork--and Courtney's adorable notebook in which she does all her doodles and daydreams and journaling. Plus a pen that really should be one of those ten-color multiclick ones that the teacher asked you not to use in class pen is for fifth grade--
And finally, a boombox. A really cute as hell one. Pastel Dual Deck--well, in looks, in practice it only has one opening side--and it has a faux radio and plays tapes. Yes, really. Both the four of them that come with this--in bright colors--and the one that comes with her accessories. They play songs that simulate songs of the era because while Julie had actual song clips, in this economy we can't afford to pay Prince's estate for forty-five seconds of Purple Rain. Ah well. It's on the playlist above. I love that Courtney is that girl that made mix tapes all the time and then burned CDs when those were a thing and now makes Spotify playlists. Accurate ones. She saw whatever the fuck was going on with someone slapping "Let It Go" on another damn playlist about Molly and quietly blocked. The Andrews Sisters are on Spotify. No excuses.
After Bae got me Courtney through my account, I got a rewards certificate28 in October that covered ordering this for no cost. So now I fux with little cassette tapes.
![Catalog image of Courtney's Bedroom Set.]() |
Good night.
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Courtney's Bedroom Set: I never got good pictures of this, so stock pictures. Courtney and her stepsister Tina share a room, because it's only been with the rise of stupidly large McMansions that we've been giving evrey kid their own room. Go learn to share living space, kids. I got my own room in my house for the first time when I was a teenager and my older sister went to college, outside of my room at my grandma's house that I still have. (Rafi probably sleeps in his parents room. He's two, we'll figure out where to put him on his own later.) And so, bunk beds. It's got tons of little bits, down to a wokka wokka pillow, clear phone--yeah, I had one of those in the 90s--a plant, hangers, hooks, and a mini copy of Molly's Surprise. Are we getting a tiny copy of Molly Learns a Lesson? We should. Hit me up AG.
I really do want this, mostly because I just love historical character beds. I have several of them, including the BeForever Kit bed I got for $20 complete in Milwaukee. Maybe I'll get it this summer or something. I actually have February AG plans that aren't just "weep on the seventeenth."
![Catalog image of Courtney's Pac-Man Arcade Game.]() |
This electronic bitch is about to eat all your quarters.
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Courtney's PAC-MAN Arcade Game: Oh yes. Oh yes. This is why Dolly Play The Pac-Man.29 Courtney has a fully functional arcade cabinet made by Numskull, who also makes other quarter sized working arcade cabinets like Galaga and Bubble Bobble. AG got the license from Namco to slap Courtney with the most popular video game of the mid 1980s, which is why the covers actually show Pac-Man next to "Space Blaster" and "Zip-Zap". You can't fool me, AG, you couldn't get the licenses. Love that Gorilla Run game where Leap Man tries to save Paula from Gorilla Guy.
Courtney in the books plays the fuck out of this game at the arcade. She would play all the games. She would play every game she could get her fingers on. Would Courtney, in a world where Wreck it Ralph existed, play Fix-It Felix Jr.? All day. Would she be the daughter of Fix-it Felix? Oh my god fuck off and get in the jello pit. Society has progressed past the need for drunk monkey AUs.
Do I want this? Yes. Will I get it? eeeeeeee we'll see. I was very bad at Pac-Man. I'm not going to get any better on a smaller version. But it's so cute~
![Catalog image of Courtney's Fitness Outfit and Courtney's TV and Fitness Accessories.]() |
Get in Shape, Girl!
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Courtney's Fitness Outfit: The 80s really wanted us all to sweat, to the oldies and otherwise. Mom was working out, Dad was working out, your sister was working out, your brother was working out, Jane Fonda was working out, Olivia Newton John was getting physical, and there was a whole weirdly sexually charged aerobics scene between John Travolta and Jaime Lee Curtis in a movie. Don't you feel like a pony? Don't you feel like a pony when you sweat?!30 That meme of people working out comes, like me, from the 80s. Courtney is going to sweat with a headband, crop sweatshirt over a leotard, and stirrup leggings with legwarmers. Big Flashdance feels.
And kids, following mom and dad and aunt and everyone in this aerobics thing we were doing, had a whole brand of workout stuff to wear, Get in Shape, Girl!Those commercials still pop in my brain before bed and lives in the space where some people have driving muscle memory. I had a set or two, with the workout tapes, and now I have Ring Fit Adventure which I probably might just restart on, since it's been a bit. Yeah. Will be ordering this with Friendship Hero.
Courtney's TV and Fitness Accessories: Yeah weights, yeah ropes, yeah beanbag--let's get to what matters in this set. Courtney has her own TV and VCR? I didn't have my own TV and VCR! I didn't even have my own TV! We hooked the NES up to the one in the kitchen and if my older sister hadn't done the dishes my mom was fast to unplug that shit just as we'd gotten to World 5 in Super Mario Bros. Must be because her stepdad owns an electronics store and her dad is a tech dude.
That thing on the back is an antenna, kiddles. Back in my day you had to move it around to get the weaker stations in because TV wasn't digital. Sometimes you had to add foil to enhance. And the bottom dial is for tuning the stations about 13. UHF and VHF. Click click click click. The remote is your mom yelling at you from the living room to change the channel. Cable was on separate hooked up boxes, and some of us had our first pirating experience with a dude we knew who could hook the box up illegally. If you didn't have a fancy pansty VCR and knew how to record it, if you missed The Facts of Life on Saturday Nights on NBC you had to wait for the reruns.
At first I was like $100?! But then I learned the TV actually plays little clips, including the Care Bears opening. And the tape actually "works" in the VCR. Yeah. Give me a bit. I'll be making grabbies at this soon enough.
![Catalog image of Courtney's Guinea Pig]() |
wheek wheek wheek.
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Courtney's Guinea Pig: Finally, Courtney's pet! When her dad moves up to Palo Alto, she has to bring Parsley, her pet guinea pig, to live with her at her main house since she'll only see Dad once a month and he doesn't want to clean cages. Tina bitches about him at first and takes it out on Courtney and calls him smelly and grody, but that's just a projection of her issues with her dead mom. She gets better. Along with Parsley and his cage--and a name plate--she has a hideaway tunnel for him, carrots, a care book, a feed bowl and water, and more stickers that I won't use when I get her pet. Most of my historicals have some version of their pets, even if Felicity's Penny came from WalMart.
Yes, this is not the right way to care for a piggie. Yes, the cage is too small. Yes guinea pigs and most animals like them don't thrive as solo pets. Yes, we know.
Back then, we didn't.
The Reagan Administration barely even acknowledged CFC in the hair spray, fucked off completely with queer people, fucked over Central America and Afghanistan, and destroyed the air traffic controller union. We still had smoking in the restaurants. We know better now, in 2021, with our brains able to do a Google, but back then we didn't know. You know what we also didn't do right in the 80s? Wear helmets and seat belts properly, or even really use car seats. And Julie's, Samantha's, and Molly's bikes all didn't come with helmets. They did come with notes saying "we did it wrong back then but we know now, always wear your helmet." Now we know better.
But historically Courtney would have been doing her best with a pet given to her by her dad and no ability to look up anything past what the pet store passed on to her. My first goldfish was in a bowl. My first budgie was in a too small cage. My first cat was rescued from neighbors. I don't have pets now--reasons--but if I did I'd do better because I know better. Courtney's books and this set reflect that, like Melody calls herself Negro and Samantha doesn't think the Irish are white. Felicity gets leeches on her broken arm, Kirsten thinks dumb shit about the Indigenous, and Maryellen only had to learn 48 states. Take this as a moment to educate, yes--but do it without saying stupid shit like "this is just like black people being enslaved!" Fuck you. We've been asking you for years to not compare black people to animals because that was done to us for generations.
Please don't be the fandom embodiment of "I can excuse racism but I draw the line at animal abuse."
*~*~*
![Photo of Courtney outside a fountain.]() |
| Looking fly at the mall by the fountain near where the David's Tea used to be. |
I made it to the end, and so did you--unless something I said sent you into a Tumblr wail or Instagram story spiral with more dashes than Mario Kart. Boy was writing this post a marathon. I took over twenty-four hours to do it all, because I can be writing a lot. (Yes, I went to sleep in the middle of it. I'm part of a historical era now, I need my sleep.) I went in and in and in and now I'm out.
Courtney Moore is awesome. She isn't a perfect representation of my childhood--no AG can capture every angle of their era or even their culture. She might have defaults, and errors, and yes she's white. But she does have a lot going for her. She's partnered with an organization that focuses on getting more girls into coding and programming, Girls Who Code. Not my thing--I don't do more than HTML since KiSS dropped off--but it's a thing. She's covering two impactful events of the 80s, one of which was suppressed for decades and killed thousands. Sounds familiar? Only Covid's killed thousands in months. Wear a fucking mask. The pandemic isn't over just because you're over it.She has a era that the target audience--and shit, people born so recently that 9/11 is history to them--don't know, but people like me and my friends and my siblings? The older ones do know. We remember what it was like, and why it wasn't just side ponies, rainbow suspenders, and the fear of thermonuclear annihilation.
I hope you learned something over the course this--and might listen to your elders more. We're not telling you shit about what it was really like back then to ruin your good time. Even every boomer isn't a shit person. Just the ones that are shit people. Contrary to the heads of the people I live in rent free, I'm not here to raid, ruin, or rag on. It's not drama or "mean" to tell you history as it actually happened and expect you to do a minute amount of research. But if you acting so cray cray and can't get your shit together and start telling my 80s baby ass what "really happened" back then when you weren't even nut at the time, I'm'a call you a fuck up. We not finna lecture me on shit I saw and experienced with my own eyes when you were born when I was in middle school or later. I'm old now, my fucks are rationed but calling you on your shit is a free action before we roll for initiative.
As for those of you not acting out of pocket, have a Fruit Roll Up and a scratch and sniff sticker that smells like popcorn--the superior sticker to get back on your test. Good job!
![image of 1980s scented stickers.]() |
Weakest was Root beer.
There will be no Q&A.
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Next time on the Retrospecticus: Poor, Poor Blaire. I missed your entire year moving and just dealing with my brain, and now you have like, one thing available. Maybe two. Let's talk sheep, wedding, extremely large kitchens, and lactose intolerance! And how I just made her parents gay and moved her to Wisconsin.
Your Gen X Auntie Out. Stay fresh, cheese bags. There's thirty footnotes.
--Neth
1I wanna fly like an eagle, into the sea~
2 She also had a Chinese American best friend, because we were still riding the best-friend jock at that time. All my homies prefer Ivy Ling, no cap.
3 Even on the days we'd like to have routine and not have white supremacy try to murder members of Congress. Sorry, future history major kids, 2020 is just going to have to be its own class in whatever virtual school you're in that's on the new coast of Atlanta or something.
4*sob* Deal with me crying about this for the next several months.
5 I'm going to miss Product Launch giveaways so much.
6 Y'all, I'm living like a Wisconsinite out here! I can't even say Texan, because Texas has two stores, and I've been to both of them. Grrr.
7 blah blah blah Simpsons went downhill after *insert double digit season here* blah blah blah I still watch it blah blah blah Talking Simpsons podcast is good. I'm about three seasons behind in watching the airing eps, but we have Disney+ now so I'll just catch up there.
8 There's no Hall & Oates. Boom's in charge of the list, she hates them, they're not on the list. I live with her filters and pull up my own songs when I feel like being a Man Eater.
9 Exclusive Or. It's Logic notation.
10 No cap at all. Last February when Melody's Spring Dress came out, I was insulted across Instagram and other places for saying it was rude to buy Melody's Spring Dress and show it on a parade of white dolls. Multiple people called me a sick, sad, mean, bullying individual and a nutcase who contributes to ruining people's fun in here for saying "Yo, it's not cool to put the new dress for the ONLY black character getting anything right now on your white dolls." People were digging up pattern cover images--never mind that it wasn't unil the late 1960s that commercial patterns put black people on them--and shots of green dresses on white girls from Pinterest to justify their shit and cursing my name to their God for speaking up for the racist microaggressions in this fandom. Then BLM protests hit hard, everyone was quiet and pensive for like four weeks and following black collectors in droves saying "we're so sorry for everything" and posting weird doll tear 'shops and black squares and then went "okay, we're bored now, we're going to stop listening to you again." I'm exhausted.
11*looks at my new abridged books that don't have the author on the front, and my old BF volumes that don't have the author on the front, and my first ed Addy books that don't have the author on front, and my first edition Samantha books that don't have the author on the front:* you've got me there! (spoiler: you do not, in fact, have me there)
12 Holy infant, Tender and Mild.
13 NASA almost sent Big Bird as part of the Space Flight Participation Program. However, the set up to send the full Muppet--and Caroll Spinney with it--proved too complicated due to the size and dimensions of the suit, so the educator slot was instead filled by Ms. McAuliffe.
14 I remember the Columbia Disaster even clearer, what with being grown. I was in college, up early for some reason, didn't have class since it was a Saturday, and was sitting in front of my computer fucking around on AIM at when I started getting alerts on my desktop from the National Weather Service app I had that there were reports of "space shuttle debris" in the skies. One news search later and I was horrified and refused to leave the dorm until almost night. Go me, I have memories of two major recent space disasters.
15 And the one that mostly sticks in the brain. Did you know about Skippy before reading this footnote? Doubtful unless you're big into Jeopardy trivia. Be honest. I didn't know until I wrote this.
16 Mind, it's one of the fastest inventions to spread in American homes of the time. The number of television sets in use went from about 44,000 television sets (with the vast majority of them in the New York city area) in 1947 to approximately twelve million nationwide by 1951.
17 In theory. Voting restrictions unfairly applied to smother BiPoC votes continue to this day. No, the US South isn't stupid backwards red states. They're gerrymandered to all fuck voter suppressed states.
18 Note she also wouldn't have a matching twin that's a white girl with the same middle names you use for every set of twins you force, because you have an obsession with twins and the impulse control of a toddler in front of a bowl of marshmallows and no parental supervision--and she wouldn't wear ugly off the shoulder Cricut shirts to match said twin that proclaim she was from the 80s for some reason. Gods, I want to cyberfight that woman and liberate her dolls.
19 Someone on AG Tumblr: we should put extremely copyrighted material on the AG wiki! like song lyrics and every image they've ever made including promo ones!
me, having run the damn thing for over a decade without such nonsense and knowing the delicate balance of copyright that allows a wiki to even exist: *pinching the bridge of my nose* no, jan.
20 No, not our internet. We didn't have that. The bare scraps of World Wide Web didn't make its way to the public until 1991 and a decade later we were still using a lot of dial up.
21 Why are things so heavy in the future? Is there a problem with the Earth's gravitational pull? (Guess what 80s movie series I prefer.)
22 Oh and during sex ed there was a lot of "don't have sex before marriage because AIDS WILL FIND YOUR CROTCH AND KILL YOU." I got to learn more in depth, accurate data by high school--but I also went to a medical magnet high school where we got to study things medically. As late as my high school graduation--and beyond--people around me would say shit like "they have AIDS" about people being queer or dirty or poor or just not being part of the middle class mentality. And those fifth grade gifted presentations? Were super restricted, and no presenter was allowed to talk about gays and needles even in passing--just "fluids"--and was only allowed to present to other fifth grade classes while other presenters could present to as low as third grade. I was given more freedom to talk about my chosen topic, forms of child abuse, than the five kids--and only five kids were allowed--who fumbled through their dioramas about HIV and AIDS. People believed open discussion of HIV and "homosexuality" in schools would lead to increased rates of AIDS, like the world's most fatal thought crime.
23 You know what else doesn't go over well in the UK? Getting AG Doll Hospital Repairs. And I quote from the AG FAQ:
Why don’t you provide services for dolls from the United Kingdom?
--Due to tax rules for packages shipped to residents of the United Kingdom (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales), offering services to the United Kingdom is no longer feasible.
BREXIT MEANS BREXIT.
24 Straight from the Wiki trivia--which I wrote [/Madison]: While the style of the mini book of Meet Molly aligns to the first version in that it is the parchment cover style, the book is technically anachronistic. The illustrations used were not introduced until 1989, when the first edition illustrations by Chris Payne were replaced by new ones by Nick Backes. Likely to avoid paying the first guy, but they can't go back and shop the covers.
25 Red delicious apples might as well be called "do you like unsweeted three day old warm applesauce in a skin." Granny Smith Gang Rise Up.
26 Are you tired of seeing "out of stock" on all the accessories from launch weekend? So was I. Seattle got shafted a lot those last few months.
27 In Fourth Grade, my teacher--who I hated, unrelated to this, ADHD/public shaming/racism reasons--did a unit where we were supposed to do origami folding for display for the library, because it was the 80s and child labor for the library wasn't outlawed yet. She explicitly forbid paper footballs, notes, and fortune tellers because those weren't origami. Everyone upset me because no one knew how to fold a sailboat properly and I made like 20 paper swans and an entire dog. I can still fold the broom and dustpan from the book I checked out repeatedly.
28 And I freaked the fuck about it. I freak out every time I get a reward larger than $10. "Oh god when did I spend that much!" I go, checking my account and wondering when I lost my mind buying doll shit. Then I remember Berry points are 50% over face and I keep buying at triple point weekends. And then I still feel weird about it.
29 Fun fact. We call him Pac-Man because while in Japan he was Puck-Man, someone wisely realized how that could be vandalized on cabinets nationwide with but small amount of paint. The dub is not always worse than the sub.
30 According to Jessi Ramsey's ballet teacher, horses sweat, men perspire, and ladies glow. I don't know what the other genders do. Gleam? Let's go with gleam. The Baby Sitter's Club is also a big part of my childhood. Dibble.
