In an effort to placate increasing demands for diversity, American Girl announced Tuesday that the latest addition to its lineup of dolls is actually a boy named Logan Everett who will serve quite literally as an accessory to one of the company’s new female characters.
According to CNN, “Logan’s character plays drums for Tenney Grant, a girl trying to make it big in Nashville’s music scene.”
On its website, American Girl explains, “Tenney and Logan challenge each other to grow as musicians, and their partnership teaches girls the importance of being open to collaboration and compromise.”
“Logan has a couple of looks including a leather jacket over gray T-shirt or a T-shirt that says ‘Play Loud’ under an unbuttoned plaid shirt,” CNN reported.
A leather-clad Nashville drummer who teaches his female partner to compromise? Diversity incarnate.
Dare I say it, but Logan sounds like an insidious tool of the patriarchy camouflaged in the uniform of innocuous ex-boyfriends across America.
How will they compromise? Will Tenney reject percussion-enthusiast Logan’s requests for more cowbell? Will she learn the importance of always including more cowbell?
American Girl argues parents have been demanding the company release a boy doll “for a very, very, very long time.” If that’s the case, more power to them for responding to the demands of the market.
But American Girl cleverly framed Logan’s release as an achievement for diversity — and left-leaning websites took the bait, declaring it “kind of a big deal,” “a big step,” and “about time.”
Can we please stop melodramatically congratulating companies for “making history” when they’re just making money?
Besides, Logan’s already fallen victim to the attacks of social justice warriors who claim, among other things, he “looks more like the co-captain of a lacrosse team in a suburban white upper-middle-class neighborhood.”
One Twitter used asked the company, “WHY IS YOUR BOY-DOLL WHITE,” wondering why he did not represent genders outside the male/female binary.
Another wrote, “A season of girls from many backgrounds, none of whom are white, would be more innovative than white boys.”
And there’s more where that came from.
In addition to imparting his wisdom about the art of compromising on Tenney, maybe Logan will teach American Girl a lesson on compromising with progressives.
It does not work.
Emily Jashinsky is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
