American Girl Has Launched a 1980s Doll—and She’s a Geek

American Girl, the company known for its line of 18-inch dolls from different periods in American history, has announced its newest historical character, Courtney Moore. Courtney is, much to the angst of my fellow xennials, from the year 1986, prompting an deluge of social media posts lamenting that elements of their childhood were considered “historical.”

Yes, on the surface, Courtney appears to be something summoned when a number of pop culture references from the mid-1980s were combined in a ritualistic manner. The totally rad marketing for the doll is peppered with ’80s slang. She hangs out in an arcade at the mall. She rocks a side pony. The patterns on her clothing are today only found in roller rinks that haven’t been renovated in the past 30 years.

Courtney holds her totally radical boom box. Mattel

Every doll in the American Girl Historical Characters line has its own lineup of period accessories and furniture, and Courtney is no exception. Her accessories are an explosion of the best of ’80s kitsch. Her school supply set definitely was inspired by Lisa Frank, and her Care Bear sleeping bag is unnervingly close to a sheet set I had growing up. Her Pac-Man lunchbox is packed with cheese balls and a Little Debbie’s–esque snack cake. Her pink bunk bed has a background that looks like it escaped from the opening titles of Saved by the Bell and comes with the exact see-through phone I coveted for a not-insignificant period of my childhood. With the target age group for the doll being in the 8-to-10-year-old range, Courtney has certainly hit the spot for parental nostalgia.

The most mind-boggling accessory, though, is an appropriately sized Molly doll. Molly was one of the “original three” American Girl dolls, back when the company was called the Pleasant Company. I’m still trying to figure out the exact ramifications of this—if the American Girl line exists in Courtney’s universe, is she in a parallel universe that split close to the founding of the Pleasant Company? Will a Courtney doll eventually be released in her universe? Would it induce the same existential crisis in her universe as in ours?

The thing that everyone seems to be missing, though, is that Courtney is a gamer! She loves video games, especially Pac-Man (the working doll-sized Pac-Man arcade game is currently available to preorder). Plus, not only does Courtney love video games, she wants to learn how to create and increase female representation within them. This historical doll isn’t just making you feel old simply by existing; she’s canonically a geek!

Playing Pac-Man while listening to a Walkman. Does it get more ’80s/’90s? Mattel

Additionally, American Girl is using the launch of Courtney to partner with Girls Who Code to provide four scholarships to Girls Who Code members for education in computer science or a related field and matching donations made by customers up to a certain amount. Girls Who Code is an organization founded by Reshma Saujani in 2012 to help close the gender gap in coding. They provide programs and resources for girls (plus nonbinary and gender non-conforming people who prefer a female-identified environment) from third grade up into college.

I do wish that American Girl would make their “storied” dolls, such as the Girl of the Year (like Luciana, who was the Girl of the Year in 2018) or their Historical Characters to be more representative of current American demographics. In June, the company declared the intent to work with a variety of resources to increase representation within their doll line, but the wheel of doll development does turn slowly. Recently the Girl of the Year dolls have trended toward better representation (Joss, the 2020 doll, is deaf in one ear and hard of hearing in the other; Luciana is of Chilean descent), but they are generally unavailable after a few years. In the meantime, however, American Girl has made the e-books of their stories written by or featuring Black women free for download through their website.

Due to the recent release, I haven’t had the chance to read any of Courtney’s story beyond what’s detailed in the American Girl press releases, but she has already sparked a discussion about history in my house. When we were looking at Courtney’s accessories, the kidlet asked about the Walkman, and she got a quick briefing on cassette tapes and the history of personal music devices. Maybe the idea of the 1980s being historical isn’t that radical (in the traditional sense, not the ’80s slang sense) after all. Having lived through that singular xennial experience of an analog childhood and a digital adulthood, I sometimes forget just how much things have changed in a relatively short time. As a child, I used a rotary phone that was hard-wired in the house. Now my phone travels with me and is a better computer than the one I took to college. My daughter might be able to identify the first device as a phone, but it wouldn’t be as a statement of certainty.

I can hope though, that the world keeps getting better for her, just as my parents hoped that it would keep getting better for me. Better representation for all people where they want it will make our world more complete and easier to live in for everyone.

Courtney and her various accessories can currently be found on the American Girl website and in American Girl retail locations.