SNL Gives American Girl Dolls The Barbie Movie Trailer Treatment
The people simply can't wait for Greta Gerwig's "Barbie," which recently released its second trailer. On the latest "Saturday Night Live," the cast got in on the fun with a sketch parodying the trailer. Only this time, the doll line being adapted isn't Barbie, but American Girl.
For the uninitiated, American Girl was launched in 1986 by the Pleasant company. Doubling as both plaything and history lesson, each of the doll models comes with a unique name and backstory. They represent a particular point in American history, from the Revolutionary War up to the 20th century. These characters don't just span a wide timeframe, but also social strata and race too. To complement the dolls, a book series (with each character getting six entries) was published too.
Guest host Ana de Armas appears in the sketch as Josefina, a young Mexican girl living in Santa Fe during the American-Spanish War. Also featuring are Molly Kearney (Molly, an Illinois preteen during WW2 with a POW father), Heidi Gardner (Kirsten, an 1800s Swedish immigrant turned pioneer), Chloe Fineman (Samantha, an upper-class orphan in turn of 20th century New York), Sarah Sherman (Kit, who lives in Cincinnati during the Great Depression), and Ego Nwodim (Addy, an escaped slave at the tail end of the Civil War).
In keeping with the "Barbie World" theme of Gerwig's movie, the American Girls are all living together in a single house despite having lived decades or even centuries apart. That causes plenty of problems.
Historically accurate dolls
The narrator of the sketch calls the characters, "Your favorite historically accurate dolls." Indeed, the joke here is how the historical accuracy of the American Girl line would be a real downer. The girls go around in a circle sharing their backstories and (spoiler alert) there are lots of dead parents. Kirsten also has cholera, which kills both her and Kit before the sketch is over. Since four of the six dolls are white girls from times when overt racism was the norm, they're also quite dismissive of Addy — "No one said hi to me."
The sketch also pokes fun at the limited freedom these girls would've enjoyed. When they decide to "play," they're seen washing clothes and churning butter — they come from times when such domestic work was all women were allowed to do. When they decide to have a fashion show, they're stuck with "four layers of petticoats and pantaloons."
The narrator summarizes: "Do they have pink Corvettes? Nope. Boyfriends? No way. Did all their family members die of vague, old-timey diseases? Absolutely!"
However, "SNL" is late to the punch; there have been several "American Girl" movies. However, they're straightforward period-piece coming-of-age dramas, adapting the narratives of the book series. If not for the American Girl branding, you probably couldn't even guess their toyline origins. The first film, released in 2004, was about Samantha (AnnaSophia Robb). The second was about Felicity (Shailene Woodley), a girl living in Virginia during the American Revolution. The third was about Molly (Maya Ritter) and the fourth (the only theatrically-released one) was about Kit (Abigail Breslin).
"Saturday Night Live" returns to NBC on May 6 with host Pete Davidson and musical guest Lil Uzi Vert.