American Girl company
'American Girl' formerly Pleasant Company a subsidiary of Mattel is a company that manufacturers dolls books and magazines for young girls and teenagers.
The company's flagship line is a collection of historical 18-inch dolls that have books and accessories. The fictional heroines--who each start their series around the age of nine and turn ten in the middle--live during important times in America's past providing "girl-sized" views of significant events that helped shape the United States.
In addition to the historical collection the company also offers a wide range of contemporary 18-inch dollsclothes for you and clothes for your doll and accessories Just Like You dolls Girl of the Year dolls as well as the Bitty Baby line and Bitty Twins line.
American Girl magazine
American Girl is a magazine run by the American Girl company. Aimed towards girls ages 8 through 14 the magazine includes articles advice columns and activity ideas. It is published bi-monthly. Each issue has a girl pictured on the cover; the magazine includes a small profile about the girl including her name and her answers to a few interview questions. It also features "Letters From You" and "Girls Express" which includes a short paragraph on a girl that does an interesting thing a did-you-know fact and an interesting "buzzword". Girls Express also includes poems true stories a polls arts and crafts.
American Girl film
The movie revolves around a teenage girl named Rena an impressionable young lady with a secret whose father is serving a long prison sentence.
Rena and her family travel to the father's prison for the annual family picnic. Things seem to be going just fine until he gets drunk. Her brother Jay who is secretly gay wanders off to tour the prison with another inmate named Buddy. Barbie sneaks off to have sex with her stepfather unbeknownst to the family. Having been discovered by Buddy and Jay the other inmates watch as Buddy makes her squeal like a pig to keep that fact a secret. Jay and Buddy bond and when the tour is over they secretly kiss passionately.
Rena tells her dad that she's pregnant news which the father does not handle well. When Rena's mother later discovers that her husband is having an affair they get into a physical fight. When the guards see this they attack him and he stumbles backwards and falls on Rena. Rena rushes to the bathroom finding that she's bled and lost the baby. She breaks a picture frame and uses the glass shards to slit her wrists but Jay saves her just in time.
Near the movies end Madge and the children realize that the father is abusive and continuing to support him has been holding the family back. Rena realizes that her "fond" memories of her relationship with her father were self-delusions. Madge announces that she is moving the family to Florida and as the movie ends the family is seen packed and driving away with a neighbor who adored the family running through her yard yelling goodbyes.
American Girl song
Due to lyrics mentioning cars rolling by "out on 441" and a desperate girl on a balcony the song was rumored to have been written about a girl who committed suicide by jumping from the Beaty Towers dormitory at the University of Florida in Gainesville Florida where Tom Petty grew up. U.S. Route 441 runs along the university campus beside Beaty Towers.
Carl Van Ness the University of Florida's official historian believes that a student committed suicide by jumping from one of the Beaty Towers during the late '60s or early '70s when Tom Petty still lived in Gainesville. However the dorm does not have balconies.
American Girls band
American Girls originally started as a film project which fizzled. After some personnel changes and more rehearsing the band surprised those who hadn't previously taken it seriously by taking on a life of its own. The band invariably sustained many comparisons to the Go-Gos who were popular at the time as well as signed to the same label IRS Records. However American Girls featured veterans of the all-women band scene including Brie Howard who had played drums for Fanny and Miiko Watanabe who played bass with the notorious Screamin' Sirens. Despite their name and very big hair on the album cover they knew how to rock. They recorded one album only which was intended as a demo but was determined to be good as it was it was pressed to vinyl in its original form. The album was eponymously titled released in 1986. The cover shows the band in a hotel room with booze a deck of cards and a copy of the National Enquirer fully clothed and looking like they would like to be taken seriously.
