The Doll Study

Chapter four in Sag Harbor features a flashback of Benji playing with Star Wars action figures. Benji notably plays with Greedo, a character who has less than two minutes of total screen time. Ben goes on to explain that the reason for this was following a broadcast on "Like It Is", where a psychologist detailed the results of the infamous "Doll Test". The premise was that a selection of dolls with both dark and light skin would be displayed, and black children between the ages of 3 and 7 would have to pick the "pretty" doll or the "ugly" doll. The kids ended up assigning all the positive traits to the blond, white doll, and more negative traits to the black doll.

Benji decided then that being them was "tainted" (159), and articulated that the only black present in Star Wars was that of Darth Vader, the main villain, and Lando Calrissian, Han's friend that later sells him out to the Empire. So whenever Benji played with star wars figures, he chose to be "the alien and armored and masked" (159). 

There's something deeply saddening about this transition from Luke Skywalker to Greedo, and it's that by no fault of his own, Benji is meant to prioritize projecting a positive image for the sake of representing his people well, over the “Bright rays of hope” present in narratives like Luke’s. Colon Whithead does a great job of touching on the issue of lack of representation in media. As a Native American, I have absolutely no one that looks like me in modern media, so I found myself doing the same things as Benji; playing with racially ambiguous characters like Boba Fett or… yeah, really just Boba. 

It reminds me of a larger trend that I’ve noticed throughout many mainstream movies and series, that I like to call the “[X] Best Friend”, where the main character is straight, cis, and white, but they have a best friend who is either BIPOC, LGBTQ+, neurodivergent, etc. We’ve seen this in series like Star Wars, most Marvel Movies (save for Black Panther), The Incredibles, Mean Girls, and many more. I believe the reason for this (aside from internalized racism, homophobia, etc) is because while writers acknowledge the existence of people who aren’t white, cis, or straight, they don’t know how to centralize the experiences of these people, when in reality, just normalizing their behaviors and existence is a perfectly valid option.


Comments

  1. MitchellMay 27, 2026 at 11:14 AM

    I couldn't help but think of this when we were watching _Stand by Me_ on our final day in class. A great coming-of-age movie, and a great movie altogether, but it was released one year after the summer in which _Sag Harbor_ is set, and there is not a nonwhite person in the entire cast. The setting is 1959, and of course the experiences of these white boys would be entirely segregated. And Oregon is not the most racially diverse state in the union by a long shot, especially so in 1959. But there would be Native American communities all over this area, and they are invisible in the film as well. It's reflective of a time--the period Benji and his crew are growing up in, and the period during which the original Star Wars movies were produced--when there was no real interest in representation or diversity in media. It's partly why The Cosby Show was such a unique and singular experience for Benji and his community--the literal first time they'd seen "themselves" reflected on the TV screen. The Greedo situation is sad; and it's poignant that Benji is still a fan of Star Wars, still wants to play with the toys, still goes deep in the lore--he only wishes the cast were a little more diverse. And that's not too much to ask!

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