I will preface this post by saying that I do not have children. I have never had to raise a daughter. I DO however have lots of friends with little girls that I spend a decent amount babysitting and *hopefully* mentoring. I am quite disturbed by this whole "BRATZ" phenomenon.
I know that one of the arguments I usually hear when I bring up the fact that I think Bratz dolls are inappropriate for little girls is "well barbie didn't do much better". I have to disagree with that statement. I think that although barbie did (and still does) give an unrealistic body image expectation (especially considering that the majority of the US is overweight) she was much better at showing our young girls (and boys I guess if they had barbies) how to respect themselves and that they could be anything they wanted to be. On the Bratz website they barely hint at this and it seems almost as a means to countering the overpowering message of sex and tantrums to get you where you want to be. Let's see some evidence to show my point.
Let's ignore for a minute the amount of make up she is wearing (cause let's face it, Barbie's a little overdone herself...) but the facial features themselves are completely exxagerated in a sexual manner. The huge eyes that are shaped very sultry and I have no clue how they did this with plastic and paint but made them very obviously quite "beckoning" and sensual. Barbie's eyes are almond shaped as well and indicate a more mature woman, but I do not get a sexual vibe from them, she looks friendly, not fuckable. Barbie's mouth is in a nice approachable smile, with teeth showing, which tells us she's healthy and probably going to be nice to us. The Fairy Bratz doll on the other hand (and all the other Bratz dolls by the way) have the overly pouted lip glossed mouth that I'm sure some male friends that would refer to as DSL's.
To a lesser extent but still bothersome is the clothing on these dolls:
Although both dolls are wearing a shirt that shows their tummy, Barbie's is a cute Tshirt that seems to have ridden up while walking her dog, the Bratz doll is wearing a skimpy tank top that shows her belly and says "babe" in sparkly letters. You might think that I picked the most normal looking barbie and the most horrendous looking Bratz I could find for this but I merely did a Google search and these are what came up. Most of the other Barbie images were special edition Barbies and I wanted something indicative of the norm. The same thing goes for the Bratz, this is not a special edition, this is what they all look like. While I cannot really pin down the exact pieces of clothing that these dolls wear and how they are either appropriate or innapropriate, I think it's obvious by the entire look of the dolls. Barbie looks fun and casual, the Bratz doll looks like a hooker.
Why are we teaching our children to be easy, demanding, and obsessed with material things? This is not the way a person gets ahead in this world, at least not really. I think it really says something when our children are being hyper sexualized and yet their education about their bodies is being all but taken away.
I don't have any children, yet. You can believe that when I do, the only time they will hear "Bratz" is when I tell them not to act like one.
2 comments:
I really like this post. Thanks! I did raise 2 daughters and I hope I would've said NO when they asked for this doll. Anna Nicole was a real life personification (sp?) of a Bratz doll and look where it got her.
My daughter got a Bratz doll for her birthday last month. I inwardly cringed, encouraged her to say thankyou, and have not mentioned the doll since. She was excited to have an illicit toy in the house and played with it for about a week, but it's now at the bottom of a toy drawer and hasn't been thought of since.
The dolls are bobble-headed, too. This means they don't actually sit up or stand up or anything. My daughter can't actually *play* with the blasted thing, because it won't stay where she puts it. She has several barbie dolls that are much easier to play with, and to be honest, mostly go around naked because she likes to play with them in the bath.
I hate bratz dolls, I really do; I'm just glad that my kid has not gotten too attached to the one we have in the house. Did you know that instead of changing shoes, their entire FOOT comes off? Gross, right?
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