Image: Teaser for the new look Dora the Explorer
What would the real Dora make of this? Dora the Explorer is undergoing a make-over and one can’t help but feel it would not be by choice if Dora actually had a say. Little independent, bilingual Dora – she who wears shorts and a t-shirt, has a sidekick monkey, and a map and backpack for all her outdoor adventures, what would she be like as she got older?
As tweenage Dora, our heroine has moved to the big city, attends middle school and has a whole new fashionable look.
Gee, sounds so adventurous. Problem is Dora is now owned by Mattel and Nickelodeon, and Mattel is still smarting from that whole MGA Bratz battle (which incidentally Mattel won in the courts after Barbie definitely lost it on the shelves). Dora has been sliding into dubious territory for a while with flirtations with princesses and toy kitchens (that at least in our house we’ve mostly managed to avoid in its Dora forms), but Mattel’s ‘tweens market is all about shopping and fashion and they’re looking to extend Dora’s shelf-life, so?…. Dora is a long way from home now.
“Girls really identify with Dora and we knew that girls would love to have their friend Dora grow up with them… The brand captures girls’ existing love of Dora and marries it with the fashion doll play and online experiences older girls enjoy”.
But there is some strong resistance from customers, some of us bought Dora products for our kids precisely because she was so different to the other ‘little girl’ characters on offer. And Hardy Girls Healthy Women are running a petition here to try and save Dora the Explorer’s adventurous spirit.
If the Dora we knew grew up, she wouldn’t be a fashion icon or a shopaholic. She’d develop her map reading skills and imagine the places she could go. She’d capitalize on those problem-solving skills to design new ways to bring fresh water to communities in need around the world. Maybe she’d become a world-class runner or follow her love of animals and become a wildlife preservationist or biologist. We’ll never know because the only way a girl can grow up in tween town, is to narrow that symphony of choices to one note. It’s such a sell out of Dora, of all girls.
Maybe I just got to Dora too late – I watched Dora and the Mermaids and Dora and the Superbabies and thought that she came in a slow second to Atomic Betty and Cassie from Bounty Hamster…. and then Bingo, there was three shelves of Dora glittery plastic crap on the shelves at KMart.
I’m cynical about the WHOLE selling to kids thing, Dora included.I’d like to see Mattel pour some of those megaprofits into community projects for outdoors play…adventure gardens. Climbing castles. Swimming pools with free lessons for people on low incomes…. as a compulsory percentage of their brainwashing, I mean advertising campaigns.
I kind of thought Dora would grow up to be an archaeologist, more Indiana Jones than Time Team. Oh well.
What a shame, my daughter has been a long time Dora and Diego fan. Yes the princess phase did signal impending doom. Let’s just say when Dora becomes another fashion icon and shopaholic we won’t be buying.
Oh, Dora. I had hopes, too. Not a mother myself yet, at least, so maybe something better will come along.
I found your blog at random Googling for “blue milk” because I saw the term used on holiday in New Zealand and I didn’t get to ask about it. I am am avowed feminist, as is my husband, and heaven knows we could use an outpost amid the sea of bland commercialized heteronormativity that seems to be the only brand of parenting on the market. Keep up the posts if you can, I’d love to read more!
All four of my kids – boy age 4, boy age 6, girl age 8, girl age 9, adore Dora and watching a Dora dvd is something they will all always agree upon. I really really really hope she doesn’t change into Barbie Dora.
p.s. The poor washed teddy bear – hope that all worked out ok!
[…] to Dora the Explorer’s clothing as she goes to middle school are getting a lot of feminist criticism. As Dora becomes more feminine in middle school, they suggest she’ll stop being […]