Bratz dolls are the top selling fashion doll in Australia. When I first spotted Bratz dolls I wasn’t a mother. I saw them out of the corner of my eye and thought what a relief from Barbie. In case you aren’t familiar with them, Bratz have varying ethnic backgrounds and they follow alternate fashion trends like coloured hair, tattoos, fake fur, vinyl pants and platform boots which seemed to me a lot less rigid and suburban than Barbie. Bratz look more like my friends and I, well how we looked in our 20’s anyway (see above). I heard the ruckus about Bratz before I bothered to look at them more closely and thought it all a little uptight. I probably rolled my eyes at these parents the way I did years ago with my mother’s friend who was disgusted to discover that I was taking my little sister (in late primary school) to a Madonna concert for her birthday. Its Madonna.
Now that I have a daughter, who’s not yet two and I’m finding the Bratz imagery all over everything I’m shopping for -clothes, swimmers, bags, lunchboxes, crockery, birthday cards etc I’m taking a lot more notice of Bratz. At a push I can almost deal with the Bratz dolls and their adolescent stripper chic, they’re alarmingly provocative but they fit perfectly with the rise in raunch culture that has become mainstream. I detest this culture because it is so very restrictive about what is sexy for women, its dominated by men’s pleasure and, it means anything goes now when it comes to sexism. I want to be careful pinpointing my hatred of Bratz because much of the on-line criticism of Bratz Dolls by mothers doesn’t sound so feminist – all this blogging about how we don’t want our daughters to be copying this slutty behaviour smacks of girl-bashing. Villifying the whore is about the oldest form of hating women there is. After all, we wore those Bratz doll-like vinyl skirts and fur trimmed bikinis to raves in our 20’s, so who wants to get too prissy now that we’re in our 30’s and are mothers? (you probably can’t tell from the photo of her father and I but the blonde girl next to us is wearing a see-through nurse’s outfit)
But then… there are Bratz Baby dolls – a baby doll wearing a nappy, lingerie, make-up and long hair? With her bottle hanging from a chain against her exposed upper thigh, she looks like a sex doll for adults who get excited dressing up as babies. I want to ask the manufacturers, M.G.A Entertainment two questions – you’re going to deny you are sexualising children, so what exactly is your explanation for the Bratz Babies – what does this doll represent to you? And when did ‘sex sells’ become morally ok for you personally, in designing toys for little girls?
And that’s the thing about Bratz dolls – they look like sexed-up adolescents but they’re marketed to little girls. Very. Little. Girls. I can handle reclaiming ‘slut’ as fashion inspiration, I’m ok with young women experimenting with ‘provocative’ as a form of power and sexuality but those things are for young women (and older women if they like), not little girls. Fish net stockings, lace-up high-heeled boots, cats eye make-up, micro skirts, fake eyelashes, hair extensions, pouty lips, porn star poses – that’s supposed to be for when you’re old enough to be reinventing yourself after being the geeky girl who never dated in high school. Dolls are for imaginative play – what kind of roles does ‘a passion for fashion’ offer a little girl? A doll might just be a doll for an adult, but a small child lacks a sense of absurdity for interpreting ‘born to shop’ and ‘I’m lookin’ for trouble’. And she has the whole of her adult life to be tormented by the standards of fashion, why entrap her now? What is she learning about her sexuality from a Bratz doll? Why does she have to learn to equate fun and play with porn star sex? Let her experiment with these symbols of wild sexuality when she is old enough to understand them and also old enough to understand how others interpret them.
The Bratz babies sound awful, I have a daughter too and wonder. Maybe it is just more backlash to feminisim. I see the effects of it in the elementary school where I teach, the girls coming in dressed sexy.
A similar issue is not even getting much press, for boys and body image.
Thanks for the link to the article. Some good (but disturbing) points raised.
“Dr. Pope said the dolls might be planting in boys’ minds a template for a he-man’s body that cannot be attained without engaging in obsessive behaviors to build muscle and strip off fat, and then augmenting those efforts through the consumption of drugs like human growth hormone and anabolic steroids.”
I find bratz bad but when I saw baby bratz I almost died in amazement. One other thing odd is their feet remove up to the calf to change shoes, you just pull off lower leg. where is Ramirez or Dahmer? broken little bits of girls in pretty panties…
Barbie could be a teacher, a vet, or a scuba diver, while the Bratz do nothing but shop, party, and flirt with the Boyz!
YOU ARE SUCH SOCCER MOMS AND LOSERS! I HEART THE BRATZ DOLLS AND ALWYAS WILL. THEY’RE NOT AS BAD AS YOU SAY THEY ARE. THE BRATZ TEACH KIDS TO BE YOURSELF AND HAVE SOME FUN! THE ONL BAD THING THOUGH IS THAT THEY HAVE REMOVABLE FEET AND SOMETIMES CAN’T ATTATCH RIGHT, BUT THEY’RE ON THE TOP OF MY WISHLIST AND I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE THE MOVIE.~~~~~CARLA BANNIE.
The Bratz teach girls to be slutty lil hookers. I am pretty sure sexualized pre-adolescent girls have nothing to do with any sports affiliation or lack there of, and furthermore I believe it is more stereotypically the “soccer moms” who support Bratz. If you are to name my clique disparagingly please refer to me as liberal, sex positive, psycho, well dressed, Waldorf mom!
Yeah.. what she said.
I just found out the Bratz have bras for 6 year olds! Chack this website out.
http://feministing.com/archives/005685.html
NO MATTER WHAT YOU SAY ABOUT THE BRATZ, I’LL STILL LOVE THEM! http://www.bratz.com
This post has been linked to at –
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/02/23/developmental-impact-of-the-sexualisation-of-girls/
I’m very proud.
This post has been selected for the 35th Carnival of Feminists, hosted at The F Word, one of my very favourite sites.
http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2007/april
I’m very, very proud.
If you live in Australia then you might want to watch this show on SBS. See here for details:
SLUTZ is more like it. I’ve seen loads of 4 year olds at the day care center I work at that dress like them.
I bought a Bratz doll once, though only to hack it up, rip out one of its arms and make a certain part of male anatomy for my Obitsu (a kind of Japanese customizable doll). Most fun I’ve ever had destroying a doll, let me tell you.
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[…] which popularises porn-chic, the men who get off on it? I think not. Unfortunately much of the anti-Bratz rhetoric among parents has been heavy with terms like “dressing like a slut”, […]
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[…] things feminists today are raising awareness of: ignorance about female reproductive capacity and sexualisation of children. Feminism today also includes a rather vigorous discussion of maternal desire. This is, at least in […]
There’s nothing sexual about Bratz dolls, including Bratz Babyz. Why is there a need to sexualise dolls and restrict women’s clothing? No child would take Bratz’ clothes and makeup seriously. Children can play with any doll and don’t need the doll to look like them or have realistic proportions. This means that Barbie dolls are perfectly acceptable for any child, cause children don’t care if a doll is tall, blonde and fair with blue eyes and high heels. They have no reason to take Barbie seriously, especially since she pursues a diverse array of careers all while wearing high heels. About that, children don’t care what life a doll leads so Mattel probably shouldn’t put so much effort into career Barbie and just give her nice clothes. People get inspired to pursue careers by doing things, not because of career dolls. That being said, in the unlikely event that a child is offended by a doll’s details, it’s cause they’ve been brainwashed by the woke mob (or you) to demand accurate representation and other trivial things. Also straight hair isn’t a legitimate criticism of a doll because curling doll hair is as simple as braiding it, with small sections for tighter curls. Not to mention, straight doll hair gets matted easily enough; curly hair would be even worse. Talking dolls should say silly things instead of being inspirational because dolls are supposed to be fun not serious. There’s nothing wrong with Barbie saying math class is tough since most kids can relate and those who don’t can laugh at her for being dumb. Barbie should have never become feminist in the first place because all that accomplished was making kids enjoy interacting with her less cause she’s no longer funny and relatable. Actually, a smart Barbie would be funny too because children would find her weird, but relatability is such an important thing for many kids, so being the protagonist places a limit on Barbie’s intelligence. Since Bratz’ phrases are so silly, they’re harmless phrases that kids won’t take seriously and will only laugh at.