I was treated to a splattering of posters for the Bratz movie around Manhattan today, a film based upon the popular doll/cartoon/puzzle piece franchise. These are Bratz dolls:
Ewwwwwwww… It sends a shudder down my spine to even have to upload the picture. You’ve probably seen them. A quick glance, they look like any twiggy thin Barbie doll, then you do a double take because their hideous makeup-caked faces have made an imprint on your brain.
Here, in a succinct little bite-sized portion, is why Bratz dolls are clearly created, endorsed, and owned by satan or other satan-related affiliates:
WHY WOULD YOU GIVE THIS TO YOUR DAUGHTER?! I guess someone may have said that about Barbies, once, too…
1) They celebrate stupidity.
They’re called “Bratz”. Need more? Look at their website, watch the cartoon, go see the upcoming movie, which I’m sure is a shining example of progressive pro-feminist ideals developed by women for a smart, impressionable female audience.
2) They take the laughably unrealistic beauty standard and blow it out of the water.
I mean, Jesus, just look at them. The nose thing kills me. They hardly have them. Oversized, pouty Angelina Jolie lips. Eyes drowning in eyeliner and eyeshadow. Why is it that girl dolls are never allowed to have noses? Is being able to smell unattractive? Their faces look almost identical, save for the slightly differing skin tones and preferred shades of makeup. I’m not even against makeup in every way, shape, or form. I’m fine with teenage girls playing with makeup, but not when it’s to tear down their first face and create a new one.
3) They’re teaching girls… what?
To plaster industrial strength makeup on their faces much earlier than ever before; to dress as provocatively and mass-market targeted as possible; to adopt the attitudes that very insecure, self-bankrupt older women adopt now rather than later; to achieve a level of thinness thought impossible by human test subjects; to get plastic surgery so that their noses are extra itty bitty and cwute (meaning barely visible); to gloriously and proudly refer to themselves as ‘bratz’, a word that, by my recollection, used to mean you were obnoxious and self-entitled; to love shopping without reason or rhyme; to be cliquey and exclusionary; to predicate their lives on fashion, fun, and flirtatiousness.
It annoys the hell out of me that these dolls have managed to become so popular. Why can’t girls be assertive rather than ‘bratty’? Why can’t they have dolls that reflect something of what their lives are actually like? And, if they actually live lives like those of Bratz dolls, why would we encourage anyone to celebrate or idolize that mentality?
Thank God my sister missed this craze by a small margin, because if I had ever seen her playing with a Bratz doll I may have had to remove it from her presence, tear it’s head off, and chuck it in the trash.
Chantal said,
July 12, 2007 @ 11:02 am
The scariest part is that these monstrosities are marketed to under 10-year-olds. I’m glad to say that I stood my ground in refusing to purchase any Bratz-related garbage for my daughter, despite her crying pleas that all her friends have them. When I first saw these things, I had an image of a blow-up doll in my head. These disgusting dolls send the message that little girls are really just sexually-charged young women in children’s bodies, ready for action, and have nothing in their brain other than shopping & behaving like a diva, with no aspirations, no dreams. Vapid little airheads. They have nothing that any child, any teenager, any young woman can relate to.
I love dolls, I played with Barbies til I was….well, old enough not to be playing with them anymore….but at least with Barbie, she had a goodness about her image, she had qualities, you could play & create a world that was similar to yours, and she always seemed to have a job or career, she was doing things. In other words, you could create and imagine anything you wanted with Barbie. With these Bratz porn-star look-a-likes, there is nothing remotely connected to the lives and dreams of young girls, their personnalities are fixed as spoiled brats with attitude who wear impossible outfits and shop while talking on their cell phones.
Well-written post (as usual)…..love your blog.
Chantal :)
gingermiss said,
July 12, 2007 @ 1:56 pm
Right on target, Chantal!
That’s it in a nutshell. Thank you for boiling it down so well.
tcupnewt said,
July 12, 2007 @ 9:21 pm
On the positive side Bratz are slightly more varied in terms of skin-colour. But that’s the only upside of them that I can see…
gingermiss said,
July 14, 2007 @ 1:07 am
You know, tcupnewt, I thought that at first too, but now I feel like that’s a deceptively negative characteristic of the dolls.
If the dolls only embody negative stereotypes, they’re not improving the representation of women of color by including them. They’re really just saying all girls – white, black, hispanic – are vapid “My Sweet Sixteen” consumer hoarding idiots.
Women's Space/The Margins said,
September 4, 2007 @ 3:51 pm
“We Will Not Slumber Until Every Woman Wakes”: The Fifth Carnival of Radical Feminists
The Fifth Carnival of Radical Feminists is Up!
…
emilylondon said,
August 3, 2008 @ 12:18 pm
Eww! I am a nine year old girl and I think that they are wastes of money and space, they she be disallowed in every household. They are teaching kids like me to cover up there true self with tons of glossy make-up and horrible clothes. They are teaching little girls to not show who they trueley are! I despise them from every aspect!
gingermiss said,
November 6, 2008 @ 1:09 am
That’s a great comment, Emily. Thank you for contributing.
mbpappas said,
August 21, 2009 @ 11:52 pm
Listen here,
Bratz aren’t evil…people only see it that way because they think they are bad role models for kids! That’s not true, they teach us to be true to ourselves and wear what we want to wear! Not all girls want to dress like Bratz!
I love Bratz! I’m a huge collector and I don’t dress like them…in fact I’ve never seen someone dressed like them except maybe on halloween….I have yet to see that though!
And hello Barbies are the ones that have the outrageous bodies!! Their toothpicks!
Their just dolls, I don’t think anyone wants to dress like a doll!!
By the way…Barbies are designed after a T.V. prostitute!
♥always&&forever.
kialahbear said,
October 10, 2009 @ 10:17 pm
amen sister!
kialahbear said,
October 10, 2009 @ 10:16 pm
they’re not so bad all they need is some changes thats all, like a different name ,give them proper clothes and change they’re face that’s all. =)