For this week’s JUST SAY NO!, I would like to address a commonplace children’s toy which irks me beyond measure.
For those of you w/out daughters or who are otherwise happily living in oblivion, BRATZ are the scourge of wholesome mothers everywhere. These plastic pint-sized dolls, a little like Barbie but even less cerebral, are the certified tramps of the toy aisle. All sass, no class. These “little girl” dolls wear more makeup and less clothing than many of the hookers regularly using my block as a meet-up.
Don’t get me wrong, I am no big fan of ANY of these sexed-up trollop dolls sold to little girls as fantasy material. But at least Mattel’s Baby Doctor Barbie looks vaguely realistic, wearing scrubs instead of a go-go dress.
Behold Cloe (Like CHLOE but w/out the confusing H), one of the Bratz clique.
You can see that Cloe is all dolled up and ready to go, hanging out w/ her cat. I also am an animal lover, so you might think I would like sweet little Cloe and want to buy her for my daughters. But I am not sure about Cloe’s outfit, which brings to mind transvestite street walker – or (let’s not mince words) CHEAP WHORE. I think if I came out of the house in this get-up to feed my cats, my neighbors would stand open-mouthed in shock, wondering whether I’d lost my mind.
It’s great to have your own sense of style. Go crazy. But when you’re spackling on makeup like Bozo the clown and sporting a sequined dress a size too small for a toddler, let’s face facts. You look bad. Not sexy. Not alluring. Just plain floozy. That’s not good. No one should aspire to look like a stripper. Even classy strippers don’t like looking that way. Neither should you. And you reaallllllllllyy reeeaaaaaallllllllllllllyyy shouldn’t be promoting this kind of thing to your minor children. Handing them a BRATZ doll is as good as saying HEY PUMPKIN, SHAKE IT.
We need to inspire our future women to be leaders, to be intelligent and scholarly, creative, inspiring. NOT JUST SULTRY. SURE, you can be sexy. There are PLENTY of attractive, vivacious executives, artists, business tycoons. They have brains AND beauty. The two are not mutually exclusive. Some of these women are also other things. Like Humble. Decent. Modest. Virtues I hope to inculcate in my daughters – things I do NOT SEE IN THE BRATZ CLAN.
It’s the presumptive attitude of entitlement put forth in Bratz that makes me want to retch. The Diva Mentality. Women do not need to flaunt themselves to be fulfilled. They do not need to be eye candy to Be Someone. When we set this sort of example for our girls, they come to believe that the sexualization of children is not just normal, but indeed acceptable. Much like the Ass Shorts I spoke about recently, these dolls are just plain WRONG.
Makeup is fine. Clothes are great. But our daughters need some real role models. Marie Curie. Mother Theresa. J.K. Rowling. Feed the minds of future women. Inspire them to have substance. Aspire to greatness yourself.
JUST SAY NO! to Bratz.
Hear hear! I prefer the Barbie’s I grew up with instead of these sleazy-looking dolls.
These things disgust me. I am not popular with my nieces because I refuse to buy these for birthdays and Christmas. And thankfully so far my 5 year old granddaughter isn’t into these-she’s all about the Disney Princesses (don’t get me started about those-at least they don’t look like miniature hookers). Just say no to forcing adulthood on our children in any fashion.
Those dolls look like they have collagen injected into their lips. Hey kids, just say no to freakishly large facial features.
Amen, Sister! I have sons, but I also have four young nieces. Not only do my nieces actually want to be modest, but my sons would be very grateful if more girls cared to be modest! Mothers of the world, unite! Our children will actually thank us for it.
By the way, here’s a blond joke you might actually like – Why are blonde jokes so short? So brunettes can remember them!
I always thought legos were great presents for everyone! But then again, I thought the Lite Brite was pretty genius too, and the McDonald’s play-dough contraption (mini burgers!), Connect 4, Jenga, Clue, that bouncy ball that kind of looked like Saturn, the skip-it…
um, what was I saying? Oh yes. If I could look like a stripper, it would be Dita Von Teese.
FYI, honest-to-god, actual good press for Philly. I didn’t know you guys had these!
http://www.quizlaw.com/blog/rule_number_one_never_run_out.php
i think i saw a bunch of bratz workin’ your street the other night. ha! they are grody to the max. trollops!
I loathe dolls like Bratz and loathe the very idea of some of the girl’s clothing apparently inspired by these trollops. What little girl needs to dress like a hooker??? I absolutely cannot believe some of the clothes I see in the stores.
or that some parents actually let their kids wear them. Blows my mind!!!
So far so good. Right on the money again. Big high-five from Peter Parkour on this one. 😉
Thank you all for your continued support in my campaign!!! BRING DOWN BRATZ!
Hayden — WOW, thanks for the link to that article. The number of murals here in Philly is pretty astounding. I think I’ve grown almost immune to their charms (not quite), but you see them w/ such frequency, you notice them, but forget how truly lovely they are most of the time. The third mural down (the girl w/ the tree) is right around the corner from Maddie’s school – we pass it almost every day. When I first saw it I was absolutely struck. Nowadays I barely see it. The first one – the one the author likes best is so large – it takes up the entire side of a school. All of them are superb – whatever the subject matter. You like some better than others, naturally. But art is always subjective. We’re very lucky to have them.
I like beans
The future of women is not threatened by Bratz, but by the fact that we let the good girl/bad girl binary define us. We let people judge us and define us by our physical looks, not what’s inside our heads.
Instead of banning Bratz, we should be teaching our kids to define themselves in ways other than material objects. Clothes and makeup are material objects… they aren’t what truly matters in a good friend, good co-worker, or good neighbor. It’s the person beneath the clothes and make-up that does. Little Suzy or Timmy will have plenty of time to conform to social attitudes and expectations. Playtime is a time to experiment and roleplay, not to act the way society expects you to when you are an adult. At the end of the week, Bratz and Barbies each end up naked on the batheroom floor or at the bottom of the toy box. It doesn’t matter what they were wearing in the box they come in.
Children roleplay with dolls— but they do not become like them unless pressure is put on them to. Children act based on the values instilled in them by their community, not a piece of plastic. If a piece of plastic has so much sway over someone’s kids that they start acting like real-life “Bratz,” then that speaks for their parenting skills.