Recently, Mattel sued MGA Entertainment, the maker of Bratz, for a breach of contract. Apparently, when creator, Carter Bryant, came up with the idea of Bratz, he was still working for Mattel. In turn, MGA has filed a case against Mattel, saying that Mattel’s line of My Scene dolls copies MGA’s doe eyed, makeup encrusted Bratz. Due to lawsuits, MGA was not allowed to sell Bratz after the winter holidays in 2008, and then they appealed. The whole thing became a scandalous confusing legal issue. However, MGA is being sued for all the wrong reasons. It is my belief that Bratz is an inappropriate and provocative influence on young girls. And that’s where the real scandal comes in.
A child’s favorite toy becomes their role models. For almost fifty years, Barbie was the favorite toy of girls everywhere. She was the perfect woman; she was gorgeous, sporty, had high-achievement jobs and had been married. While this was a sickly sweet, artificial feminine image, it wasn’t doing too much damage. Then Bratz entered the scene. She flounced in with her indecent, ill-fitting clothing, her stumpy feet and outrageous, freakishly large head and started climbing up the sales charts in her knee-high platform shoes. In 2004, Bratz became more of threat to Barbie’s regime by outselling in Brittan. By 2005, Barbie’s sales had dropped by 30% nation wide. She had been bumped by a doll with a proportional three feet of hair.
At least Barbie was promoting a decent lifestyle, even if was pampered and unrealistic. But the Bratz dolls are advocating the clubs, bars and rock concerts. These milieus are where drugs, alcohol and sex are involved. If the demographic of Bratz is six and seven-year-old girls, then the Bratz scene should be seriously rethought.
It has been a long-standing argument of Barbie’s proportions; her long legs, large breasts, and unhealthy skinniness are a negative influence. In comparison to Bratz, Barbie is as human as you or I. Bratz have stumps rather than legitimate feet, her “feet” click onto the stumps, already squeezed into enormous heels. Her head is twice the size of her shoulders and covered in makeup. Her eyes take up half the face and the lips occupy the rest, just barely allowing room for a beauty mark. The clothes manufactured for her are far too small and very revealing.
Most girls who play with Barbie use her as a role-playing toy. She allows them to dream up a life and practice being older and in the dating scene. Barbie can take Ken to her mansion or go with him to the prom in her limo. But with Bratz, kids can hook up with a guy at a bar or a concert. She allows kids to experiment with a darker lifestyle that they don’t need to be exposed to. Supposedly, Bratz are teenagers, but I don’t think that teens should be at bars and clubs until much later, and small children don’t even need to know about it.
Many parents and psychiatrists agree that Bratz is not an appropriate doll for kids to be playing with. She promotes too much of a mature provocative nature, too much like a prostitute to appear on shelves. Bratz is encouraging plastic surgery and premature s***-like behavior. The perverted mind on MGA should be stopped, and their little doll too. Children should not be playing with inappropriate figures of over exaggerated feminine features. Kids should be using their imagination, dreaming, not allowing corporate America to taint their innocence.