The Triumphs and Drawbacks in How Bratz Dolls Paved a New Path for Femininity and Sexuality
Dolls marketed towards young girls have long been a heated subject of controversy in society. We often see scholars, parents, and journalists alike, asking whether certain dolls offer girls positive encouragement towards independence and confidence, or rather, negative reinforcements of unrealistic body standards and gendered roles. One product in particular that shook the world with its risqué style and controversial image was Bratz Dolls.
Who Are Bratz Dolls and Why Do They Matter?
Released in 2001 by MGA Entertainment, Bratz Dolls became the first to rival Mattel’s Barbie Dolls in the market, and were often dubbed “anti-barbies” (Townsend, 2011). These dolls hit the shelves, flaunting “hip-hugging outfits, bare midriffs, big shoes and pouty lips” (Colker, 2008). In a display of feminism and sexuality like never before, Bratz dolls emerged as icons in an era of increasing feminine sexuality. Soon enough, Bratz were giving Barbie a run for her money- in 2005, just four years after Bratz’ launch, MGA sold roughly $800 million worth of Bratz dolls, whereas Mattel sold roughly $445 million in Barbies (Sunderland, 2016). The feud of Bratz versus Barbie is heavily debated, as the emergence of Bratz dolls took on femininity with a new lens focused on ethnic diversity, friendship, consumer culture, and what is often described as something of urban-chic street style.
The emergence of Bratz dolls came with questions about sexuality and femininity in dolls that are marketed towards young girls: Does their style promote a culture of over-sexualization of female bodies? Do they commodify race as a type of accessory? Or do they embrace diversity and confidence in girls from minority groups? Do they break away from gendered roles? Or does the idealization of consumer culture offer another route to a limiting idea of femininity for young girls?
BRATZ & BODY IMAGE + STYLE
Since their debut, Bratz have been bashed for their sexualizing nature. Below are some criticisms of the body image and the promiscuous style which is idealized by the Bratz dolls brand:
“Bratz dolls have swollen heads, pouty lips, spindly limbs, and chunky-heeled shoes. Their waists are barely wider than their necks. Their eyes and heads are so big and their noses so small that if it weren’t for their Penthouse makeup (icy eyeshadow, cat-eye liner, glistening lip gloss, and eyelashes as long as their fingers) and their come-hither clothes (crop tops, hot pants, microminis, and kinky boots), they’d look like emaciated babies, Kewpie dolls in a time of famine.” -Jill Lepore, The New Yorker
“The dolls, which came on the market just over a decade ago, are weirdly sexualized for playthings aimed at five- to ten-year-old girls — stiletto sandals, cushiony Botox lips, heavy eye shadow, and shop-till-you-drop, kept-girl attitude.” -Margaret Talbot, The New Yorker
“[O]n the bratz.com website, preschoolers learn that to ‘look like a movie star,’ they’ll have to don skintight spangled gowns with plunging necklines and front slits that run all the way up to the crotch” -M. Gigi Durham, The Lolita Effect: The Media Sexualization of Young Girls and What we can do about it
Even institutions such as the American Psychological Association warn against the sexual implications of Bratz Dolls for young girls, noting that Bratz dolls are “dressed in sexualized clothing such as miniskirts, fishnet stockings and feather boas.” They even call upon parents to be on the lookout for daughters who appear concerned with their appearance, warning that wearing sexy clothing can be a distraction, in that it requires too much adjusting, which can distract from schoolwork and social activities (APA, 2008). This indicates the negative effects that that APA assumes the dolls will have on young girls.
Parents are yet another group who shake their fists at Bratz dolls for supposedly encouraging promiscuous behavior in young girls and for setting unrealistic beauty standards. Below is a link to a discussion board entitled “Bratz Dolls and Other Bad Influences?” created by a parent to express their concerns about the influence that Bratz have on their children:
Here are some highlights from the discussion board:
- “Bratz Dollz have super big lips, big heads and uber skinny bodies. They also wear short skirts that show off their legs and shirts that show their bellies. I personally think little girls shouldn’t be playing with these things.”
- “If you let your children play with Bratz then there’s a chance they will like the fashion and on Bratz dolls and want to dress up like Bratz someday. Since what they played with in their childhood will inspire them. Inspire them to dress like SLUTS. They are called Bratz for a reason.”
The language used by parents in this discussion board reflects their attitudes towards Bratz dolls, which mirrors the negative outlook on the dolls as they have been portrayed by various journalists. This distaste for perceived increased sexualization in dolls reflects parent’s distaste for the new ways in which Bratz dolls portrayed femininity and sexuality.
Another display of parental dismay towards Bratz is evident in this article, which reports on a Tasmania-based artist who repaints Bratz dolls’ faces to look more natural:
The artist sells these remodeled Bratz as “Tree Change Dolls” and claims to swap their “high maintenance habits” for a” more down-to-earth style” (Singh, 2020). Here, we can see that there is not only a distaste for, but also a counter culture to Bratz dolls. This is evident in the attempts to reinvent the dolls in opposition to their intended glamorous and seductive style.
While there was hope that Bratz dolls could be a more body positive alternative to Barbies, ultimately Bratz dolls were a sideways step when it came to female body standards. Barbie dolls were known for being unrealistically tall and skinny- if Barbie were a real, she would be 5’9” and weigh 120 pounds, and her body fat percentage would be so low that she would be unable to menstruate (mirror-mirror, 2020). Meanwhile, Bratz dolls took a different, but equally unfair approach to female body standards, by maintaining the small waist sizes and opting to inflate eye and lip sizes. This enforced yet another unattainable ideal of female beauty, made to fit in with evolving standards of pop culture that not only should a female have a thin waist and small arms and legs, but also voluptuous hips, large eyes, and perfectly pouty lips.
Here’s some videos of YouTubers and influencers attempting to make themselves look like a Bratz doll:
BRATZ & MINORITY WOMEN/GIRLS: EMPOWERMENT OR COMMODIFICATION?
Bratz shattered society’s looking glass into a world which Barbie made out to be a place where the caucasian, blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl was always the star of the show, and dye-dipped versions of herself always came lower in the social hierarchy.
The original Bratz lineup was made up of 75% ethnic minorities: a caucasian doll, “Cloe”; an African American doll, “Sasha”; an Asian doll, “Jade”; and a medium-skinned doll, “Yasmin” (Earley, 2017). While Yasmin is believed by some to be Latina, she technically lacks a designated race, as it has been pointed out by scholars that Yasmin is “a seemingly mixed-race doll, who could easily ‘pass’ as a Latina, a Filipina, a South Asian girl, or a White girl with a good tan” (Guerrero, 2008). While there are presumed ethnicities of the dolls, and the lineup was celebrated for its racial inclusion, Bratz were generally intended to be marketed as “multiethnic” and “urban” (Lepore, 2018). Because of this ambiguous use of race in their marketing, it is argued that Bratz Dolls fetishize race, making it into a glamorized consumer accessory.
Yet despite this, Bratz did a good job at straying from Barbie’s emphasis that femininity only applies to caucasian females. They certainly triumphed at reimagining a world where all little girls once strived to be the “Barbie in the dream house,” to a society where you could be a minority of any race and still be in the spotlight. Despite the proposed idea that Bratz exploits race as an accessory, these dolls have proven encouraging to girls who have struggled with the limitations of being a minority in a society previously dominated by dolls like Barbie. In one study, research found that the ethnic diversity of Bratz dolls allowed minority consumers to explore race relations, both in historical and personal contexts (Hains, 2012). Opportunities for young girls to explore and perceive race as a part of their identities by playing with Bratz dolls allows for a realistic expression of individualism and race in relation to their own femininity, and empowers them as females more than Barbies would be able to.
BRATZ & DISPLAYS OF FEMININITY
Arguably, the most significant way in which Bratz dolls paved their own path astray from the norms previously established by Barbie was how they reimagined femininity. To Barbie, femininity is a constant and a given- she is above all a female “ideal” who is locked into traditional middle class aspirations and values of home and family, remaining located in a narrative of domestic bliss (Guerrero, 2008). Even when Barbie enters the workforce as a dentist, her feminine flair dictates that she be the kind of dentist who wears hot pink skin-tight leggings, and black high-heeled boots.
Bratz dolls on the other hand, took a different approach to femininity. Unlike Barbies, Bratz dolls were not marketed in association with certain homes, families, or careers of any type, and therefore, appeared to have no domestic or professional responsibilities. They are “models of a post-modern feminine freedom that is unburdened by traditional, middle-class gender expectations” (Guerrero, 2008).
While it is liberating for the market to offer a doll that is not formative of female stereotypes and gender roles in society, Bratz dolls opened a new door to the issues that arise when girls are lead to believe that their self-worth is reflective of what they are able to buy and wear. This issue arises as no context is given to suggest where or how the Bratz dolls affording clothing, accessories, and leisurely activities. Rather, Bratz dolls are always marketed in spaces of pleasure and consumption, which ultimately harbors a disconnected relationship to wealth in young girls (Guerrero, 2008). It is in this way that Bratz dolls can be considered catalysts of consumer culture and materialistic values in girls from a young age.
There was potential when Bratz rejected Barbie’s domesticity and narrow projections of femininity. Yet rather than placing an emphasis on less tangible joys such as interpersonal relationships and personal goals, Bratz dolls, yet again, sidestepped a relevant issue and hopped into their own lane of limiting ideals that impact the development of young girls- this time with an emphasis on mindless consumerism and materialistic gain.
Another appeal to femininity by Bratz dolls is that they are marketed as a collective friend group. Where Barbie always stood center stage, often clamoring for Ken’s attention and seeming less concerned with the happenings of her friends, Bratz dolls shared the spotlight, focusing on friendship and a shared passion for fashion (Earley, 2017). Arguably, this framing of Bratz dolls as an egalitarian squad of friends was an empowering step for feminism in the market, allowing girls to embrace sisterhood and collective support, over self-interested and otherwise attention-centered realities.
TO CONCLUDE
It is evident that Bratz made an effort to light their own path separate from that of Barbie’s. Their efforts showed body image and femininity in a new light which put into question the body standards and gender roles that were previously enforced by Barbie. While these efforts did, indeed, demonstrate that dolls can be appealing when independent from the constraints of domesticity, at the same time, Bratz failed to introduce the dolls as having any personal aspirations aside from consumerism which feeds into a female standard of needing to maintain attractiveness at any cost. On top of this, Bratz dolls contributed to the enforcement of unrealistic body standards which riddles the doll industry. However, Bratz’s bold statements of style, friendship, and the empowerment of minority girls, does demonstrate that Bratz had something to offer the industry in terms of paving a new path for femininity and sexuality.
REFERENCES
Barbie And Body Image — Mirror. (2020, May 16). Retrieved May 25, 2020, from https://mirror-mirror.org/body-image/barbie-and-body-image
Colker, D. (2008, June 13). Bratz creator tells of origins. Retrieved May 24, 2020, from https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-jun-13-fi-bratz13-story.html
Durham, M. G. (2009). The Lolita effect: The media sexualization of young girls and what we can do about it. Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press.
Earley, K. (2017, July 25). Here’s why Bratz dolls were far superior to Barbies. Retrieved May 24, 2020, from https://www.dailyedge.ie/bratz-better-than-barbies-3456293-Jun2017/
Guerrero, L. (2008, December 31). Can the Subaltern Shop? The Commodification of Difference in the Bratz Dolls. Washington State University. Retrieved from: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1532708608325939
Hains, R. (2012, June 1). An Afternoon of Play with Problematic Dolls: The Importance of Foregrounding Children’s Voices in Research. Girlhood Studies. Retrieved from: https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/girlhood-studies/5/1/ghs050108.xml
Lepore, J., Talbot, M., & Widdicombe, L. (2018, January 22). When Barbie Went to War with Bratz. Retrieved May 24, 2020, from https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/22/when-barbie-went-to-war-with-bratz
Mathews, E. (2019, July 24). 2019’s Unlikeliest Style Icons: Bratz Dolls. Retrieved June 04, 2020, from https://fashionmagazine.com/style/bratz-style-icons/
Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls. (2008). Retrieved May 24, 2020, from https://www.apa.org/pi/women/programs/girls/report
Singh, S. (2020). Tree Change Dolls. Retrieved June 04, 2020, from https://treechangedolls.tumblr.com/
Sunderland, M. (2016, January 26). Meet the Designers Behind the Controversial Bratz Dolls. Retrieved May 24, 2020, from https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qkgyvx/meet-the-designers-behind-the-controversial-bratz-dolls
Talbot, M. (2017, June 20). Bratz v. Barbie: Who’s the Bad Girl? Retrieved May 24, 2020, from https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/bratz-v-barbie-whos-the-bad-girl
Townsend, A. (2011, February 16). All-TIME 100 Greatest Toys. Retrieved May 24, 2020, from http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2049243_2048662_2049235,00.html