I was obsessed with Bratz growing up. I have a vague memory of the first time I saw a Bratz doll when I was about six or seven. My older sister’s friend had one, and I thought it was the coolest toy I’d ever seen. I loved the way it looked, the clothes, the hair, and I wanted one for myself. When I was younger, one of the first things I would say to someone when making a friend was “Do you like Bratz?”. I used to spend far too much time in the toy aisle at Tesco or Woolworths (RIP) deciding which doll to get. I would compare the outfits and think about the dramatic storylines I could create with them. I took the selection process so seriously that my mum would feel sorry for me and often would let me choose two. I had a Bratz car, a limousine, a bus, a house, Bratz Boyz, Bratz Babyz, Lil’ Bratz, and Bratz Kidz. I also had the Bratz game on PS2. I would always ask for Bratz for birthdays and Christmas. They were a big part of my childhood.
You could argue "Don't theorise, accessorise!" isn't a great message, but I think it's open to interpretation. It could mean don't overanalyse, express yourself.
Bratz were launched in 2001 and the original line-up included four dolls: Jade, an Asian girl, Sasha, a black girl, Cloe, a white girl, and Yasmin, whose ethnicity has never officially been confirmed, but she has brown skin, brown eyes, and dark hair, and it’s been suggested that she’s Persian or Hispanic. The diversity of the dolls meant that young girls with similar features could see themselves represented. The founder of MGA Entertainment Isaac Larian came to America from Iran when he was seventeen to study Engineering. Designer Carter Bryant showed Larian his concept for a new line of dolls, but Larian initially didn’t like it. He said the dolls looked like “aliens”. However, when he showed it to his 11-year-old daughter Jasmine her eyes lit up (Yasmin is actually named after Jasmine).
Criticism and Backlash: "Bratz are shallow fun, and Barbie is wholesome inspiration."
In a CNBC report, Isaac Larian was asked “What made you think you could take on Mattel?” and this is Larian's response: “Why not? The people who run Mattel put their pants on the same way everybody else does.” One of the interviewees said this about the way Bratz looked: “I think it’s an exaggeration, I think it’s a caricature. The head is disproportionately big, the lips are ridiculously pouty and puffed, and the look of the clothing is exaggerated in the same way.” Women of colour, particularly black women, have been mocked and sexualised for having fuller lips. Real women have these features, so it's not outrageous or unrealistic to see similar features represented in the form of a doll. He fails to recognise that Barbie’s original design is also an unrealistic caricature of a ‘perfect’ woman. If Barbie was real, she would be dangerously underweight and would be unable to walk due to her proportions. They asked young girls in a toy store which Bratz doll was their favourite, and one girl said that she liked Yasmin because: “She has my hair colour, my eye colour.” It’s clear that young girls looked at Bratz and saw themselves represented. This is what Larian said about diversity in the doll market:
I don’t think an African American girl, or a Middle Eastern ethnic background girl or a Latin girl wants to necessarily buy a blonde doll. I think they want to buy something that represents who they are.
One mother said she didn’t want her daughter playing with Bratz because she didn’t want her to become a brat. I remember hearing people making negative comments about Bratz dolls, saying that they looked like “prostitutes”. Back then I couldn’t comprehend it, and I still can’t. What does a prostitute look like? When you take the time to dissect it, it’s odd that this is a go-to insult for a woman’s appearance when someone feels that their outfit is too “provocative”. There are many reasons people become sex workers. They often become villainised because of their job, even though they are often the ones who are put at risk. When the reporter asked Larian about Bratz being bad role models, he responded: “It’s a doll. The message comes from the parents.” I agree with Larian. I think negative messages parents were getting from Bratz dolls were most likely them projecting ideas onto the dolls themselves. It’s the parent’s responsibility to teach their child what’s right and what’s wrong. Playing with toys is fun escapism, and I think that's how it should be.
Lawsuit
In 2002, Mattel released a competitor to Bratz, Myscene dolls. MGA sued Mattel because the dolls' design was strikingly similar to Bratz. MGA had a point, Myscene dolls were essentially an edgier version of Barbie, with a very similar face to Bratz dolls, with the classic Barbie body. In 2011, Mattel was ordered to pay $172.5 million to MGA after allegations that Mattel used undercover employees to infiltrate MGA strongholds at toy fairs. By this time Bratz had started to lose their way from a design point of view. MGA did a rebrand of the dolls which were arguably unfashionable and uninspired. The appeal of Bratz from the beginning was their sense of style, and they were starting to lose this. In 2016, after a decline in sales and loss of popularity, Bratz were discontinued.
The De-Yassification of Bratz
A woman from Toronto went viral after posting her Bratz make-unders, where she removed their makeup and dressed them in unglamorous clothing. I understand the message she was trying to portray about inner beauty and self-acceptance, but I personally don’t find this progressive at all. She was stripping away their individuality and edge. I think instead it sends a message that if you express yourself with clothing, fun hairstyles, and makeup you’re somehow not being true to yourself. I personally think this is just as damaging, and another example of punishing women for wanting to express their femininity. If someone wants to wear glittery eyeshadow and a cute outfit, I see absolutely nothing wrong with that. She says in the video: “It’s neat to be saving these girls, in a productive way.”
Diversity, Inclusion and Gender
It’s worth noting that Barbie (full name Barbara Millicent Roberts) was created in 1959. Bratz were launched 42 years after Barbie, so it's fair to expect MGA to be a little more progressive from the beginning. The first black Barbie, Christie, was introduced in 1968. Christie was initially launched as a paper doll, then reintroduced with two other dolls as part of a talking doll release. They all came with a string in their back which once pulled said phrases like “Let’s go shopping with Barbie” and “I love being a fashion model”. Not exactly motivational. It reminds me of The Simpsons episode where Lisa feels uninspired by her Malibu Stacey doll. She pulls on the string and this is what comes out:
I wish they taught shopping in school! Let’s bake some cookies for the boys!
Barbie, the white, blue-eyed, blonde-haired “all American girl” is always front and centre, the other characters fade into the background. In contrast, Bratz were equals with their own identities and own personality traits (which you could read on the back of the box) there was no main doll. Barbie was always the main character, everyone else was just an extension of her or an accessory, like Ken or Skipper. The early non-white Barbies were essentially carbon copies of Barbie herself, with a darker skin tone, brown eyes, and dark hair. The hair textures were usually the same, and there was no real attempt to represent black girls or women. That was until 1980, when the first official black Barbie was released with the tagline: “She’s black! She’s beautiful! She’s dynamite!”. She was designed by Kitty Black Perkins, a principal designer at Mattel. She had never owned a Barbie during her childhood, and revealed that the Black Barbie's design was inspired by Diana Ross.
I’m John Quiñones. What Would You Do?
In this episode of What Would You Do? (2008-present) a white child actress plays a girl called Ava, and a black actress plays her babysitter Jazelle. Ava is picking out a new doll, and Jazelle suggests that she get a black doll because she has a lot of similar looking toys. In response, Ava makes racist comments about the black doll, saying she looks “mean and scary” and “white dolls are prettier”. The first bystander looks alarmed by what Ava is saying and looks sympathetically at Jazelle: “How about both? Too much of the same thing isn’t good.” She tells Ava that some of her best friends don’t look like her: “Friends come in all different shapes and sizes and colours.” One of the most interesting interactions in this episode is between Ava and a mixed-race woman. She says:
My daughter likes a lot of the ones with the pink dresses too, but you know what she does? She gets a bunch of different Barbies, one that’s lighter skin, one that’s darker skin and medium skin, and you know what she does with all of them? They can be completely different people and they can play with each other.
Gender Norms
Reflecting on these dolls that I loved so much growing up got me thinking more about gender specific toys, and why some parents feel the need to push specific gender norms onto their children from birth. The idea that pink represents girls, and blue represents boys is incredibly outdated. In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, it was common for mothers to dress their sons in pink because it was considered a masculine colour. Whereas girls were dressed in blue, which was the feminine alternative.
Body Positivity and Disability Representation
Throughout the 2000s, it became the norm for many female celebrities to be super skinny, reinforcing toxic and unrealistic beauty standards. I can say with complete honesty that Bratz never gave me a complex about the way I looked as a child, nor did they ever lower my self-esteem. I just loved playing with them, choosing their outfits, and styling their hair. In a social climate where brands need to adapt to stay woke and relevant, Mattel have made attempts in recent years to be more inclusive, by releasing a diverse range of Barbies with different body types and skin tones, as well as Barbies with disabilities.
The first Barbie who used a wheelchair was released in 1997, called “Share a Smile Becky” and was introduced as a "Friend of Barbie". Mattel received criticism for Becky's incompatibility with other Barbie playlets (her wheelchair didn’t fit in the Dreamhouse). In 2019, they released a new Barbie with a fully functional wheelchair, with rolling wheels and a working brake. They also released dolls with the skin condition vitiligo, prosthetic limbs, and a Barbie with a hearing aid. I think it would have been unfathomable for there to be body positive fashion dolls fifteen years ago. It's likely they would would have been mocked by people, in a society where body shaming was commonplace. The plus-sized Barbies weren’t released until 2016, which is crazy when you think about it. To some extent, it might feel like Mattel are sometimes pandering to what they think customers want. However, whether they’re doing it for the right reasons or not, they’re still doing it, and that’s worth something.
Bratz's Comeback
With the massive popularity of the Y2K aesthetic, Bratz have been making their way back onto the scene through memes on Twitter and Instagram. When I found out that a Bratz makeup collaboration with Makeup Revolution had been released, I was immediately intrigued. The official Bratz Insta released a cool promo video of a Bratz doll applying makeup.
I went online and went a little bit overboard. I got the Yasmin eyeshadow palette, two lip crayons and a lip gloss. I knew there was a chance of it being a bit gimmicky, but the products are actually great quality and I would recommend! It’s definitely a plus if you were a childhood Bratz stan like me. I recently discovered the official Bratz Instagram account, and whoever’s running it is doing a great job. I love that they post recreations of celebrities’ looks, like Megan Thee Stallion, Doja Cat, and Beyoncé. I think it just further shows how diverse Bratz can be. The fact that these dolls can embody just about any person of any ethnic background is part of their appeal.
In conclusion, Barbie is iconic in her own right, and you can see that Mattel have made attempts in recent years to become less of an exclusionary brand which is great progress. I'm also looking forward to the upcoming Margot Robbie Barbie film, directed by Greta Gerwig. I think it'll either be an interesting, satirical take on Barbie, or a total flop. I have high hopes though.
I'll always be a Bratz girlie 💅🏼
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