Note to Bratz: Don't eff with Barbie!

Photos by Picklepud, Flickr Creative Commons

I called my cousin from a toy store several years ago to find out which Barbie doll her six- and eight-year-old daughters wanted for Christmas.

Don’t get me wrong. I hated Barbie, with her distorted and unrealistic ultra-thin body. It took every ounce of my energy to go to the store to buy my sweet baby cousins the doll that represented everything that was wrong with how we socialize (program) our little girls.

Then why was I there?

Because my little cousins' puppy-dog eyes were irresistible and I promised myself that one day I would sit them down and explain to them that they were programmed, that Barbie is bunk, that their bodies, faces, hair are beautiful and they are not objects, etc., etc.

But my cousin informed me that Barbie was out that year and The Bratz dolls were in.

“What are Bratz?!” I asked.

My cousin told me to look around. I’d find them.

And find them I did. As much as Barbie got under my skin, I was unprepared for the reality of The Bratz.

My reaction when I laid eyes on them? “WTF?!”

Bratz storm the scene with fishnets and pouty lips


















They are skinny, scantily clad, pouty-lipped, tiny-nosed, oversized-head having, eight-pounds-of-makeup-wearing fashion dolls with ridiculously large eyes.

What’s worse, the original four dolls – Jade (the one “who keeps things lively”), Yasmin (“a girl who likes to show, not tell”), Cloe (“who knows she’s going to be a superstar someday”) and Sasha (“who has a little bit more edge in her fashion sense and in her life in general”) – are teenagers. Ultra-sexy teenagers with fishnets and midriff-baring tank tops. Because Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and their lot just weren’t enough.

Anyway, my little cousins weren’t the only girls who wanted Bratz dolls that year or in the years since the doll’s 2001 debut. By 2005, Bratz sales reached $750 million a year. Their sales have declined significantly since then to about $300 million, but Barbie sales (down 15 percent) and overall fashion-doll sales (down 6 percent) were declining during that time as well.

The new fashion-doll on the block had Barbie fuming. Because at their peak, the Bratz were expanding to more than 40 different types of dolls, were selling tons of products (think lunchboxes, backpacks and movies) and were making a huge dent in Barbie’s market share. And that’s just in the United States. In other parts of the world like Australia and England, the Bratz have been increasingly outselling Barbie.

So the Bratz slumber party didn’t last very long. For the first time since she strutted on the scene in 1959, Barbie, the most popular fashion doll in America, had some actual competition. And MGA Entertainment, the Van Nuys, California-based maker of the Bratz, would soon find out that you don’t eff with Barbie.

Barbie v. Bratz Background: A Hot Mess

El Segundo, California-based Mattel, the maker of Barbie, has argued from the beginning that it owns the rights to the Bratz because Bratz designer Carter Bryant actually worked for Mattel until 2000 and designed the Bratz doll while he still worked for them.

So in 2004 Mattel said “Oh, HELL no!” and sued Bryant and in 2006 expanded the complaint to include MGA Entertainment and its CEO Isaac Larian.

Mattel’s Complaints? Copyright infringement, misappropriation of trade secrets and violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (a set of federal laws that punish criminal activity by business enterprises).

The battle didn’t stop there. MGA Entertainment argues that Mattel started buying up all the doll hair on the market to lock out MGA and in 2002 Mattel came out with the “My Scene” Barbie (which looks an awful lot like the Bratz doll. I mean, nobody’s stupid).

So in 2005 MGA Entertainment said “Oh, no they didn’t!” and sued Mattel.

MGA’s Complaint? Serial copycatting.

Four-year catfight ensues. Claws were out. Hair was flying. Hems were ripped.

This summer a jury awarded Mattel $100 million (they asked for $2 billion) because Bryant was still under contract with Mattel when he designed the Bratz doll.

And this month a federal judge barred MGA Entertainment from making the Bratz dolls (effective immediately), from selling the dolls (effective in February) and also ordered MGA to remove the dolls from store shelves and transfer all remaining supplies of the dolls and associated products to Mattel.

Ouch!

Moral of the story is …

MGA Entertainment has since filed a notice of appeal. So the catfight continues. And who knows? The two companies might come up with an arrangement.

But in the end, no matter which fashion doll is the winner, all the little girls who are programmed to believe they must be thin, super-sexy, boy-crazy divas like Barbie and the Bratz are the losers.

In 2007, the American Psychological Association Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls wrote a report that said:

“Bratz dolls come dressed in sexualized clothing such as miniskirts, fishnet stockings, and feather boas. Although these dolls may present no more sexualization of girls or women than is seen in MTV videos, it is worrisome when dolls designed specifically for 4- to 8-year-olds are associated with an objectified adult sexuality. The objectified sexuality presented by these dolls, as opposed to the healthy sexuality that develops as a normal part of adolescence, is limiting for adolescent girls, and even more so for the very young girls who represent the market for these dolls.”

So I learned my lesson. This year my baby cousins (who are several years older and over the Bratz) will get books.