Doll Wars
19
of female empowerment with the successful advertising campaign “We Girls
Can Do Anything” (Clark 83). And therein lay the key to Barbie’s longevity: she
continually reinvents herself to reflect new trends and fashions in popular
culture. Ninety-two percent of Barbies are designed new each year (Clark 85).
Given this, girls acquire multiple Barbies. In America, as many as 99 percent of
girls own at least one Barbie doll, with the average being between 8 and 10
(Rogers 13, Clark 82). With the New Millennium Barbie, Clark observes, “The
Barbie doll has done it again. She’s reinvented herself to fit with the fast-paced,
ultra-modem world of girls today. There’s no mistaking Barbie for last
millennium’s doll.. . . the line has a fresh feel to secure at least four more
decades on top” (Clark 89). This time around, “fun, fashion, and friendship” was
Barbie’s slogan (qtd. in Lawson, Clark 97).
However, beginning in 2001, Barbie faced a formidable challenge from
Bratz, who are everything Barbie is not. Representative of the K.G.O.Y.—or
“Kids Getting Older Younger”—trend in the children’s toy industry, Bratz make
Barbie, initially known for her edginess and sexiness, look downright innocent.
“They look like pole dancers on their way to work at a gentleman’s club,” wrot e
Margaret Talbot in The New Yorker (74). “The dolls are atrocious,” said a parent
eyeing the Bratz display at a New York City toy store. “This is a very trampy
look” (qtd. in La Ferla). Another critic asked, “\ ^ a t ’s next? Beer for the dolls?
A mirror, some fake cocaine?” (qtd. in McAllister 244). Dolls with names like
Jade, Sasha, Yasmin, Cloe, and Nevra wear shrunken sweaters that expose their
navels, ripped jeans, microscopic skirts, fishnet stockings, platform heels, and
see-through thong underwear, all in a palette of black and siren red. Their eyes
are lavishly made up, their lips large and pouty, and their hair waist-length and
wild. Bratz stole the older segment of Barbie’s audience, girls 7 to 12, relegating
the classic doll to the younger 3-to-6 set. According to Matthew McAllister, the
Bratz brand snared this age group by plugging “into tween-friendly cultural
trends. These trends include hip-hop (hence the ‘z’ in Bratz); girl-power icons
(that often equate sex with power) such as Britney Spears and Christina
Aguilera; Japanese visual media such as anime and manga (as seen by Bratz’s
huge eyes); and an emphasis on ‘fim consumption,’ including fashion and
shopping activities” (248).
If Barbie is about prettiness, Bratz tout attitude. In her article in Time,
Nancy Gibbs characterizes Barbie as “incurably pink and retro, because she is
an icon, a Warhol painting, a Smithsonian exhibit.” With Bratz, however, “It’s
all in the expression. Heavily made up, they look jaded, bored, if not actually
stoned. You may want to play with them, but they don’t want to play with you”
(Gibbs). The operative word here is “they.” Unlike Barbie, Bratz function
collaboratively as a group of friends—a girl pack—and they are decidedly
diverse and multicultural. The girls’ faces are cartoonish and grotesque and their
coloring nondescript: Bratz could be black or Hispanic, Asian or white. And so
too is the case with their coterie of male friends. If Barbie with boyfriend Ken is