NewMexiKen read a fascinating description of the new American doll market and the competition between Barbie, now 47, and her newest challenger the Bratz dolls. Dolls?
Bratz dolls have large heads and skinny bodies; their almond-shaped eyes are tilted upward at the edges and adorned with thick crescents of eyeshadow, and their lips are lush and pillowy, glossed to a candy-apple sheen and rimmed with dark lip liner. They look like pole dancers on their way to work at a gentlemen’s club. Unlike Barbie, they can stand unassisted. I’ve heard mothers say that they would never buy their daughters a doll that couldn’t stand on its own, but perhaps they should have been more careful what they wished for. To change a Bratz doll’s shoes, you have to snap off its feet at the ankles. (It’s creepy but ingenious; because the footwear is attached to the legs, all those little shoes are harder to lose.) Their outsized feet are oddly insinuating: you can picture the Bratz dolls tottering around on their stalklike legs, like fauns waking up from a tranquillizer dart. Bratz dolls don’t have Barbie’s pinup-girl measurements — they’re not as busty and they’re shorter. But their outfits include halter tops, faux-fur armlets, and ankle-laced stiletto sandals, and they wear the sly, dozy expression of a party girl after one too many mojitos. They are the “girls with a passion for fashion,” as the slogan has it, so their adventures — as presented in all those “sold separately” books and other paraphernalia — run to all-night mall parties and trips to Vegas. (“Deck out and step out for a party in the streets, as you spend the weekend with the girls in the city that never sleeps.”) A Bratz Princess — one of the newer versions — wears a tiara and, instead of a ball gown, a tight camouflage T-shirt and a short skirt. You could never imagine a Bratz doll assuming any of the dozens of careers Barbie has pursued over the decades: not Business Executive or Surgeon or Summit Diplomat — not even Pan Am Flight Attendant or Pet Doctor. Bratz girls seem more like kept girls, or girls trying to convert a stint on reality TV into a future as the new Ashlee or Lindsay or Paris.
Read all of Margaret Talbot’s fascinating article, which originally appeared in The New Yorker.
Sofie was first in line. She goes in and won’t even look at Santa. Not for a second. Santa was more than happy, however, to have mom sit next to him. Um, gross. So the picture…(which cost us about $700 give or take a few bucks) pretty much sums up our perfect Santa experience:
