Doll Wars
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to “a coarsening of the culture” and the creation of “prostitots” (42). “Girls,”
Deveny writes, “feel entitled to dress as crassly as they choose, date unwisely
and fall down drunk, the way men have since the dawn of time” (Deveny 44).
The same month, the American Psychological Association addressed the public
pe rsonae of Spears, Hilton, and Lohan and “raised a red flag over potential long
term emotional damage that such people and images can pose to girls”
(Leibrock). Susan Linn, instructor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School,
places Bratz in the same category. “The dolls provide a really terrible model for
girls about what it means to be a young woman,” she writes; they “exude an inyour-face, commodified sexuality” (Fox, “More than a Doll”). By May of 2007,
Ann Eggleton, speculating that Bratz’s link to smutty fashion trends may be its
ultimate downfall, writes, “I wouldn’t be surprised if Bratz has already peaked,
as the toy market is very fickle”(qtd. in “Bratz: Dolls Living the High Life” 38).
The live-action Bratz movie, released in August 2007, did not do well at the box
office. Nevertheless, Bratz sales held strong for the holiday season but afterward
began to wane. By last year. Toys ’R Us, the major toy store in America, was
reducing its number of Bratz aisles and related merchandise.
Barbie endured hard times as well. NPR reported that purchases of Mattel’s
signature doll fell 12 percent in the last quarter of 2007. In the first quarter of
2008, Mattel lost more than $45 million, and Barbie sales in the U.S. fell by 12
percent. In addition, Mattel initiated a lawsuit against MGA, claiming that its
former employee Carter Bryant created the concept for Bratz while still under
contract with Mattel. Writing in The Guardian^ Ed Pilkington referred to Barbie
as “a brand in crisis” (Pilkington).
Nevertheless, google.com registered twice as many hits for Barbie products
as for Bratz in 2008, suggesting that Barbie was on the rebound. This dovetailed
with another cultural trend, the phenomenon of the princess, popularized by the
Walt Disney Company, whose 2007 Annual Report, lavishly illustrated with
princess-themed items, proclaimed that “Disney Princess remains a leading
lifestyle brand for six-to-nine-year-old girls” {Walt Disney 30). Released in
November 2007, Disney’s movie Enchanted, in which Amy Adams played a
traditional fairy-tale princess dropped into present-day New York City, earned
$340 million worldwide, making it an unqualified success and paving the way
for its March 2008 DVD release (Smith 29). Barbie, too, has adopted the role of
the princess. As NPR reported in May 2008, “Over the years, Mattel has tried to
turn Barbie into a positive role model. She became a pilot instead of a flight
attendant, a doctor instead of a nurse. But the really popular Barbies now are
princesses, or [at] least princess-like. Barbie has starred in her own versions of
Swan Lake and RapunzeD (Masters NPR). Another report summed up
succinctly, “Despite her striving. Barbie remains most popular when she’s
princessy” (Masters NPR). One Barbie promotion promised girls the opportunity
to “win the life of a princess” (“Barbie Spurns”). According to New Yorker
writer Margaret Talbot, who wouldn’t want to? “Most girls really want to be
princesses.. . . ” she writes. “When we were smaller, we used to play princess in