Bratz: Why would parents allow their children to have "whore toys"?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Call me crazy, and I just might be, but are these fit for CHILDREN?

http://64.95.118.51/images/opti/ae/50/5942364114485d-resized200.jpg

http://www.magmaheritage.com/meygan_ilike2medium.jpg

Would any of you here allow your children to own such as this? This crap looks like something that, a few years ago, would’ve been targeted towards adults…not CHILDREN. I know that a ton of people are buying them for kids, as I’ve SEE them do so, and they are flying out of the front doors of every store.

So tell me…what is the deal with this, and why do parents allow their kids to have trash such as this?

2

Y’wanna know something funny?

The facial expression on the doll in the second picture reminds me very much of the first Barbie doll, produced back in the fifties.

It was marketed with ONE accessory: a swimsuit. It looked whorish as all get-out, to my jaded eyes. It looked even more whorish when you saw some of the outfits you could get for it.

I am quite certain there were parents and grandparents, back in the fifties, who did not much care for the idea of replacing traditional baby dolls with something that looked like it might up and offer some sailor a good time for ten bucks.

But, for some reason, Barbie sold. Perhaps it’s America’s obsession with fashion and accessorizing. Perhaps the crazy Muslim fundies are right, and we’re just a satanic, decadent society.

But Barbie sold. And these days, she looks considerably more virginal and friendly than she did back when.

So, yeah, these toys do look kinda… well, questionable. But it wouldn’t be the first. And nowadays, I think, you NEED to “shout” a bit to get consumers’ attention. If it seems a bit “edgy,” well, so much the better.

And how many kids are really in a position to think, “Hey, my dolly looks like some crack-addicted chickie who blows dogs for nickels?” I mean, I’d like to think that the little girls of America aren’t quite THAT sophisticated, yet… and that they would regard these gaudy toys as just that: girl toys.

Just my two cents, though. And, besides, blowing dogs for nickels wouldn’t provide the kind of income you’d need to dress like that.

Would it?

3

Oh this is far worse than a Barbie…these have “whore”, “slut”, and “prostitue” all over how they look. Here is my issue with this…

…there’s enough preasure on young girls what with the way their “pop stars” and even their teen stars look and how they are marketed towards them. We don’t need the crap with the TOYS now.

They already want to dress like Britney Spears and the such…we don’t need more of that sort of crap placed onto kids via their toys. If parents buy the toys for them, who’s to say that they wont buy the clothes for them also. Oh…wait…many are already doing so.

I’m not old, I’m only 23, and even I have a problem with this.

4

Um… precisely how does this stuff say “whore, prostitute, and so forth?”

I mean, aside from the fact that the dolls are dressed the way Huggy Bear’s “girlfriends” used to dress on “Starsky and Hutch” back in the seventies?

Fashion trends change. Admittedly, some of those dolls are dressed in ways that the kids’ parents would pitch a fit if the KIDS tried to dress… but, well, you could say the same thing about Barbie.

In the fifties, the fantasy was the Barbie Wedding, complete with gowns, veil, and tux for Ken.

In the early 21st, the fantasy is “rave gear.” Even if the kids playin’ with the things aren’t quite old enough to really know what that means… as well as you or I might.

I ain’t sayin’ you’re WRONG. I’m just sayin’ I don’t necessarily AGREE with you.

Oh, yeah: as of the moment, I’m working at an elementary school. Some of the kids dress in ways that raises my eyebrow, but meets the dress code. And nearly all the ten-year-old girls I work with think Britney is yesterday’s news… I believe the best adjective I’ve heard from the kiddies describing her clothing style was “trashy.”

It ain’t the marketing, or the merchandising. It’s us. Good parenting can overcome a lot of crap.

5

You know, my beef with these dolls isn’t how they look, but their name that’s downright stupid. Bratz. Spelled with a “Z”. Where do I start?! First of all, what kind of stupid name is BRATZ?! What’s so great about being a brat?! Then again, it reflects the girls that ask their mommies to buy the dolls. And spelled with a “Z” to show exactly how cool they are! Wow!!! It makes me want to open my room and ask MY mommy for one RIGHT NOW!!!

Also, the males are called “Bratz Boyz” or something simliar to that. Argh. Makes me wish I never learned how to read.

6

The clothes, toy models, makeup, hair, expressions, and just about everything else.

Just look through the toy lineup, in my eyes they look like a bunch of sluts that I’d see standing on the street corner…just my opinion. If parents allow their kids to have these, and these toys get really big, the kids will undoubtably want to look like them, just as they have before with everything else. I just don’t see how they can market this crap to kids with good faith.

Just check out their website or something.

I just hope the parents of my generation can do the children right.

7

Exactly my point.

“Brat” these days is something to aspire to. You’ve heard of “high maintenance woman?” “Brat,” these days, refers to “high maintenance child.” Been headed that way ever since Bart Simpson barged into American culture.

…and hanging a Z on the end of a word to mean “plural” in a cool way went out of style in the eighties. But today’s nine year old girls don’t necessarily know that.

Then again, I hardly think anyone in this thread is in their intended target marketing demographic…

8

Don’t freaking get me started on all of that…I hate EVERYTHING about these things…everything.

I just went to the website for these things, and I almost vomited.

Stay away from that place! The quotes are enough to make anyone want to throw up.

9

…and hell, Brent, LOTS of women standing on street corners these days look like they’re dressed like whores to me. But, then, I AM old, nearly twice your age, and I have had time to consider the fact that fashions change.

As I mentioned earlier, little girls come to school dressed in stuff that (IMHO) was designed by gleeful pedophiles. And it is, for some reason, considered appropriate not only by their parents, but by the school.

…so what the heck am I supposed to do? I adjust, and I get on with my lessons. And yeah, I agree with you about the parents…

10

That’s what worries me. :eek:

At least the spelling “BratZ” isn’t as bad as internet talk.

u no how i luv tlkng like this 2~! Not.

11

BrentLumpkin, I agree with you and I’m also 23. When I was a kid, I played with dollhouses and read books. I didn’t have dolls that had mouths like every blowup doll I’ve seen. My biggest problem with the dolls is the commercials. The way the dolls are portrayed in the commercials seems like everyone’s saying it’s ok to be a spoiled materialistic brat. I don’t have any children but I do kind of have a niece and I’d never buy one of those for her.
Then again Brent, we did have Garbage Pail Kids when we were kids so maybe we shouldn’t complain :smiley:

12

You aren’t supposed to do anything, you seem really down to Earth and realize what’s classy and what’s trashy. Contrary to popular belief, it ISN’T just a matter of taste…some stuff just IS trashy.

Ah yes, “gleeful pedophiles”, I’m worried that those who market towards our children these days are so very much a part of that pack…including those over these toys.

As I said, what in the hell happened to parents? I guess they don’t make em like mine anymore. :smiley:

I’m not saying that good parents don’t exist, they are everywhere. Still, I don’t like the mindset of the new parents that are coming into this world every day…hell, many seem just not to care at all what their kids do.

13

I think the make-up is UGLY, even the dark lipstick color doesn’t look good with the rest of it.

No, I’d NEVER buy one of those dolls for a little girl, and would be sorely tempted to smack the hands of any friend of mine who would.

I too, have a problem with young females over emphasizing their sexual identity, until it becomes all they are. It’s one thing to be confident, and show off your form. It’s another to be unable to distinguish between lust, and love, worse, to mistake sex for true love. (Yes, sex is a part of a “true love” relationship, but it’s not the main part.)

I saw this with my classmates in High School, and it’s still going on. Thing is, the behavior is getting “imprinted” into the personalities of females at younger and younger ages. When I was 9ish, all the girls in my class started to wear make-up. Very pale, (hardely noticable, cause parents would only allow PALE pastels, and faintly colored lip balm) but it was still make-up. They also wanted to kiss boys and hold hands. That’s as far as it went though. We still wore jeans, t-shirts, and played with dolls. (We didn’t really do the frilly fashion plate clothes then, it was more about the picture on the t-shirt, than the daring cut showing the belly. Morris the Cat was popular.)

I can remember being embarassed because I was the oldest girl in the class, and was “precocious”. I started needing to wear deodarant, and shaving at 9ish, and a little later, not quite 10, I began my “feminine cycle” and started to carry a purse because I never knew for sure when it would start so I needed a way to carry hygenie products with me to be ready. THAT got me some teasing from the other girls. None of them wanted to carry a purse, they didn’t want to be that “grown up”.
(Garbage Pail Kids didn’t hit until I was in Middle School…)

14

Hey now, don’t put down Garbage Pail Kids, heh. Seriously though those were obviously in joking, making fun of the Cabage Patch Kids, I’m sure there weren’t too many children out there when those were out who want’ed to become a blob of brains or a voodoo doll or something like that.

These Bratz type thing things, they are an obvious type of product, aimed at children, in order to further the market of children smut…with the goal to FURTHER have children grow up too fast. When I was growing up, not too many years ago, we didn’t worry about looking like movie stars, pop stars, sex, and all of that. These days, with the way that pop culture and our society is…kids are growing up WAY too early, to the extent where they don’t understand what exactly it is that they are doing.

15

OFF TOPIC: Why does the date say 12-01-2003? Are you people hear also trying to have all of us grow up that much faster?

16

Hm.

“Imprinting.”

I might almost agree with that… except that toy companies aren’t in the business of altering the behavior of children.

They’re in the business of making money. They do this by appealing to what they think children want, and taking into account what their parents might spring for.

Sure, I’ve seen toys I thought were weird. Those toy bugs that squirted goo when you squeezed them struck me as temporary insanity on someone’s part at the toy factory. But kids like stuff that’s gross… or at least some grownups think they do.

If kids like Bratz, Bratz will sell. If kids don’t… well… adios, muchachos.

17

That’s exactly right, but WHY do they sell? It’s all about how the world has been presented to the children of this day and age. It’s all about sex, growing up before your time, looking as sexy as possible, etc…

Some say you can’t blame a toy company on taking advantage of that and the way things are, and I agree with them…

…however, I don’t agree with taking advantage of children, and that’s EXACTLY what is going on.

Do any of you remember those ‘Gangsta Bitch Barbies’ commercials that were on SNL a while back? It looks to me like they predicted the future of the toy industry. As I said, this sort of thing…just a few years ago, would’ve been a joke toy, aimed at adults who are just into kooky things, but now, they just ARE aimed at kids.

I’m not all about sheltering children, not at all. I am however all about protecting them. If the trend of allwing kids to grow up too soon continues…and it will, then we’ll be in deep shit with no where to go. All of those “gleeful pedophiles” are there, and that’s one of the main things I’m concerned about. Giving children such an image issue as we are placing on them in todays world, is doing nothing but making more and more prey for those sick freaks who are turned on by “sexy children”.

I see no reason why we should PRODUCE that for them.

18

I think our little girls have enough problems becoming comfortable with their sexuality without people judging sexual behavior based on appearance. Maybe these attitudes are more harmful than these toys.

19

It is simply teaching young girls that you are only as good as you loook.
The sluttier you look, the more worthy you are
Heck, it felt that way back when I was 11, in 1969.

Fortuantely, I have a son, and most commercials seem to be targeted to girls as they are the more “consumers in training”.

They do have a cool working elevator and escalator!

20

Give me a break.

When you give the kids the image that it’s good to look sexy so young, they should grow up faster and faster, it’s doing nothing but hurting them in the long run because they are becoming that much more of prey for child molesters and the such. We shouldn’t be pushing children to grow up so damn fast, it only hurts them.