Bratz Dolls: Teaching Diversity or Feeding Prejudice?

The Bratz dolls have grown a phenomenon that has taken girls across the country (and across the world) by storm. With Bratz toys, cartoons, and merchandise everywhere you look, it is clear that the makers of the toy line built on the platform of friendship, fun, and fashion have done something right in their marketing plan. But is there a darker side to the story? While friendship, fun, and fashion are certainly not bad in and of themselves, the amount of focus the Bratz dolls place on self-improvement by expensive clothing may be cause for concern in some cases.

For the most part, the Bratz dolls carry a positive message. Have fun with your friends, and have fun looking good. This is certainly a good approach. The toy line also promotes racial diversity to a great deal. From its very beginning, the line of dolls has included racially diverse girls, such as Jade, who has an oriental appearance, and Sasha, who is African American. Not only do the dolls teach that acceptance of diversity is possible and right, it makes acceptance something that is as natural as any aspect of friendship. These girls share a bond of friendship that has no need to even consider differences in race. In a world where racial tension is as much a fact of life as racial diversity itself, these are lessons that children should certainly be learning.

The problems with the Bratz dolls arise when you look at what else they seem to teach. The absolute dedication to fashion is hammered home over and over again with every piece of Bratz merchandise. Of course, fashion itself is not a bad thing. It is the over-commitment to fashion that can become problematic. Through the constant fashion-centric messages of the Bratz world, a girl is taught to hold her self-image directly connected to the clothes she wears, the boys she dates, and the things she has. This mantra of haute couture as a way of life can prove to be detrimental in a number of ways.

For girls who simply do not have the resources to meet the high fashion standards held by the world of the Bratz dolls, this may cause low self-esteem problems. If a girl bases her opinion of herself and others on fashion, she will think little of herself unless she can keep up with every change of the ever-fluctuating fashion world. This problem also extends to a girl's opinion of others. Someone whose wardrobe is not up to date cannot possibly be worth being friends with. It is a problem that simply shits the societal rift from a matter of racial tension to a matter of economic tension.

So, does this mean that any girl exposed to Bratz dolls will invariably become a fashion obsessed, poorly adjusted person? Absolutely not. These problems are entirely subject to the maturity level of the girl in question. A girl who is mature enough not to turn her life into nothing but a quest for fashion can have a great deal of fun playing with Bratz dolls, and still stands to learn lessons in diversity. It is a choice entirely up to parents, who should simply take the possibility of these problems under consideration when buying toys for their children.

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