Dolls Targeting Tweens Transmit Values, Children's Advocate Warns
by Ed Thomas and Jenni Parker
January 4, 2007
(AgapePress) - - Marketing aimed at children from ages eight to twelve, a group commonly called "tweens," now targets them with advertising previously pointed at teenagers. However, one educator and children's consumer advocate says this past Christmas season's top-selling dolls for girls, the Bratz line, illustrate the pressure tween girls are under because of this type of marketing. The Bratz toys are produced by a company called MGA Entertainment. They are characterized by certain exaggerated features, most notably their oversized heads, wide eyes, small noses, full lips, "real" hair and eyelashes, and small, fashionably-clad bodies.
The dolls, which come in both genders and various ages, wear trendy outfits and stylish snap-on shoes and are sometimes packaged with mix-and-matchable accessories. The Bratz characters are touted as kids with "a passion for fashion," and among the fashions featured by some of the line's dolls are midriff-baring blouses, bra tops, miniskirts, form-fitting bottoms, heavy makeup, and jewelry.
Dr. Susan Linn is co-founder of the Campaign for Commercial-Free Childhood and the author of Consuming Kids: Protecting Our Children From the Onslaught of Marketing and Advertising (Anchor Books, 2005). She says the difficulty she had trying to buy an age-appropriate doll for a four-year-old niece this past Christmas revealed to her the abundance of what she describes as "highly sexualized" dolls now being produced for tweens and even younger girls.
"It's important for us to remember that the toys that we give to our children send messages to them about our perceptions of society," Linn asserts. That includes perceptions of value and beauty, she points out, adding, "You know, when you give a Bratz doll to a little girl, you're saying this is what women should look like, this is what girls should look like -- this is what [they] should aspire to."
These popular dolls, which now outsell even Barbie, present an image problem for girls who are, at an early age, already feeling pressured to meet a standard that has no basis in reality, the author contends. "The Bratz are highly sexualized," she explains. "They're sort of like a male fantasy, or a stereotyped male fantasy, of what girls and women should look like."
Linn urges mothers not to allow their daughters' childhood to be stolen by letting them bow to culture and media pressure to express their sexuality at too young an age, whether through sexualized tween dolls or provocative clothing lines. She sees the Bratz dolls and similar tween-targeted toys and fashions as prime examples of marketing attempts to make young girls, even those under the age of eight, grow up much too fast.
