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Brown Baby Dolls for Brown Little Girls?

09:26 H | Topics: Children - Marketing - Shopping

An article on Fox News.com (I know, I'm so ashamed)tells all us "minorities" to get ready for the brown doll revolution in chain stores like K-Mart.

Bolstered by the success of Nickelodeon's popular bilingual children's character, Dora the Explorer, and the spending power of the nation's growing minority population, toy retailers across the country are filling their shelves with dolls whose skin colors and facial features reflect the girls and boys who play with them.

Now none of my daughters look or sound like Dora (she's way too screamy anyway) and I don't live near a K-Mart so maybe that's why I haven't seen this influx. What do I see in a darker shade of plastic? Pouty putaish Bratz dolls that my daughter is forbidden to play with and this:

Baby Abuelita (and her marido Baby Abuelito) look nothing like my abuelitos or my parents, abuelitos to my kids and are we seriously too lazy to sing to our own kids that we have to buy a doll to do it for us? But I digress.

When the rollout is completed next week, Kmart stores will sell nearly four dozen types of ethnic dolls _ a nearly fourfold increase from what's currently available. The dolls are flanked by an advertising campaign in the store's circulars and designed to appeal to black, Hispanic and Asian parents.

As a parent to two brown little girls I should be applauding this right? Well not so fast. While as a light skinned Latina little girl the skin color of my Barbies was never an issue but they still didn't reflect my life. Cowgirl Barbie with her winking eye became a "loose woman" in novelaesque play. That's who Barbie made me think of, all those novela protagonistas who lived dramatic lives and had more shoes and clothes (and plastic looking men) than I could ever imagine. Sadly little has really changed. One of the main offerings at Kmart are Mattel Inc.'s Rebelde dolls. Because while they may sing/speak in Spanish , they are essentially novela characters wearing way too short skirts.

What's the alternative? If we were to believe Mattel it would be it's American Girl Collection "If you're a little girl of color, this is your year," said Denise Gary Robinson, president of DollsLikeMe.com, an online specialty doll boutique that specializes in ethnic dolls, toys and gifts. "I see companies now really putting forth the effort. I see designers going back to the drawing board and saying the old colored-plastic routine isn't working."
When I find something for my daughters then I'll tell them its their year. I'm not holding my breath.
Via / Fox News

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Maegan la Mala

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