Bratz dolls out?

posted at 12:40 pm on December 6, 2008 by Ed Morrissey
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Can’t say I’m terribly sad to see that a California judge has issued an injunction against the makers of the Bratz doll line to stop selling their product and pull them off the shelves.  MGA lost a nine-figure verdict in a copyright and breach-of-contract case with Mattel, the maker of Barbie, for essentially stealing designs created when the Bratz originator worked for Mattel.  The dolls will stay on the shelves only through Christmas, but no more will be manufactured and all stock after that must get repurchased by MGA:

The rowdy Bratz dolls have been evicted. Barbie has regained control of the dollhouse.

Toy giant Mattel Inc., after a four-year legal dispute with MGA Entertainment Inc., touted its win in the case Wednesday after a federal judge banned MGA from making and selling its pouty-lipped and hugely popular Bratz dolls.

“It’s a pretty sweeping victory,” Mattel attorney Michael Zeller said. “They have no right to use Bratz for any goods or services at all.”

U.S. District Judge Stephen Larson rocked the toy industry with his order that MGA must immediately stop manufacturing Bratz. He allowed MGA to wait until the holiday season ends to remove the toys from store shelves.

The decision was a stunning defeat for MGA, which exploded onto the tween scene in 2001 with the edgy dolls and made hundreds of millions in profits, giving Mattel’s more classic doll-diva Barbie a run for her money.

Sarah Vine can’t contain her relief in the Times of London:

Overtly sexualised, fashion and fame-obsessed, the principal Bratz pursuits are dressing up, going out, parading about in front of a microphone and doing their make-up. They come pre-daubed in garish eyeshadow and mascara, with glossy,collagen-enhanced lips and distinctly minxy, come-hither expressions. They make Barbie look like a Sunday school teacher.

Infuriatingly, little girls love them – in much the same way as little girls used to love Barbie. I remember my own mother banning Barbie on grounds of good taste and feminism; I have done the same to my own daughter with Bratz. Every time she is given one it goes straight to the top of the wardrobe. Of the two evils, Barbie is definitely the lesser.

Our family already has a Bratz ban for the Little Admiral, and thankfully she’s been more interested in My Little Pony and Disney princesses than the street-slut Bratz gang.  In fact, she disapproves of Jasmine in Aladdin when she kisses him on their date; she tells me, “They’re not supposed to kiss, they’re not married.”  I plan on correcting her about kissing boys … shortly after she gets her doctorate.

I have always been appalled by the Bratz dolls and wondered why the originators wanted to create these tramps as role models for little girls.  As it turns out, the originators were tramps of another kind, which explains it, I guess.  Projection.

The unfortunate effect of this ruling — if it stands, which it may not — will be to make the current stock collectables.  Think Cabbage Patch Dolls in the mid-80s if the company had suddenly gone belly-up.  With any luck, though, that will mean adults will buy most of them for themselves and then lock them away to protect their value.  That will be a deliciously ironic end for the trashy toys.

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