LIBERAL COLUMNIST GETS IT RIGHT
January 11th, 2006 by Peter
In what may be a first for this blog, I want to call attention to a Susan Campbell column that we liked. In her Jan. 4th piece Campbell aims her trademark scorn at a target that actually deserves it:
Just after the wrapping paper hit the floor on Christmas, Kendra Toodle-Register was suffering buyer’s remorse. She and her husband bought their 4-year-old daughter, Dejah, a Bratz Big Babyz doll named Sasha. They’d done so advisedly. They know the Bratz line of dolls are dressed provocatively, but the Babyz togs are at least a little toned down. In the box, Sasha, with her perky pigtails and almond eyes, looked adorable.
That’s the packaging. Out of the box, Dejah turned the doll over and discovered that beneath the khaki green skirt (and baby bottle attached to a bling chain), Sasha was wearing a thong. That’s right. A black mesh one.
Campbell quotes the author of “So Sexy, So Soon” on “how marketers use sex to pitch products to the pigtail set” and then–in a manner that perhaps only an otherwise-liberal columnist could get away with in our politically correct age–decimates the doll company’s excuses:
That’s laughable. The Bratz dolls’ skin tone reflects America better than most dolls, but the clothes are fit for a slut-in-training…Because, seriously: A thong on a toddler? I’m imagining a special place in marketing hell right about now.
