Bratz

Look, here’s saucy leatherclad Roxxi, one of the Bratz Rock Angelz, playing a flying-V rock guitar and showing off her belly midriff and high-heels. Kind of like when Britney dressed up as a Nazi dominatrix.

‘Hi! My name is Roxxi,’ says Roxxi. ‘My twin calls me “Spice” because I like to spice things up!’ Twins, eh? Eh? Wicked! Bratz are taking over. You might have thought they were just a range of dolls, purple-spangly teenage dolls in ‘funky’ outfits slathered in make-up. But you would be wrong. The Bratz doll is not a doll. Well, it is a doll, anyone can see that. But it’s also, according to Paula Treantafelles, who initially created the range, a ‘self-expression piece’.

How this ‘self-expression’ piece expresses itself is mainly through the prism of having the right trinkets, phones, accessories and shoes. (Without shoes, the Bratz dolls have no feet. It’s kind of a metaphor.) They are ‘the only girls with a passion 4 fashion!’. It’s a sort of WAG training course for six-year-olds.

Doll designer Lui Domingo insists: ‘We are not making a deliberate effort to sexualise these dolls. We are making them fashionable, and coincidentally the fashions these days are rather sexy.’

Not trying to sexualise them? They look like a series of Hollywood central casting whores in plastic! Then there’s the passion 4 dating guyz: the ’Secret Date’ range of Bratz included a dolled-up doll, plus a mystery date (one of the Bratz Boyz) and – oh yes – champagne glasses! Why not go the whole way and chuck them naked into a jaccuzi? Bubblicious!

Then there are The Bratz Babyz – sort of what babies would look like if they decided to become strippers. And there’s a ‘Babyz Night Out’ fashion pack and ‘Brattoo Parlor’ playset. Because if there’s one thing babies need it’s more nightz out and tattoos.
They could go out and compare their new markings: ‘Look, I’ve got a spider, what about you?’ ‘Mine says “Mum”.’

Bratz Big Babys (yet another range) have ‘Designer Diapers’ – lovely frilly knickers, which they set off with these highly peculiar coquettish poses. Oh yes, and earrings. And a bikini bearing the slogan ‘I Blow Bubbles’! This is also a coincidence.

The fashion among babies is definitely for looking like little sexpots. Oh no, hang on . . .

Even the Bratz Babyz Ponyz have coloured highlights and makeup. So they’re sexualising ponies now? Come on – if you’re sexualising ponies, you’re definitely taking the sexualising way too far. Or is this a coincidence too? Are there slave-to-fashion ponies out there now, right this minute, having their tits done?

Hey, I know! How about a Babyz Self-Harm Kit? Or at least just supply the Secret Dates with Rohypnol. Or is that going too far? How does one judge? Anyway, let us be thankful that children are not generally impressionable or easily led – or we may end with a generation of stifled, consumer-crazed fuck-ups. Another one.