New at Reason

March 5, 2007

Kerry Howley goes looking for sexualized young girls, bratz, and hot tots.

Comments

|3.5.07 @ 5:01PM|#

"Can't stay at home, can't stay at school
Old folks say, ya poor little fool
Down the street I'm the girl next door
I'm the fox you've been waiting for

Hello Daddy, hello Mom
I'm your ch ch ch ch ch cherry bomb
Hello world I'm your wild girl
I'm your ch ch ch ch ch cherry bomb

Stone age love and strange sounds too
Come on baby let me get to you
Bad nights cause'n teenage blues
Get down ladies you've got nothing to lose

Hello Daddy, hello Mom
I'm your ch ch ch ch ch cherry bomb
Hello world I'm your wild girl
I'm your ch ch ch ch ch cherry bomb

Hey street boy whats your style
Your dead end dreams don't make you smile
I'll give ya something to live for
Have ya, grab ya til your sore

Hello Daddy, hello Mom
I'm your ch ch ch ch ch cherry bomb
Hello world I'm your wild girl
I'm your ch ch ch ch ch cherry bomb"

|3.5.07 @ 5:05PM|#

So, what's wrong with stupid angry whore chic??

|3.5.07 @ 5:06PM|#

You know, it's funny. My wife and I were talking about this last night, and I admitted to having a double standard. She's pregnant right now, and I said that if our kid is a girl, there is no fucking way that Bratz, or any of the other sexualized prepubescent girl toys, will be allowed in the house.

Which is a far cry from 'ZOMG they should be BANNED!', of course, but my instinctive reaction is still the same: I find Bratz offensive and foul.

The double standard is that I can't think of any boys' toys that I feel the same way about. Possibly those horrible little 'gangsta' action figures I've seen, because I find anything that glorifies pimps just as offensive as I find Bratz.

The argument I read was that the girls playing with the toys don't see them as sexualized, they see them as 'pretty'. But it isn't exposure of girls to sexuality that offends me. It's training them to equate the Bratz 'look' with being pretty; it's that they'll want to emulate Bratz, and other, older people will see their 'pretty' as 'sexy'.

Maybe I'm destined to be like the dad in Footloose.

(insert obligatory 'let the market determine what products should be sold' and 'i'm speaking only for myself and would never dream of legislating what kind of crap you can buy for your kids' here.)

|3.5.07 @ 5:13PM|#

juicy!

|3.5.07 @ 5:16PM|#

Aren't bratz just a latina/asian/black girl look? Not the sleezy clothes, just the faces.

|3.5.07 @ 5:16PM|#

Kerry Howley goes looking for sexualized young girls, bratz, and hot tots.
Kerry Howley is a pervert, then.

edna|3.5.07 @ 5:18PM|#

you know why britney shaved her head? so the collars and cuffs would match. (sfx: rimshot)

my 6 yr old boy had collected a series of strawberry shortcake dolls (yes, yes, i know, that's the first sign). he picked up one of them to show me and babbled, "wow, she has such a beautiful hat. that dress is a pretty color. she's really hot!" whom do i have to thank for that?

|3.5.07 @ 5:23PM|#

Kerry Howley goes looking for sexualized young girls, bratz, and hot tots.

Wow. Is it even possible to compose a sentence with "Kerry Howley" in it, that isn't hawt.

|3.5.07 @ 5:26PM|#

edna,
It's never too early to start talking about safe sex. And nag your son to hold out for a doctor or a professor.

|3.5.07 @ 5:28PM|#

he picked up one of them to show me and babbled, "wow, she has such a beautiful hat. that dress is a pretty color. she's really hot!" whom do i have to thank for that?

Adam and Eve.

|3.5.07 @ 5:29PM|#

The current crop of japanese anime cartoons on the tv concern me more than bratz.

|3.5.07 @ 5:35PM|#

I'm not a parent, and I've only seen Bratz dolls in commercials, but what struck me about them is not that they are sexualized (are they really?) but that the characters seem to be vain, superficial, demanding, and arrogant.

|3.5.07 @ 5:57PM|#

Number 6 - yeah, I'm more worried about turning young girls into bitches than about "sexualising" them.

edna - funny story...maybe he'll end up swinging both ways (not that there's anything wrong with that). And as Warren said, make sure he knows about safe sex early in life.

|3.5.07 @ 5:58PM|#

Number 6: Couldn't agree with you more. For me, age isn't the issue. NYC, especially Murray Hill, is full of rich, daddy's girl bimbos who think the law degree their parents bought for them makes them less vain, arrogant and superficial.

|3.5.07 @ 6:09PM|#

"...the characters seem to be vain, superficial, demanding, and arrogant."

#6,
I agree. At least they call them Bratz. If nothing else, score one for truth in advertising.
I do not allow my 10 year old daughter to have them. As I explained to her, I do not raise bratty children and I am against anything that glorifies bratty looks or behaviors.

So far, she hasn't fought me on it, but then she still remembers being hauled off back to the car until she could reign-in a temper tantrum. Once that happened, I made her apologize to the store clerks before we continued our shopping. I only had to do that three times before she learned how to behave in a store or restaurant.

As I told her, I don't raise brats. For two reason. "First, I don't want anyone thinking I don't know how to raise children. Second, I love you and I don't want anyone to ever say that you are a bratty child."

The last time she acted like a brat was three months before her 4th birthday. I am blessed with a wonderful daughter.

|3.5.07 @ 6:15PM|#

"The current crop of japanese anime cartoons on the tv concern me more than bratz."

You mean they're worse than the old cartoons?

|3.5.07 @ 6:19PM|#

Aren't bratz just a latina/asian/black girl look? Not the sleezy clothes, just the faces.

I think it's more of an "Innsmouth Look."

St. Paul|3.5.07 @ 6:27PM|#

NoStar wins, if not the thread (post not sleazy enough), the greater prize.

sedition|3.5.07 @ 6:28PM|#

i may have heard this wrong ( problems with understanding high pitched american accents)

but i could have sworn i heard a bratz add use the line:

'don't theorise, accessorise!'

|3.5.07 @ 6:39PM|#

NoStar -- you sir are my hero of the day!

|3.5.07 @ 6:53PM|#

Chi-town Tom, and St. Paul,
Thank you both.

The other day at Safeway, we could hear a child throwing a fit. Jessie-girl looked at me and said, "Dad, Someone needs to take that kid out to the car."

She will make a great parent someday. and I will reap the rewards of some loveable grandchildren.

Paul|3.5.07 @ 7:02PM|#

What, NoStar gets accolades because he practices parenting? That's like what Chris Rock said about some black people saying they should get congratulated because they've never been in jail... YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO GO TO JAIL!!!

I mean, nothing agin NoStar, but that's what YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO DO WITH YOUR KIDS!

Brian Sorgatz|3.5.07 @ 7:24PM|#

If Bratz sexualizes girls, YouTube cannabinates them.

|3.5.07 @ 7:46PM|#

Hmphk. Amusing considering that Barbie's original was a German fashion doll marketed to adults....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild_Lilli_doll

Blueser|3.5.07 @ 8:22PM|#

Good mornin' little schoolgirl
Can I go home with you?
Tell your mama and your daddy
That I'm a little school boy too

This is a little more straightforward than Bratz dolls…

tros|3.5.07 @ 8:23PM|#

If you work for the American Psychological Association, kill yourself. You are a blight on humanity. Kill yourself. The very least you could do is re-brainwash yourself

RETARDS

Thank heaven for well brought-|3.5.07 @ 10:48PM|#

accolades because he practices parenting?

"We have now sunk to a depth at which re-statement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men." - George Orwell

"Noah was a good man in his time"

Celebrate where you can, Paul.

Robert|3.5.07 @ 11:03PM|#

I'm still bugged the poster for baby safety on the NYC subway that says, "Don't leave your baby in the bathtub alone" has the baby (live model) in the bathtub in a girl's swimsuit. They're sexualizing 1 YOs.

|3.5.07 @ 11:05PM|#

Plus it's a baby boy.

The Wine Commonsewer|3.5.07 @ 11:27PM|#

girl's swimsuit. They're sexualizing 1 YOs.

plus it's a baby boy

In every picture I have of my father prior to age two was wearing a dress.

Mental health-nut|3.5.07 @ 11:43PM|#

I look forward to the day when all pictures of children will be contraband. Now that'll be a safe world, yes it will.

Boingo|3.6.07 @ 12:17AM|#

I Love Little Girls

Boingo|3.6.07 @ 12:21AM|#

Yes Blueser, but Johnny Lang really was a little school boy.

The Wine Commonsewer|3.6.07 @ 12:23AM|#

tros, you are cracking me up with that RETARDS stuff. Cereal, I'm LOL right now.

tros|3.6.07 @ 12:29AM|#

O you don't even know I have to fight the War on Retards won't you help me?

Seriously the stalinist element calls me "able-ist". I tell them the word "retard" is reserved for people who don't know they are mentally handicapped.

The Wine Commonsewer|3.6.07 @ 12:32AM|#

My daughter (The House Blond) has Slutz dolls. It doesn't seem to have much effect. She also has Barbies, Polly Pockets (probably her faves), and Groovy Girls, all of which she enjoys. She doesn't seem to notice that the Slutz dolls are bad girls and she doesn't seem to notice that Barbie's boobs are way too big. BTW, for the Doll NAZI'S, Barbie's car is proportionally way too small, I hope that doesn't give my girl a complex.

Don't be dissing NoStar for good parenting. Maybe that's what ought to be but lordy, that ain't what always is.

tros|3.6.07 @ 12:37AM|#

Aren't we talking about the Paris Hilton Stupid Spoiled Whore dolls from South Park?

John Payne|3.6.07 @ 12:45AM|#

The Kid Rock song the APA is bitching about in their report is almost a decade old. Surely they could have come up with some more recent racy lyrics.

|3.6.07 @ 2:26AM|#

>has the baby (live model) in the bathtub in a girl's swimsuit.

I haven't seen this, but...

If the baby were naked, as one generally is in the tub, would that seem more or less sexualized? Would it be more or less likely to generate negative feedback?

Oh the poor baby|3.6.07 @ 7:25AM|#

Isn't debating the best uniform for models in public service ads on public conveyances the same as arguing about the ideal color for SWAT team uniforms to enforce littering infractions?

That is, doesn't your being forced to pay for both the ads and the subways under threat of state violence make this not an analogy but an identification?

|3.6.07 @ 9:32AM|#

Toys are nothing. I do get irritated when you see young girls wearing make up and high heels when they're about seven - I get irritated with the complete hysteria over paedophiles when we appear to be going out of way to dress our children like lolitas.

Talking of paedos, my girlfriend spazed out in the supermarket last week when she saw a copy of 'Three Men and a Baby' for next to nothing. We bought it. We watched it. It sucked.

Now all I could remember about it beforehand was that Selleck had a moustache and that Ted Danson isn't believable outside of a bar in Boston. What I had forgotten was the scene with a moustachioed Selleck and slightly camp Guttenburg trying to change a baby's nappy. You couldn't get away with it these days. The baby's totally naked and a director who even suggested something like that these days would probably get castrated and exiled to the Ukraine.

Anyway, I guess all I'm saying is that it's funny when you notice shifts like that in your own lifetime. And also, that in that same time span, moustaches have never come back into fashion.

megs|3.6.07 @ 9:55AM|#

I'm much more worried about the commentary on children's choices in toys than on the toys themselves. I personally didn't care for dolls or Barbies, but had lots of model horses, my little ponies, and made my own other assortment of equines with paper cutouts and then later boxed them all up because I started reading theories about why girls like horses so much and the sexual angle there. These people creeped out my childhood!
Then I got over it and took them back out of boxes because children are nothing if not resilient. Seriously, just give them a good basis and they'll bounce back from anything unless they're told they're helpless and ruined by one bad encounter.

The Wine Commonsewer|3.6.07 @ 12:10PM|#

megs, that exact thing happened to my girlfriend's daughter, who was really into those plastic horses too........wait. Nah.

LarryA|3.6.07 @ 1:29PM|#

I still remember when my generation was going to hell in a handbasket because the Beatles had long hair and Elvis Presley was getting up on stange and gyrating.

And when my eldest daughter was growing up (1980s) the high school wouldn't let her bring romance novels to school until she made a grocery-sack bookcover to hide the cover.

Has there ever been a generation with nothing to bitch about?

|3.6.07 @ 1:53PM|#

The younger generation isn't bitching about it. It's all us geezers who want our daughters to grow up and be smart as a whip. We complained when we were growing up, and now we complain when our kids are growing up.

|3.6.07 @ 4:19PM|#

Has there ever been a generation with nothing to bitch about?

Nope. Even the Greeks and Romans complained about their teenagers not having respect for their customs/elders/laws - you name it.

Robert|3.6.07 @ 6:39PM|#

"If the baby were naked, as one generally is in the tub, would that seem more or less sexualized?"

Obviously less.

"Would it be more or less likely to generate negative feedback?"

I doubt it'd generate any feedback at all.

If anyone objected to seeing a 1 YO's breasts, it wouldn't even have to be photographed in a way that showed them. Or they could've used a boy. (It was one of a series of posters with different models representing different situations of danger to babies.) The shot was already done in a way that the crotch would not have been visible; it was cut off by a box of text.

Therefore I gotta believe they were making a deliberate statement by putting the baby in a girl's swimsuit.

Robert|3.6.07 @ 6:43PM|#

"I'm much more worried about the commentary on children's choices in toys than on the toys themselves. I personally didn't care for dolls or Barbies, but had lots of model horses, my little ponies, and made my own other assortment of equines with paper cutouts and then later boxed them all up because I started reading theories about why girls like horses so much and the sexual angle there."

That seems like a trend of the past few decades. When I was little, it was boys who were more interested in horses and other large animals.