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Both accepted dolls accept their allotment of critics who say the toys accelerate some awkward letters to adolescent girls.
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McClatchy Newspapers dives into the babe action and offers this address on the baby wars.
Barbie acclimated to be the ultimate It Girl.
But again came those new kids in school: the Bratz.
From their 2001 exchange debut, the pouty-lipped Bratz dolls -- including the aboriginal fab four: Cloe, Sasha, Jade and Yasmin -- accept accustomed Barbie a run for her money, applique an estimated $2 billion a year in sales, additional associated articles such as DVDs, cameras and CD players.
Still, all is not aflush in toyland. Increasingly, parents and others are apprehensive whether the Bratz -- with their bound clothing, abundant architecture and added doses of attitude -- are advance a bad access on the girls who admire them.
And with a cine aloof opened in theaters, that catechism looms beyond than ever.Sure, the 10-inch Bratz abstracts aren't the aboriginal $.25 of artificial to accession eyebrows. Some parents weren't absolutely captivated back Barbie -- she of the absurd anatomy accommodation who already allegedly abundantly declared: "Math is hard" -- set an impossibly high-arched bottom on toy abundance shelves in 1959.
"There are bodies who've based their absolute Ph.Ds on how Barbie shapes how adolescent girls anticipate about womanhood," says Vera Chan, chief fizz editor for Yahoo.com, from her Sunnyvale, Calif., office.
But although Barbie has absolutely had her allotment of altercation over the years, Chan says, the Bratz are added alarming these canicule for the way they portray adolescence."Barbie was created to attending like a woman -- a bump of what a adolescent would abound up to be," says Chan, whose job includes tracking the nation's pop-culture index.
"The Bratz dolls attending like (teens) now -- a girl's identification with them is added immediate."Sharon Lamb agrees. Co-author of "Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters From Marketers' Schemes" (St. Martin's Griffin, 336 pages, $14.95), Lamb says she does acknowledge the dolls' indigenous assortment (the band includes Asian, African American and Latina characters), but altar to the Britney Spears apparel (Fallen Pop Idol Era) and the Paris Hilton manners."If you put the Bratz's accouterment on a absolute teenager, she'd attending appealing sleazy," Lamb says. Plus, she gives a big thumbs bottomward to such accompanying items as the Bratz Rock Angelz Party Plane and their pretend "juice drinks," packaged cautiously like cocktails.
"The manufacturers are affairs a lifestyle," Lamb says, on the buzz from Burlington, Vt., area she teaches attitude at Saint Michael's College. "It's absolutely giving girls the bulletin on what it agency to abound up and be a teenager. It's actual adeptness marketing."
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Of course, the Bratz aren't the alone culprits. Today, girls (and their parents) are besieged by affecting ball and pop ability choices. There's the privileged, brand-name bottomward Gossip Girls, for instance, who, appear September, will alum from a acknowledged book alternation to a new prime-time CW ball by the creators of "The OC."
And one can't abolish the appulse of the Britneys, Parises and the Lindsays, who militarist movies and music aimed at tweens and teens.
Indeed, in February, the American Psychological Affiliation aloft a red banderole over abeyant abiding affecting accident that such bodies and images can affectation to girls. The affiliation targeted aggregate from announcement and video amateur to cartoons and music videos.
The Bratz did not escape notice. The affiliation alleged it "worrisome" that "sexily clad" dolls "designed accurately for 4- to 8-year-olds are associated with objectified developed sexuality."However, Bratz architect Isaac Larian calls the address "garbage science." Furthermore, he says, any criticism of his dolls are aloof allotment of a "media-driven" and abrogating publicity campaign."All of this (attention) is crazy -- it's wrong," says the MGA Ball CEO, on the buzz from his Van Nuys, Calif., office.
"Take the baby to your daughter, to your niece, and ask her what she thinks of them," he says. "Not one will anticipate the baby is 'sexy' -- she'll anticipate they're aloof beautiful."
Larian additionally defends his dolls' reputation. They're hardly party-mad boy-chasers, he says. "I don't apperceive area that abstraction comes from," he says. "We advance things like arena sports -- one of our acknowledged curve is the Bratz Play Sportz line."
Besides, he says, parents can't be too concerned.
"They're acutely affairs the articles for the kids," says Larian of the dolls, which ambit in amount from $9.99 to $29.99 (the closing which buys you access into a basic Bratz community.)
Liz Martin, for one, doesn't see what the fuss is all about."They're aloof beautiful dolls," says the 48-year-old Galt, Calif., resident. "I've never been too anxious about how they attending or dress."
Martin, forth with her 14-year-old babe Johna and 12-year-old ancestors acquaintance Jennifer Cloutier, bent a matinee of the "Bratz" cine this weekend at an Elk Grove, Calif., theater.Both girls, longtime Bratz fans, accede that the PG-rated, live-action film, about based on the dolls, was "fun" and "cute" -- aerial praise.
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And the ancient Martin says she accepted the film's message."It has a nice outcome," Martin says. "It shows that (being a teen) isn't about acceptance to a bunch but about actuality yourself."
Perhaps, she adds, it's time for anybody to aloof lay off those poor Bratz girls."Maybe they shouldn't anguish so abundant about what the Bratz attending like on the outside," she says. "Think about who they are on the central instead."
DOLL WARS
It's a doll-eat-doll world. With Barbie and the Bratz at the top of the amphitheater pecking order, who absolutely reigns supreme? For your consideration, here's a plastic-on-plastic smackdown.
BARBIE
Born: 1959
Size: 11-1/2 inches high
Parents: Mattel Inc.
By the numbers: Mattel doesn't absolution its sales figures, but industry analysts appraisal that Barbie rakes in about $3.1 billion annually. Sweet.
Miss Popularity: Barbie's the champ here, accumulation alert as abounding Internet searches than the Bratz.
["400px"]Signature quote: "Math is hard."
BRATZ
Born: 2001
Size: 10 inches aerial -- although a lot of that is the head. Big arch -- big brain?
Parents: MGA Entertainment
By the numbers: MGA doesn't absolution sales figures, either. Still, according to the NPD Group, a consumer- and retail-research organization, the Bratz pulled banking rank in the fourth division of 2006 as the top-selling fashion-themed baby in the United States.
Miss Popularity: The Bratz may accumulate as abundant Internet absorption as Barbie, but at atomic these girls avowal added Web hits than the Disney Channel's "Hannah Montana." (More than bisected of the users digging for Bratz advice are adolescent than 13, and 77 percent of those searchers are female.)
Signature quote: "I accept a affection for fashion."
Sources: NPD Group, Yahoo!, Wedbush Morgan
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