Bratz vs Barbie

Right off, I hate Bratz dolls. I mean I freaking detest them. Despite that, I never forbid my daughters from playing with them. Didn't matter, as they liked Barbies more, though my oldest was into dolls before Bratz got popular.
I myself never bought them, but I never bothered with others.
Last I heard, Bratz had almost 50 percent of the doll market, and had just about caught up with Barbie. I suspect that they have now surpassed Barbie.

Being a parent, this got me thinking about the differences between the worlds of Barbie and Bratz:

Feminists have hated Barbie for decades, and all the Stienems and Dworkins of this poor world loudly proclaimed that she was partly responsible for all the troubles of American girls. "Ban Barbie" they cried.

OK, let's suppose for the sake of this rant that you buy into the feminist argument that little girls are so intellectually and emotionally vapid that they will be scarred for life because they can't get themselves to look like Barbie. This despite the fact that it's generally known and understood that no human being can be built like that without major surgery.
Let's suppose that all little girls should have been playing with the Happy to be Me dolls to protect them. Those were a flop, so I guess the feminists just didn't fight hard enough.

And now Barbie is being replaced by the Bratz dolls. Maybe I'm out of touch, but I haven't heard any screaming about these from the feminists outside of some blogs, so I have to assume that, overall, they have no problem with these dolls. I guess feminism's third wave is real.

In my humble, male, old fart opinion, the Bratz are mutant hookers with currently stylish clothes and cool cars. The little wretches have to smoke crack because they don't have noses to snort coke with.
They do look like they're high. They look furtive and mean.

So let me get this all straight.

Barbie was horrible because she had an unattainably perfect body. OK, got it.
There were astronaut Barbies, and doctors, nurses, veterinarians, and so on. Barbie games had her rescuing lost and hurt animals, skiing, riding horses, and of course doing her hair and such. She had a nice smile and a positive can do attitude. Her movies reflected all this too.
But that's all materialistic and shallow I'm told.

Bratz do exactly NOTHING except endlessly shop for clothes.
That's it, pretty much.

Well, I must say that if little girls use dolls as role models, as feminists think they do, then Bratz are a hell of a lot easier to aspire to!
Barbie doctor? Dude, that takes work, ya gotta study for, like, hours y'know.
Why study or work when any girl can just hang out at the mall, charge a few bucks for sex with old pervs and pull in (pun intended) enough cash to buy some really stylish new designer clothes? Probably have enough left over for booze, drugs, etc. too.
I guess that must not considered shallow or materialistic.

So, it seems to me that feminists believe that unnaturally attractive, professional, positive attitude dolls are an abomination against all of women kind, but just plain unnatural, negative attitude, slacker dolls are swell.

In "researching" this for all of 10 minutes, I did come across a whole lot of blogs and forums with individuals complaining about Bratz. But nothing in the way of news articles. I remember reading about the horrors of Barbie in newspapers and magazines ad nauseum in the 80's and 90's. It's a huge difference.

Because of the resounding silence on the part of feminist leaders (perhaps there are no more? Perhaps feminism is dead as a movement since women have achieved so much that organizations and leaders are no longer necessary?), I can only conclude that Bratz represent the ideal of today's concept of feminism, the so called "third wave."

Well, I hope you like where you've ended up ladies.

Media Filter

I find this election the most interesting ever, and I may even post a few things on it.
Therefore, I figure I should mention how I filter the news (we all filter news, we are all biased, those that say they are not are the worst).

First off, I believe that there are 3 laws of news that all mainstream media follow, rather like Asimov's 3 laws of robotics:

1. "Sell Product." This means attracting eyeballs and ears. Get people to listen, watch , or read your news any way you can. Decency, accuracy, objectivity, and intelligence be damned.

2. "Promote the Democrat party and liberals, but denigrate the Republicans and Conservatives." The American people, and indeed the world, must be made to love and admire the Democrats and hate the Republicans. Were it not for the need of profit, this would be law number 1. So, Democrats and liberals are only made to look bad if law 1 requires it (such as the coverage of Slick Willie's sexual peccadilloes).
BTW, Fox News follows this second law too, only in reverse.

3. "Inform the public." This is way down in the order importance. Laws 1 and 2 are in constant conflict and the source of much agonizing, with law 2 triumphing often as not.
Law 3 is an afterthought.

OK, so generally it goes like this:

If there is news about a Republican/Conservative doing something wrong, the actual transgression was only half as bad as it is reported to be, and pretty much all evidence of wrong doing is reported at length.

If there is news about a Democrat/liberal doing something wrong, the actual transgression was at least twice as bad as reported, and much detail is left out.

Again, Fox does this in reverse.

Well that's how I view the news. So now you have some understanding of my world view.

Like that means something.

Free Speech Still Alive, kind of

Yeeeeeha! Don Imus is back on the air!
Mark your calendars, December 3 2007 from 6am to 10am on WABC, the same channel that brings us Rush, Levin, Hannity, etc.

Now I had quit listening to Imus years ago, as he just didn't seem very funny anymore. He spent most of his time bitching like any grouchy old fart. Hell if I wanted to hear how everyone in the world is "tedious" I could hang out at a retirement home.

But when Sharpton and Jackson used him as a vehicle to put themselves back in the spotlight and reaffirm their positions as leaders of the black community, getting him fired in the process, I was mighty upset.

I will listen to Imus now on my drive into work. I don't care if he's funny or not. I don't care if he just sits there and makes rude noises and drools. I'm listening to him simply because I'm glad those asshats didn't win completely.

Oh, and I'm going to really enjoy listening to and reading all the whining, like this:

LA Times Whine

Bwah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

And again I say:

Bwah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!