Bratz: Friend or Foe to the Movement Towards Racial Equality?

Alicia Burns-Wright

Rice University

23 Sunset Blvd.

Houston, TX 77005

Email: abwright@rice.edu

Phone: 702-290-5636

In 2001, the Cartoon Network obtained the rights to Bugs Bunny and made the decision to ban twelve episodes of the Bugs Bunny cartoon from the 1930s and 1940s, claiming that they were too racially charged to air (Leland, 2001).  Some of the titles of these banned episodes are “Sioux MeBen Hardaway,” “Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs,” “Tokio Jokio,” and “You’re a Sap, Mister Jap” (Animation World Network, 1996).  These are cartoons that children growing up in this time period watched regularly, if they had access to a television set; children growing up in the 1950s and 1960s also probably saw these same cartoons decades after they were created. When these aired, no one saw an issue with the racially stereotyped characters in the Bugs Bunny cartoons.  Though society was more overtly racist at that time, racial stereotypes still clearly exist in our society today.

Racial stereotypes in cartoons are particularly interesting because they are shown to children, particularly young children, who are still developing their sense of the world and their sense of identity.  These children may not have the ability to discern reality from fantasy; they may not understand that the way a minority cartoon behaves does not depict the way all minorities behave in real life.  By influencing children and their perception of the world, cartoons may have more power to shape the future than society realizes (DeGaetano, 2005; Strasburger, 1999).

In this paper, I examine racial stereotypes in one particular cartoon and studied how perceptions of minorities have changed, if at all.  The cartoon, based off a set of dolls that rival Barbie, is called Bratz, a story of four 15-year old girls who attend school, love fashion, and act as international agents helping to save the world from danger.  In this study, I examined three episodes of this show and carefully observed the four main characters in the story line: Yasmin, Cloe, Jade and Sasha. In order to put what I looked for into perspective, I have also reported findings on the effect of media on children and the current sentiment about racial representation in children’s cartoons.  Finally, I have used this information to report and then discuss what I observed in the Bratz cartoon.

Media and Its Effect on Children

When judging the effect of the media on children and adolescents, Strasburger argues that adults seem to have a hard time understanding that television is viewed differently by younger individuals, who understand that television is “fantasy, entertainment, often unreal” (1995: 14).  However, he goes on to argue that children are not able to recognize the difference between reality and fiction as adults are.  DeGaetano (2005) argues that children are always in the process of shaping their beliefs about the world, leading to the idea that anything that children can use in their lives, including these media images that they may not be able to identify as fiction, may contribute to this social construction.  She goes on to say that the construction of attitudes can be subconscious, which leads to the idea of a large power in the media industry’s hands when we consider the fact that many children watch around three hours of television per day (Jordan et al., 2006).  

Strasburger highlights the fact that though the idea that the media has a negative impact on children and adolescents is controversial, the industry is quick to establish positive connections that the media makes (he uses the example of The Cosby Show, which exemplifies positive family values).  It is important to note, however, that his argument is not that media is evil, but that it is “an intrinsically neutral medium which can potentially be ‘good’ or ‘bad’” (Strasburger, 1995:17).

Outside of the general effect of media, most of the contemporary studies that have been done have specifically researched the effect of violence or advertising in the media on children and adolescents.  These studies are not directly linked to the portrayal of racial minorities in the media and how this might affect children or adolescents, as they are more intent on showing the relationship between advertising and behavior or violence in children’s media and aggressive behavior.  However, they still support the notion that media generally has the ability to affect the perception of the world that children and adolescents have by supporting the notion that what children see in TV shows or films geared towards them can have a lasting effect.  This connection, made for violence or products in advertising, can bleed into the media’s ability to alter children and adolescent’s views on race/ethnicity, gender, and class.

Though Marsh (2006) reports that research cannot realistically link media violence directly to crime, it can be linked to bullying and aggressive attitudes, both of which are violent behaviors.  DeGaetano dramatically claims that “as our children’s minds and hearts are filled with media violence in most of their leisure moments, they can even develop cognitive scripts that mimic psychopathic language” (2005:90), referring to her observation that children watching violent television often described violence in their everyday conversations with one another.  Additionally, children who see a lot of violence may consider it an acceptable way to settle conflict; they may also accept violent behavior and become desensitized to real-life violence.  It is clear that even the most skeptical researchers must admit that some sort of connection must be drawn between media and violence.

Race representation in cartoons

If media can affect how children view violence, then it is not quite a stretch that the media can affect how children view race.  Sternheimer brings this up when discussing society’s tendency to search for violence in children’s media while ignoring the ability to affect children’s perception on other fronts: “By taking that Acme anvil as the biggest problem, we ignore stereotypical portrayals of race and gender that often pervade children’s programming” (2003: 86). This point is especially true when considering Jeanne Funk’s perspective on information presented to developing minds: “‘Individuals tend to process information differently depending on how consistent new information is with pre-existing attitudes’” (DeGaetano, 2005:90).  Though the ability to make a comparison between a minority in real life and a minority in a cartoon may save a child from stereotyping an entire racial group, not all children have this contact with racial minorities and, because of this, may grow up believing in the stereotype put forth by a cartoon.

The problem of race in cartoons has existed on two fronts: some people find that racial groups do not get enough exposure, while others find that they are too stereotyped, and not positively representative of the race they are meant to portray.  However, the complaint of the exclusion of racial minorities in media is falling to the wayside, as many more opportunities for exposure to racial minorities, though negative, open up.  The attention is more commonly focused upon the way that racial minorities are portrayed.

Both educators and parents have recently become concerned with the representation of racial minorities in children’s cartoons.  According to Marsh, many educators find that popular culture presents “limited representation of cultural… diversity and stereotypes racial images and works to legitimize inequalities” (2005:176-177).  In the same vein, Sternheimer (2003) finds that many adult-approved cartoons support the ideologies of inequality.  For example, the brutality of Whites on other races in Disney movies (Blacks in Tarzan, Native Americans in Pocahontas) is softened to the point that it is an outright lie; this allows no blame to lie on whites in the past or present for the plight of minorities.

Methods

Though the Bratz characters reach children through multiple mediums (movies, cartoons, and dolls), I observed the television cartoon based on them that airs on Fox, a primetime channel available, free of charge, to anyone with a television.  The television show comes on locally at 7:30 am Central time, and the characters, pictured on the cover page, are computer animated.  The show, which began its run in 2005, is aired nationally.

For this paper, I observed three episodes of the show.  Though I had five Saturdays between the start of the project and the due date of the paper, the show did not air on the last two Saturdays available for me to observe them (April 14, 2007, and April 21, 2007).

Though there were racial stereotypes applied to multiple characters in the show, I decided to focus only on the four main characters: Yasmin, Cloe, Sasha and Jade.  Throughout the show, these 15-year old girls focus on boys, fashion, and being international secret agents.  While observing the show, I paid close attention both to how the main characters acted individually and how they interacted with one another.

Observations: The Bratz Cartoon

The Bratz dolls are very edgy, with large heads, more multiethnic features (such as full lips and almond-shaped eyes), and a more urban and provocative style of dress.  According the ABC News Nightline (2006), they are closing in on Mattel’s domination of the doll market with Barbie.  More importantly, they challenge the domination of white dolls on the market by presenting girls with the option of getting dolls with darker skin, darker hair, darker eyes, and more ethnic facial features.  The market has responded to this: in 2005, Bratz had $2 billion in sales and is rivaling Barbie (ABC News Nightline, 2006). 

The creator of the dolls, an Iranian Jewish immigrant named Isaac Larian who says he fulfilled the American Dream after coming to America in 1971 on a one-way ticket with 750 dollars in his pocket (Nightline, 2006), wanted the dolls to be ethnically ambiguous so that more of the 6-to-14 year old girls in the Bratz market can identify with his merchandise (HispanicAd.com, 2006).

Though he refuses to name the race of the dolls, only one doll remains truly difficult to label: Yasmin, a doll modeled after the Iranian Jewish man’s daughter.  However, her name is spelled in a Persian fashion (Businessweek.com, 2005) and her biography, found on BratzTV’s website, does not align her stereotypically with any race. This ambiguity has left communities, particularly the Hispanic community, to claim her as their own; a simple Google search pulls Yasmin up as the Hispanic Bratz doll.

Once one takes a look at the Bratz dolls’ characteristics using their website and the television show, it is clear that actions speak louder than words.  Though Larian refuses to officially label the characters, all but Yasmin are quite easy to identify by stereotypes provided by their look (see the cover page), their “favorites” (see Table 1) and/or their demeanor on the cartoon show.  A breakdown of each main character will provide great insight into the way that they truly portrayed to children.  Additionally, the characters, which are different in terms of race, still all conform to the ideals of mainstream feminine beauty: tall and slim with long, straight hair, regardless of the character’s race.  This has important implications on the self-esteem issues this might cause in minority children, who can identify with one of the Bratz dolls but never attain her body shape.  Though this may affect more racial minorities due to whites having one of the lowest prevalence of obesity, any children not conforming exactly to the mainstream ideals that the Bratz dolls represent may feel the pressure to be physically perfect.

In addition to body type, all of the girls share physical ability, as well as passion for both fashion and boys.  All of the episodes of the show that I watched exhibited the interest in boys and fashion in all of the girls’ lives as extremely important.  However, there are obviously differences between the characters, including many that may be indicative of race.

Cloe

With light skin, blonde hair and light eyes, it is easy to determine that Cloe is white.  While other Bratz characters may remain somewhat undefinable, Cloe’s race is clear.  To further support the idea that Cloe is white, both the actress who voices her cartoon and the actress who will portray her in the upcoming Bratz: The Movie (August 2007) are white (imdb.com, 2007). 

In her biography on the Bratz TV website, Cloe is shown to be an independent spirit with a soft spot for romanticism.  She is dramatic and seems to be more boy crazy than her friends.  Her passion for fashion is at a level slightly higher than those of her friends.  She also comes across as a bit ditzy.  Throughout the episodes she uses slang words such as “Cool!” and “Tres chic!”  Cloe’s character is pretty straightforward; whites are hard to stereotype because they are the majority, so the only stereotypical way for Cloe to act is in a way that lines up with mainstream culture, which is something that all of the girls do to a degree.

Jade

At first glance, Jade appears exotic.  She has long black hair and her eyes are slightly almond shaped, just like all of the characters.  When reading her biography, it becomes clear that she is meant to be Asian, based on her stereotypically Asian interests, including techno music, sushi as her favorite food, and anime cartoons.  Her favorite class is chemistry, while the other characters name English, dance and art as their favorites.  While Cloe may be more interested in fashion, Jade is interested in putting fashions together, and she is better at it than Cloe; for example, she is chosen for her style as a supermodel in the episode where the girls take a trip to Paris.  Further, her character in Bratz: The Movie is Janel Parrish, an actress born in Hawaii. It is interesting to note, however, that the actress who voices her character in the Bratz TV show is Soleil Moon Frye, a white actress best known for playing the character Punky Brewster as a child.

Jade is not stereotyped very often in the Bratz cartoon show.  In one episode, where the girls are training for a physical fitness test they have to take, there is a kicking challenge, where all of the girls must kick a target on a punching bag.  Though Cloe wins the competition, Jade’s approach to the challenge is different from the others: she flies at the beanbag with a kick from across the room, while the other girls simply kick the bag by standing in front of it.  This action may be paralleled to extreme Japanese and Asian fighting movies that tend to be very popular in the United States (such as the movies Fearless or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon).

Sasha

Like Cloe’s character, Sasha’s skin tone is a physical characteristic that clearly marks her as black.  Her biography is, by far, the most stereotypical to her race (her favorite food is mom’s soul food, her favorite music is hip hop, she aspires to be a music producer and fashion designer, and she loves to dance). Additionally, both the actress who provides the voice for her on the Bratz cartoon (Tia Mowry) and the actress set to play her in the Bratz movie (Logan Browning) are black (imdb.com, 2007).

Sasha admits that she is bossy and controlling without hesitance in her biography. She also says that she dislikes things that she cannot control (4kids.tv, 2007).  Stereotypes about black women like this often come into play in the episodes of the Bratz cartoon.  In the first episode, all of the other girls sheepishly watch a boy that they have a crush on from across the room.  He comes to speak to them, and they are very shy and quiet.  After a minute or so, Sasha walks up and presses her body to him while she flirts with him.  Without the other girls being able to get in a word first, she immediately tells them that he is her man and they cannot have him before the show’s script even alludes to a competition.  Stereotypes of black women being sassy, competitive and controlling have existed in the Sapphire stereotype (Yarbrough and Bennett, 2000) and Sasha portrays this more than once.  In another episode, the girls are competing to go to Paris, and Cloe outright calls Sasha controlling after she attempts to dictate which girls get to go.  This stereotype is harmful to black women because it promotes the idea that all black women fall into one of a small number of categories instead of having individual characteristics not tied to their race.

Another stereotype about black women getting more and more media attention is the low marriage rate of black women.  The U.S. Census Bureau reports that for every 100 single black women, there are only 70 single black men; to add fuel to the fire, black men intermarry at a higher rate than black women (Williams, 2006).  This fact made a specific episode with Sasha particularly difficult to swallow: after she had to postpone a date with a black boy (Aloncé, or “Cruise”), he went on a date with a white girl and pictures were put all over a tabloid magazine.  Two white twin girls (called the Tweevils in the show) then teased Sasha about being unable to keep a man.  Though this was meant to be a joke, it rings quite true with the stereotype that black women today are too bossy, independent, or domineering to exist in a traditional romantic relationship.

Sasha is also portrayed as more athletic than the other girls.  While preparing for a physical fitness test, she boxes vigorously while the other girls lift weights slowly or use a cardio machine (treadmill or elliptical).  Similarly, when they are shown racing with ATVs, she is ahead of the other girls.  However, there are multiple fitness challenges and the other girls do win them.  Additionally, she is portrayed as a good dancer; in the episode where all of the girls compete over one boy, Jade attempts to get him to dance in a club and fails.  After Sasha goes on a date with him, she tells Jade that she got him on the dance floor and, while shaking her hips, says that she put her moves on him.  This particular comment, obviously laced with sexual undertones, aligns with the stereotype of black women as more sexual than other women.  This causes black women to be portrayed as sexually deviant and an exotic sexual partner, instead of her own individual person who merits value based on her character.

Last, while the other girls tend to use mainstream slang (such as “cool”), Sasha uses slang that is differentiated from the others in the group, such as “that’s chill,” “off the hook,” “scorchin’!” and “that’s hip.”  These slang words, many of which have made their way through the black community at one point or another, reflect the need to separate Sasha’s culture from that of the rest of the girls.

Yasmin

Though the Hispanic community embraces Yasmin, as previously mentioned, her race is truly ambiguous.  Her skin tone could represent a multitude of “in between” races, including Hispanic, Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, or Pacific Islander.  She has brown hair, brown eyes, and her eyes, like all of the other girls, are almond-shaped.  Her biography on the Bratz TV website further shows this ambiguity: she likes helping people, new ideas, and she says that she is quite sensitive.  She has a bit of a self-confidence issue.  She is a vegetarian who practices yoga and likes alternative music.  Another thing that makes her race unidentifiable is that the actress who voices her character on the cartoon, Dionne Quan, is Asian, while the actress playing her character in the Bratz movie, Natalia Ramos, is phenotypically white (imdb.com, 2007). Overall, she cannot be stereotypically categorized as aligned with one race (unlike Sasha and Jade) and her character, most importantly, cares about people and their personalities.  She also promotes individuality by saying that her dislikes are “people who act just like everyone else.”

It is important to mention that Yasmin is the leader of the pack.  She is clearly at the forefront of the group; more time in the cartoon is given to her, and she is usually the one that thinks of a way to solve a problem or help all of the girls in the group reconcile after having an argument.  She is a peacemaker, helping all of the other girls get along.

One of Yasmin’s passions is writing.  She loves her English class, and it comes up in every single episode that I have seen.  She is the only one that promotes a highly respected characteristic in our society (intelligence) to the young girls that watch the television show.  Combining the fact that Yasmin is simultaneously ethnically ambiguous and the leader of the show, one may assume that most of the girls watching the show are drawn to her.

Discussion

While Bratz creator Isaac Larian claims that all of the characters on the show are racially ambiguous, it is clear that this is only really true for one of the characters: Yasmin.  Her character is truly an individual, with a list of interests and hobbies that are too diverse to stereotypically categorize into one race.  This means a lot for the future of cartoon characters: as confusing and frustrating as this inability to categorize her can be, it can create in a child the belief that not every minority has to act a certain way because of their skin color.  If media is as powerful as reports have shown it is, and this lesson could be instilled in children all over the nation, the next generation will behave a lot different from the ones that precede it.

However, the Bratz cartoon has one ambiguous minority character and two clearly defined minority characters.  As helpful as Yasmin’s character can be, Jade and Sasha’s characters may damage the progress of not needing to characterize people by race, allowing only non-Asian and non-black minorities to benefit from the progress that Larian’s show is making.

The Bratz show is extremely gender stereotyped and encourages young girls to place too much of an emphasis on beauty instead of more important characteristics, such as kindness, intelligence, and ambition.  The show also focuses intensely on dating and liking boys, even though the youngest children in its target audience are only six years old (HispanicAd.com, 2006).  All of the characters share the same body type (tall and lean) and hair type (long and straight), fitting the mainstream Western ideal of beauty that few girls can truly achieve.  The show takes a step back in regards to gender equality and in so doing has implications for racial identity and body type.

The argument is clear: no one except the media industry itself dares to deny the fact that all media has an effect on children, especially young children, with respect to their perception of themselves and the world.  This effect may be positive or negative.  Though direct causal links between cartoons and prejudice or discriminatory practices, or between cartoons and violent crime, may be difficult to make, the fact that they are indirectly linked is quite undeniable, as multiple studies over the years have shown this to be true.  At this point, one would hope that the media begins to take more responsibility for its actions and use its programming to teach children positive values.  However, until this happens, it is up to the parents to do their best to figure out which children’s television programs, if any, are appropriate for the wellbeing of their child or children.

Through my observations, I found many problems with the racial representations of the Bratz characters on their TV show.  However, one cannot deny that we have come a long way from Bugs Bunny dressing up in blackface.  Progress is being made by simply including a cast of multiracial characters; while Larian and his Bratz dolls have taken a step forward, we have many more to go.

Appendix

Table 1. Biographies of the four main Bratz characters.