Inspired by this post on Hoyden About Town (thanks to Bean for pointing it out to me).
UPDATE: Great comment from the discussion at Hoyden: “What was so unmarketable about a pirate dora doll?”
I think Austria may be the next successful fascist takeover, as the fascists won the last election (largest party, 29%…
Ryan North's To Be or Not To Be did have queer content IIRC. Haven't read Romeo and/or Juliet.
@Dianne, Did you predict that Biden would win? I think everyone knew Roe was going down as soon the combo…
Thanks, BCB! That's neat about the fringe festival show. There's also Romeo and/or Juliet, a choose-your-own adventure book that was…
Well regulated micetia.
Not surprising many “tomboys” grow up and out this. I would think the marketers found the actual buyers came out of this group. Potential buyers could be among ethnic families that have more traditional family structure. Do I think this is hit against feminism? No I think it act to increase sales.
Lauer,
Your argument is incoherent. You could slow down and try again, if you wanted.
And put in some articles. Articles in English are almost always good .
Well, look on the bright side. With that body and head shape, when Dora finally grows up, she’s going to be Thelma from The Family Circus; safe and acceptably non-threateningly female.
Oh, wait, that might not actually be the bright side. Sorry.
Well, since I hate Dora, I really shouldn’t even bother commenting…but, what the heck.
She really reminds me of Velma from Scooby-Doo…without her glasses! Yeah, that’s it! Velma now has contacts!
when I saw a blond Dora in a toy store, I lost all hope.
It’s obviously a great step backwards, but I never thought Dora was much of a role model to begin with. True she’s much better than most (at least she was pre-change) but “better” isn’t “acceptable” or even “good.”
I’ve never seen that before. Is it new? All the Dora dolls I’ve ever seen in the store look like very close approximations of the cartoon. It’s certainly awful, but thankfully it seems to not be the norm with Dora stuff.
WRT to the other poster trying to say something about Dora’s ethnicity and that the marketing is specific to that, I can assure you, Dora appeals to a VERY wide audience of children. Boys, girls, of basically every ethnicity and race in a certain age bracket adore her.
While we are on the subject though, there are 2 things that bother me about the Dora stuff.
1) Why is all the Dora stuff marketed only for girls? There are a TON of toddler and pre-school boys who love Dora as much as the girls do. It’s really pathetic that the Dora toys, clothes, etc are all very gender specific for girls. While there is nothing stopping most parents from getting the mostly pink table and chairs with Dora and boots on them, most of them simply won’t do that. It sure would be nice of the boys who love her could have the same opportunities for products as the girls. In fact, I think it would be great for the boys to have a “girl” character to idolize, you know?
2) I’m REALLY sick of all the licensed products period. A few books, dolls, toys, fine, but my kid doesn’t need clothes, backpacks, toys, chairs, cups, dishes etc etc etc with Dora all over them. We don’t have cable, so Maya hasn’t even ever SEEN Dora, but we have a bunch of Dora crap because it’s really hard to avoid.
Sailorman, what is bad about Dora? I’ve never seen the show, so I am genuinely curious. The premise that she goes on adventures sounds good to me…
Well, there’s lots of kids who aren’t chubby and too many kids who are; but I’ll agree that the doll goes too far the other way. I buy into the rest of it; that outfit looks more like lingerie than anything else, and portraying kids as active instead of wearing something that would be torn to pieces by any reasonably active kid is most desirable from my viewpoint.
Well, look on the bright side. With that body and head shape, when Dora finally grows up, she’s going to be Thelma from The Family Circus
She’s* an active, intelligent girl being forced into the role of a fluffy and passive nonentity. If she remembers what life was like before, when she was allowed to do things and have fun, maybe she’ll grow up to be Lois from Dykes to Watch Out For instead.
*Yeah, yeah, I know Dora’s an imaginary character. But a child somewhat like her might…
“Well, there’s lots of kids who aren’t chubby and too many kids who are”
The fuck, Ron? Thanks for your fat shaming. The girl in the original depiction may be “chubby,” but there’s nothing wrong with her. She’s not being depicted as dangerously fat or … fuck, is that not the point, but calling that kind of chubiness problematic in a five year old is really amazingly stupid.
Jesus Christ, fat-shaming five year olds.
Ron, she has:
1) a head two feet wide which is shaped like a sphere
2) No nostrils
3) no teeth (in this picture) and a mouth on the side of her face
4) one arm, or so it seems
5) a demonically possessed backpack complete with floating eyebrows; and
6) triangular eyes the size of a softball, without eyelashes…
And you want to comment on the fact that she looks FAT?
Oh yeah: TWO velcros on one shoe, and only ONE on the other shoe! Communist conspiracy, a la “the man with one red shoe”!
@ Dianne:
Nothing against, Thelma, understand, but Lois from DTWOF is a much more interesting human (fictional or no). I’d prefer that.
Yeah, I was pretty disappointed too. As vapid and annoying as the Dora cartoons are, I always liked that Dora kept out of the glamor-crap that plagued girls’ toys. But now when I go through Toys R Us shopping for baby stuff, I notice a lot more “style Dora’s hair” toys and things like you posted above.
It seemed like such a nasty reversal of such an innocent character. Turning a good, heroic little girl into another vanity doll was just depressing.
Also, I’m always annoyed that they had to introduce Diego to be a “boy Dora”. When I noticed how little boys were fans of Dora, I was ecstatic to see a final breakdown of the harsh gender-lines that existed in children’s toys when I was a boy…. but all the Dora merch was still definitely feminine. All pink and frilly things for girls. Would it have killed them to simply provide normal, neutral-coloured toys and clothes bearing the Dora brand icons instead of whipping up a “male Dora” in the form of “Go Diego, Go”?
Kate —
Dora merchandise, in particular Dora dolls, have taken a big turn down Princess avenue just in the last year. (Or at least, that’s been my impression, as someone who not-infrequently browses toy sections of stores with small girls. ) The TV show remains what it always was, fortunately.
I definitely agree with the rest of what you say. :-)
SiF, agreed.
(And as a cartoonist, I’m bewildered as to why the character design on Diego is so tepid and uncharming, in comparison to the character design on Dora.)
Dora (the original, not the new doll) seems chubby? Fat? For real? She looks like a normal sized (cartoon image of a) child to me.
I guess Cindy Crawford during her height ‘0 fame period must appear morbidly obese to folks who think Dora is chubby and fat.
I can’t believe how often I listen to people and say, “Wow.”
You’re not *actually* bewildered are you? I can vividly imagine the contrast between the cartoonist’s studio that Dora was born in and the cynical boardroom in which Diego was hatched.
Hm, yeah, O.K. I stand corrected and I apologize. I let my perception be affected by some assumptions. IIRC, the Dora character is in fact quite active. The problem isn’t so much the weight as the fact that the kids I see who are heavy are usually inactive and are being fed a lot of food rich in fats and simple sugars – and yes, I know this for a fact, I talk to the kids and the parents. Heavy because that’s your metabolism/genetics is one thing. Heavy and sit on your ass all day is something else.
I run into a lot of issues where parents bring their kids to the Troop to get them off their duffs and get them physically active. These kids are usually quite inactive elsewhere in their lives. My particular Troop is quite active; we go camping almost every month (regardless of the weather – we’ve camped in -5 F (-20 C) and 95F ( 35 C) and in thunderstorms). So when a fairly inactive kid comes into our Troop and is faced with a bunch of kids who are headed off to go rock climbing one month and canoeing the next, the question is how to get the kid participating in our program. Some of it is that the kid has problems keeping up even though he’s willing, some of it is that the kid is disinclined to be active – his life has been going pretty smoothly without having to be active up to this point and he’s not thrilled about the whole “be outdoors all day, sleep in a sleeping bag on the ground, move around a lot, be away from phone/computer/video games/TV and eat my own cooking and not have unlimited access to pop and snack food” deal. But we aren’t a big enough Troop that we can run multiple activities a month, one for the more active kids and one for the less active ones.
So, then, let me ask this; a kid and his Mom (yeah, I know, stereotype again, but 85% of the kids walking into our door for the first time are with Mom, not Dad and not both) walk into a meeting. “Can I sign my son up?” “Sure, here’s what we do, here’s the application, here’s some guidelines on how we operate, here’s a list of gear (but we can loan him a bunch of stuff for a while).” However, the son is, say, about 40 pounds (18 Kg) overweight. In 3 weeks we are going rock climbing, and he’ll have to climb up a bunch of rocks like a rough staircase about 400 ft/120m up to get to where we actually tie off to ropes and climb and rappel, and there’s no other way to get up there. Four weeks after that we are going to go on an orienteering course that is tramping through the woods, on trails about 1/2 the time and off trail the rest for about 3 miles/5 Km. How would you all recommend that we help the kid with this? Sometimes we have a group of kids who go at a slower pace, but not always. We always stress that “It’s not a race, the idea is to do the best you can, every part of this has value of it’s own.” We’ll have an adult stay with a kid that’s having problems keeping up, but there have to be at least two kids or two adults as Youth Protection (and common sense) says that a kid can’t be alone in the woods with someone not his parent/guardian. It’s not always easy to find the extra couple of adults. We don’t always have a kid who wants to be slowed down staying behind with the kid who’s having problems keeping up. Suggestions?
I run into a lot of issues…
And this relates to this post and the issue of the new, starved Dora doll how? Are you suggesting that Dora the cartoon image is a hindrance whereas Dora the emaciated doll is a help wrt getting kids to be in shape when they show up for the first time at Boy Scouts? This is, admittedly, an absurd reading of your comment, but I can’t think of any other way that your comment could relate to the subject of the post.
Ron, if your concern is that kids might get encouraged to be sedentary, the new Dora that looks like a fashion plate seems like much more of a risk in that direction. The old Dora wore shorts and sneakers and climbed trees, she was obviously an active child. The new Dora is clearly supposed to look like a young lady who doesn’t do anything that might muss her hair or tear that fragile dress. Looking “thin” doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with looking “active” or “fit.” (I call your attention to those astonishing influences on girls’ body images: Barbie dolls. They’re even astonishing if you just look at them above the ankles.)
This is disgusting. It makes me furious.
We don’t always have a kid who wants to be slowed down staying behind with the kid who’s having problems keeping up.
Important Moral Development Lesson: sometimes you slow down in order to help other people catch up, so next time you can all walk together. It’s not very Gordon Gekko, but there you are.
I still don’t get how you looked at Dora and got “fat”.
“sometimes you slow down in order to help other people catch up, so next time you can all walk together. ”
You know, I had coordination problems as a kid. I was active and took a lot of dance, but I just sucked at it — far below the normal curve. I didn’t really get the intuition about body that most people have very young until I was twelve or thirteen.
A lot of people didn’t want to have to “walk slow” to deal with me, so that was fine — I just ducked out of all sports and group physical activities as soon as I could. Great anti-sedentery message, this not walking slowly.
Mandolin,
I’m hoping I can respond to the general theme contained in your comment, without you taking personal offense. i should start with the caveat that personally this obviously was hard for you.
But generally, there’s obviously going to be a cutoff with anything taht tries to be inclusive, or that tries to be NCLB (apply the acronym to anything else you want). And at some point the losses felt by the group who has to “walk more slowly” exceed the losses felt by the group who can’t keep up.
When i’ve been in the slow group, i’ve wished for more inclusiveness. But when i’ve been in the fast group, i’ve chafed at the bit, and hated the limitations and stodgy progress of the slow folks. I really do think there are two sides to this. And if wishes came true, i’d usually rather wish for the slow kids to speed up, than for the fast ones to slow down.
Fine? That’s actuall irrelevant to the point.
If you aren’t willing to slow down for the slow kids, then don’t act aghast when they drop out and penalize them with long,elaborate commments about the evils of sedentariness.
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Ron, it seems like the problem you’re having is with that you’re trying to make sure that kids with differing ABILITIES can all participate. The ability to be physically active in the ways you’re describing is definitely not about appearance and isn’t clearly correlated with weight, either. Could we stop conflating “fat” with “inactive, physically weak and lazy”? Pretty please? For the sake of the children?
Great graphic.
In the “After” list, I would add “makeup”. Urrgh.
And at some point the losses felt by the group who has to “walk more slowly” exceed the losses felt by the group who can’t keep up.
At what point is this? How do we quantify one group over another?
If we’re talking about a children’s group where we try to teach the kids something other than “being fastest is the mostest,” I’d think one of the things you want to teach them is that it’s good to help others, even when that means not every athletic event or outing is a chance to display one’s Personal Best. Sometimes we slow down to help people who can’t keep up.
Just saw this TV ad: “Dora’s talking kitchen comes with five recipe adventures…”
Groan. My daughter and her best friend (a boy) loved Dora when they were preschoolers–annoying repetitive songs, squeaky voice, and all, it was still about having active outdoor adventures and solving problems by being observant, always using a map and a little Spanish. Glad they aged out of it before Dora started having “recipe adventures.”
I agree with the people who said it’s rediculous to have called the original Dora fat. It seems everyone has forgotten that children grow. That in order to grow you need to EAT FOOD. Or is Faliure to Thrive now what is considered healthy? Really, I have no idea. The way things are going, for all I know having a underweight child now might be considered a sign of health.
The original Dora is lovely. I gave a Dora annual to my niece at Christmas, which I would never have thought of, if it hadn’t been for this post.
I think “failure to thrive” isn’t a fair characterisation, though. My niece went from a chubby toddler to a willowy seven-year-old in little over two years, not because she has gotten narrower, but because she grown much taller.
She’s lucky then. She’ll be saved from a life of self-hatred because she was born with the correct body type. At least that’s how society views things today.
Bump for update: more of this shiat. They’re Bratz/Hannah-Montanah/Glam-teenifying Dora. Assholes.
Dora the Explorer, the TV cartoon character whose adventures are adored by children around the world, is about to get a makeover.
Amid competition from older and racier rivals such as the Disney phenomenon Hannah Montana, Dora’s TV bosses are reportedly in talks about re-designing some themed toys and merchandise to make the character more feminine.
Sources close to the discussions at Nickelodeon, the children’s TV network, say the broadcaster is considering a group of “Explorer Girls” who would appeal to older children.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1047997/How-going-make-woman-Dora-Explorer.html
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I like the idea of redesigning a older dora for the kids that are growing up as well not having to leave dora behind.so many worst things kids are looking up too.i do like that dora will remain the same for the preschoolers as well.