C’mon, vamanos!
posted in Fashion, OmegaDotter, Parenting, Pop Culture |In the midst of a whole slew of things I’d like to write about (hoping that my brain-to-typing-fingers connection reanimates itself sometime), today’s is The New Dora.
Crash course: Dora–to those not in the know, aka “non-parents”–is a bilingual first-grader/kindergardener who lives in the jungles of Costa Rica, wears orange shorts and a magic backpack (and, of course, the omnipresent PINK top), has a monkey as a pet, and encounters a variety of adventures. She climbs, she swims, she hikes, she boats, she uses a map and compass–she’s an outdoorsy kinda gal. Not my most favorite of TV characters, to be sure, but she’s not yet another girly-girl with floofy clothes and high heels.
So–Mattel has purchased the rights to market The New Dora, and Nickelodeon will create a show for The New Dora. The New Dora is supposedly a middle-schooler aimed at tweens. All well and good; corporations will be corporations, and, hey, having captured fifty kazillion preschoolers through first- or second-graders (though the latter is doubtful, as the dotter has taken to calling Dora “for babies” lately), they want to hold onto those kiddies as their purchasing power starts growing.
In an act of super-coyness, the two companies released a silhouette of The New Dora, who features long, flowing hair (rather than Dora’s current bob), a short skirt (rather than shorts), and ballet slipper-like shoes (rather than sneakers). No backpack, and probably no monkey, either. No more jungles of Costa Rica–she’s moved to the big city. She likes shopping and jewelry. Oh, and technology. Sort of tacked onto the description…
Le shit has hit le fan in mommyblogs the blogosphere (As Liana so rightly points out, “mommybloggers” is a pretty stereotypical label, and I apologize!). Grumps about sexualization and what-not–all of which I tend to agree with–plus a petition to Mattel and Nickelodeon to back down, mofos!
On the other hand, we have two women scientistas, Dr. Isis and Sheril Kirshenbaum over at ScienceBlogs, who look at it in a different way: This doll is saying (they say) that smart can equal pretty!
The problem I have with that is that the description of The New Dora doesn’t sound like the “smart” is what’s being emphasized; what’s being emphasized is Yet More Expansive Consumer Goods, with (as mentioned above) the “technology” being added as an afterthought. Note that “technology” does not necessarily equal science, nor does it necessarily equal exploration, nor does it necessarily equal adventure.
Sure: Smart can equal pretty! Woohoo! Some of us do wish this particular meme made it out into the general pop-culture consciousness.
But. Dayum, does that new silhouette make me think of all those movies where the “smart girl” is suddenly seen as attractive because she takes off her glasses and pulls her hair out of the ever-present businesslike ponytail. *Poof*! As soon as the glasses come off, and the hair comes down, whammo-blammo, the “smart girl” is wearing eye shadow, lipstick, and sexy clothes, her popularity soars through the roof…
…and, very often, the “smart” side of her vanishes into the woodwork.
It’s not offering a new option to the girls out there. It’s not being accepting of who they are, really. It’s saying–in a sneaky way that passes right by the dewy-eyed interest of tween girls–that to be accepted, you have to look pretty and tone down your smarts. (But, of course, not too pretty, or too mature, as Dr. Isis points out, because then you’ve crossed The Line and are now a target for being called “easy”.)
Look, there are oodles of shows and dolls and what-not aimed at getting girls to buy clothing and jewelry and makeup and accessories and “look pretty”. There are not oodles of shows and dolls and what-not aimed at letting girls be not interested in those things. I was a geeky, awkward teen. I wasn’t interested in that stuff. I was interested in Star Trek. And science fiction books. And writing. And geometry. And history. Trust me–there wasn’t anything out there in pop-culture land that matched my image of myself. And prior to that, in what is now called “tween”age, what I was interested in was playing cops and robbers and Good Guys and Bad Guys and hanging out at the playground with buddies and going to camp and stuff like that.
‘Course, I’m not sure anything in pop-culture land would have interested me, but it might have been nice to have a TV show that featured a girl who wasn’t into those things.
Dunno. I’m sure my dotter (suddenly into flippy short skorts) would love The New Dora. But as a mother, I’d like to aim her at other things, other shows, that don’t emphasize the outside so much and do emphasize other things.
(Various notes: Pretzel made a joke about how I’d soon be complaining about the moose eating our vegetables again. As fate would have it, that very night we had a moose come dining at our perennial flower bed. Har. In the meantime, spring seems to be trying to spring here in Alaska; we have had two days of 40 degree weather. Yay! The snow is melting! This is impacting the Iditarod race, because soft snow plus high temps equals bad mushing conditions. Our doctor, Doc SledDog, is racing in the Iditarod this year, so I am [vaguely] keeping track. All in all, things are looking up, except for my paycheck, which will be going down in two weeks, because my new, shorter, work hours started on Monday.)
