After conquering the doll world, Bratz bring their message of diversity to the big screen

What is it that makes Bratz, as a cultural phenomenon, great? For one, they conquered the long and seemingly invincible Barbie dynasty. This victory in the doll war is no small matter. It marked a major shift in the American ideal—or more precisely, it brought to an end the American ideal as one type of beauty, color, class, size, education, worldview, lips, eyes, hair. Bratz brought into the toy world that Barbie once dominated the possibilities and beauty of diversity. And we must never forget that the person who brought these urban, brown and mixed dolls into the billion-dollar toy market was an immigrant, an Iranian Jew, Isaac Larian.

The live-action movie is a celebration of what generates the cultural power of Bratz: imperfection. The movie begins with the four girls (one Asian, one black, one white, one Latino) entering their sophomore year in high school. They are friends to the end, and the other students (cheerleaders, jocks, geeks, Goths) recognize the strength and beauty of their friendship. The other students also recognize the Bratz as the new order, the coming future that will confront the approaching past: a rich, blond, white girl named Meredith.

The movie basically pits the four girls and their differences against Meredith’s dictatorship of perfection. Meredith lives in a palace and is a pampered princess. But all of her Aryan beauty and white wealth eventually crumbles, and the movie ends with students and parents embracing their differences and confessing their imperfections, poverty, addictions, and broken marriages. No one can be, and should not try to be, pure. Impurity, mixture, diversity, miscegenation—these are no longer setbacks but simply a fact of 21st-century America life. My daughter and her friend—both are racial mixed—absolutely loved the movie.

BRATZ DIR. SEAN MCNAMARA | RATED G | AT THEATERS EVERYWHERE | FOR THEATER LOCATIONS AND FILM TIMES CHECK OUR FILM CLOCK

Tags: bratz, Film