As many doll collectors and enthusiasts would know by now, Bratz (MGA) lost the battle with Barbie (Mattel). It looks like MGA has started work (as in selling already) on a new line of dolls to replace the soon to be taken off the shelves Bratz dolls.
Meet the Moxie Girlz…
Lexa, Sasha, Avery and Sophina
They are -
- Lexa – a brunette doll with fair skin and green eyes, she is most likely Caucasian
- Sasha – a black haired doll with light brown skin, she could be African American or any other ethnicity with dark skin
- Avery – blonde, fair with blue eyes, has to be Caucasian
- Sophina – black haired doll with olive skin, most likely Hispanic judging by the name…
Of course, Asians don’t exist in this universe either /snark/ or you could pretend that Sophina is Asian with um wavy hair…
I actually think the dolls look really cute and I can see the 5-10 year olds loving these girls. My only other criticism apart from the non-existence of Asians, is that the face mould and the face paints are exactly the same albeit in different colours… but then Bratz was also done with the same face + paint template so I guess it stays consistent with that. Maybe that’s what little kids like? But then, the same criticism could also be applied to current line of Mattel’s Playline Barbie dolls.
These Moxie dolls do look really adorable much better than Bratz I think – does anyone else notice how similar the line name Moxie is to Mixi?
Tags: erasure & exclusion, mga entertainment, moxie girlz, multi-ethnic dolls
The LIV girls are cute too!
http://www.livworld.com/
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http://www.livworld.com/#/learn
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Therese Reply:
July 28th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
hey Chdenni, thanks for the links… will check them out!
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These dolls look really cute, I like them better than The Bratz!
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#1zwinkyfan Reply:
August 21st, 2009 at 5:07 am
i have alot of bratz and i just got a moxie girl sophina and i compared her to my bratz doll and this is what i saw (smaller head, smaller lips, regalar nose, less make up, not as mutch dark eye shadow and lip stick and the moxie girls are realy cute.)
I LOVE THE NEW MOXIE GIRLS!!!!
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not to jump to conclusions but with Lexa’s Art-itude outfits:
http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3513416
I’m pretty sure she’s supposed to be asian. These dolsl are modeled after their bratz counterparts and since Lexa aligns with Jade, I’m goign to go ahead and call her asian.
While I liked bratz, these are fun and cute (especially the art-titude line)without there being a reason to complain.
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Therese Reply:
August 7th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Thanks for the link and commenting Andrew
Appropriation of Asian style (the kimono) is not always indicative of Asian presence. She still appears to have green eyes – perhaps she is Eurasian? If she is “Asian” then the dilemma of the missing Hispanic character pops up.
But then, that’s the great thing with dolls – at the end of the day, they are who we want them to be
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I think they similar the “Liv World” dolls. http://www.livworld.com. They’re gorgeous dolls as well. However I really want a Moxie Girlz doll.. Hopefully they do NOT replace ’cause I still love Bratz ’til this day since they came out.. Anyways in my oppinion..
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The moxie girlz are cute. But I’m rather disturbed that MGAE didn’t feel the need to give Sasha a different name. (Moxie Sasha = Bratz Sasha rebirthed??)
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No, there doesn’t seem to be an Asian doll here, either. I suppose, someone could take any of the dolls and “make” that doll Asian in that person’s world – I have changed “races” for my dolls and action figures so I am not arguing against the practice. But it seems odd that a company that heretofore had an established Asian character, to not include an Asian character in a new line. Diversity is the MGA Entertainment theme, I thought.
I think the Moxie Girls are cuter than the Bratz. They don’t look as hostile or sullen. Their heads are not AS big. Shudder. Their bodies are somewhat better balanced. And they don’t look like Junior Harlots on Parade.
I think that Mattel will be producing future Bratz dolls. So that line isn’t so much discontinued as it will be run by another company. Then again, that might be the same as being discontinued ;-P
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Hi evry1!
I love the Moxi Girlz!!!
I have been really disgusted with Bratz (sorry to those that have an appreciation 4 them). Moxi is an improvement. As for racial diversity- I find it sad that they dont have separate face molds so that they would have variations such as shape of nose, eyes and lips. Personally that would make them, and the industry, much more appealing.
On the good side it means that we can all ‘make them our own’ culture, but on the bad side its already biased with a caucasian base.
Did anyone notice that Barbie now does have a African American doll with different features? The nose is actually different! I took that as a step in the right direction.
Now lets keep searching for an Asian doll!
Ciao!
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It seems MGA chickened out and plucked all the “ethnic” features from these dolls… goodbye big lips and slanted eyes. The Bratz line had several Asian dolls and biracial dolls, and the faces were slightly differet (especially the May Lin doll.)
Apparently, making a doll “parent-friendly” means making it whiter. Hello small lips and round eyes.
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Mixi? As in the Japanese social networking site?
Also, a surprising number of East Asian women have naturally curly hair. That super straight flat iron look is often achieved with just that, a flat iron.
Still, I would have loved a Asian dolly. Just as long as they managed to keep there Asian countries straight, I hate it when a Japanese character doll has a Korean name, and the Chinese doll is wearing a kimono and not a qi-pao. Come to think of it, how come Vietnam is so under served in the doll market?
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Therese Reply:
September 24th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Hi Lin, thanks for stopping by and commenting
Mixis are a series of multi-ethnic fashion dolls by a Canadian company – you can do a search for “mixi” here in the search bar above.
I am surprised to hear about the naturally curly hair. Personally, being East Asian myself, I have “straight” hair with a bit of a tangley wave to it, it is most definitely NOT super flat!
I don’t know why Vietnam is so underserved, one could claim that it’s because it’s a Socialist country but hey that never stopped China becoming a financial power to be reckoned with and even having its own multi-storey Barbie store. I actually don’t know what the younger demographics of Vietnam in interested in nowadays either to be honest…
The Moxie doll most likely to be Asian are either Lexa or Sophina. Lexa also has green eyes which I have never seen on an Asian, an Eurasian or South Asian maybe but not a full blood East Asian. So that sort of elimates her from being mono-ethnic East Asian. Sophina could be Filipino, Malaysian, Subcontinental or Eurasian as well as the assumed African American.
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By watching the commercials it seems that they’re trying to market the dolls to white girls only. I’m surprised there’s even an ethnic doll.And they do need to include Asians. Guess it will take a lawsuit before that happens.
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Therese Reply:
September 28th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
To be honest… I haven’t seen the commercial – it would make sense to market the dolls to ALL people because that equals more profit hehe
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I think Lexa is the Asian one, possibly Japanese. One of the lines includes a kimono as her alternate outfit. It’s possible for full-blooded Asians to have green or even blue eyes. It’s extremely rare, but possible.
Am I the only one who thinks that the African American one’s lip color looks off? If there’s anything my Mum taught me as a woman of color wearing makeup, it’s avoid light pink lips.
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Therese Reply:
October 11th, 2009 at 11:50 pm
Hi Nikii, thank you for stopping by and commenting.
I personally have not read of any scientific studies proving that East Asians can have green or blue eyes. Unless it is an individual genetic mutation/quirk (green/blue eyes, blonde/red hair were originally also genetic mutations in humans) or some form of albinism (could even be partial and affect the eyes only – ocular albinism – generally exhibited in males but the genes can be carried by females… or oculocutaneous – skin, hair & eyes – albinism such as the Asian model Connie Chui), it is near impossible for a full-blooded East Asian to have blue/green eyes since the dominant gene of all recent ancestors would be the genes for brown eyes. Some Eurasians (north Asia and Tibetan area) are theorised to have distant European ancestors, some of those people have light coloured eyes. I am also aware of South Asians and Middle Easterners having blue/green and hazel eyes but never East Asians. EVER.
North American Blacks and South Americans have eyes of all shades, that is because the majority have mixed ancestry of African, European and Native American. Even so, the majority still have brown eyes – it’s the dominant gene
And I agree completely that light pink on darker skin does not work (ok maybe very rarely) – there are plenty of other pink shades and other shades full stop… why some people still insist on light pink is beyond me.
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I think that most of the comments on the page are irrelevant. I have four daughters, three of which still plays with dolls. The only request that I have received for any gift (just because or special occasion) is a moxie girlz doll. They do not care about the color of the skin or plastic. What I have noticed however, is the different names given. They have changed the dolls names to the names of some of their friends from different ethnicity backgrounds. I thought it was a step in the right direction with raising my family to avoid getting caught in-between the tangled web of racial profiling.
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Therese Reply:
December 7th, 2009 at 12:25 am
I think that most of the comments on the page are irrelevant.
I’m sorry you feel that way but everyone is entitled to their own opinions even if someone else believes those opinions to be relevant or not.
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me encanta las muñecas soy muy grande tengo casi 11 años pero mis amigas y yo las adoramos un bss de raquel miriam y elen
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Therese Reply:
December 14th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
Nunca eres muy grande para jugar a las muñecas. La vida se trata de disfrutarla! (Translation by a friend… I don’t know Spanish *shame*)
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I believe Lexa is asian.
”It is *DEFINITLEY* possible for east-asians to have green/blue eyes. I am east asian. Pure-blooded. My Grandmother on my Mother’s side has blue eyes. My Grandmother on my Father’s side has blue eyes also. And it is definitley not blue due to old age. It is a pure, crystal blue, and photos of them when they were younger also indicate pure blue eyes. My best friend, who is also east-asian, has GREEN eyes. My cousin, has green eyes, also east-asian. I am greeny-brown eyed and so are the rest of my siblings (apart from a blue-eyed younger brother.) And I could give a whole list of east-asian people that are purely east asian that have blue/green eyes.
It’s not very rare. I actually wish my eyes were fully brown (I love brown eyes, Audrey Hepburn gave them probably the most beautiful vibe out of all eye colors <3) so I hope this helped.''
Just wanted to point that out. I saw ^^ that comment ^^ on a website a few weeks ago and after some googling I managed to find it. I have to agree on the part where she said her Grandmother's are blue eyed. I'm fully asian and my Grandmother's are both blue eyed too! =)
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Therese Reply:
February 6th, 2010 at 7:55 pm
I am still very skeptical but then if you’ve seen your own full blooded east asian grandmother with blue eyes… ??? hmmm
Are you sure that they do not have European genes? I know for sure I have some French, even my partner might have some Anglo (yeah, thanks to colonialism) so it won’t be a total shock if we have kids with blue or green eyes but not quite expected either. If that were to happen, we already know for a fact that we do have distant European ancestors.
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Nope it wasn’t me who wrote the comment I jus found it on a website and re posted it. but I must say I’m fully Asian and both my grandmas are ble eyed too and we have absoloutley no european ancestors I checked and I’m certain I’m sure blue eyes aren’t just limited to White people. We’re all human and all humans have some relation to one anther.
I contacted the user who wrote the comment via email apparently they have no european genes either
thanks
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Therese Reply:
February 14th, 2010 at 11:14 pm
… I will remain a skeptic until I see this for myself…
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Charla Reply:
March 18th, 2010 at 8:22 am
Blue eyes most definitely arent limited to Caucasians. My Grandmother had Blue eyes and she was black…of course mixed with a lot of other things but she was still mainly black my natural eyes are a light brown and my mothers eyes are a little lighter than mine. We are black. So eye colors don’t really matter to me.
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Therese Reply:
March 18th, 2010 at 12:20 pm
oh I KNOW that black people can have all the human eye colours under the sun… I am just doubtful that the same can be said of monoracial East Asians – of which I am one and I have absolutely no problem making use of my coal black eyes
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Charla Reply:
March 19th, 2010 at 3:41 am
lol to me all Asian’s eyes are beautiful! I envy you! LOL give me your eyes NOW!! hehe. yeah but seriously Now these days your are subject to see many things that arent common in people as far as eyes, body, color. But that’s what makes us unique right?
I think these dolls are a good thing my daughters are in love with them.The girls have expressed that they look more like them and some of their friends. I am of mix background and my girls are a light skin complexion. They often ask for dolls that are more like them in color to play with. I am happy with these dolls and will continue to buy all that is offered to go with them.
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I am African American and while I would like to see Moxie Girlz advertise their Black doll, I’m just proud of the fact that they are not skimpy and overly exposed like the other dolls. Bratz and Barbie…dolls like that. I am proud of the fact that they dress their dolls at an appropriate age. And advertise as if they are helping girls too look within themselves for acceptance. Others advertise that beauty on the outside is all that matters. Moxie Girlz are awesome regardless of what anyone says. Just seriously consider advertising your Black doll…Being black myself and seeing the commercial does make me feel a tad bit left out. I’m looking at the doll’s picture right now and she is pretty. All of the dolls are gorgeous. Makes me wish I was young again. LOL. Keep rocking on Moxie Girlz!
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my name is lexa,
kinda wish lexa was the blonde one, id TOTALLY buy it.
haha (:
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