Have a Sexy Childhood

Rainbow Brite was pretty much my best friend in the world as a child. I had her doll, the dolls of her friends, and even her ride–a unicorn with a shiny star on it’s forehead.  My favorite toy out of  all of the Rainbow Brite gang was, bien sur, her friend La La Orange, the Francaise. Even as a child I strove to ally myself with glamour and, like Beyonce’s mother, little Ashley was convinced that nothing was more glamorous than something vaguely French-sounding.

For my 5th birthday, I got a bunch of the secondary-character dolls from the Rainbow Brite collection. My sister who was 2 at the time, really wanted to play with one of them, and much to my chagrin, my mother made me let her, even though it was my birthday!! Of course, tears ensued and it became this whole big thing but I let her play with it which is something I remind her of regularly. I was thinking about this today in fact, and I was trying to remember exactly which doll it was that had driven my sister into paroxysms of hysteria, so I Googled it, like you do.

What I found after searching “Rainbow Brite” was this:

Yes. Slutty Rainbow Brite Halloween Costumes. The Megan Fox’s of the world have spoken.  I pressed on, determined to find the sweet-faced family of color-mad magical creatures who had kept me such good company in my formative years.  Quickly I was redirected towards Rainbow Brite’s official site. Perfect,  I couldn’t wait to see her again, as she was in my memory and on so many of the sweatshirts of my childhood.

[Ed. Note: The doll that caused all the drama is the one seated behind RB  in the photo above]

But when I finally arrived, I could barely hold back the tears.  What I discovered was a horror that had me practically doubled over and  retching into a nearby wastebasket.  Instead of a round-faced, ponytailed little chubster and her buddies, I was greeted with this:

Three, vaguely Anime-looking pre-teen strumpets who looked two hits of Ecstasy away from giving some DJ a post-rave handjob in the parking lot of an abandoned warehouse. Also, I’m pretty sure that pink horse is coming on to me right now.  And those asexual little guys below are clearly tripping hard. Jesus Christ… Dimly,  I recalled the time, a few years ago when Anna G. called my attention to this. As someone who spent her first three Halloween’s as Apple Dumplin’ I was horrified anew.

I’m hardly the first to say it but I find the trend of streamlining every cartoon character and stuffed animal into some pneumatic nymphet to be profoundly  saddening.  I don’t believe  that giving a child a Barbie doll is going to turn her into a brain-dead pink-obsessed, ’57 Chevy-driving Ken-whore, but I do think that when every single toy in a child’s field of vision is coy, acutely feminine and not-so-subtly sexualized that we create an environment in which a girl feels constantly forced to evaluate her own appearance and appeal.  I liked Rainbow Brite because she was fun and cute, and colorful and  I wished I could play with her in real life.

It seems like with the advent of the Bratz dolls, toy manufacturers have become far less concerned with what the experience of a toy is like, and far more concerned with whether or not the toy is fashion-forward, flashy  and “aspirational”.  There is nothing engaging about these streamlined, modern dolls or characters. There is nothing warm or inviting about them.  I don’t feel invited to play with them. I feel, in fact that I would probably never be invited to play with these particular girls.  Aside from looking too old and sexy to be riding unicorns and sliding down rainbows and such, these three Rainbow Brite girls make me feel like I should take a shower, put on makeup and brush my hair til it shines–none of which I have bothered to do today–I sincerely hope the girls who play with them don’t feel compelled to do the same.