You know who I'm talking about. She's short, brown, spunky, Latina, bilingual. She has a sidekick named Boots, serious support from Map, Backpack, her cousin Diego, and a loving extended family. She is an adventure girl who cares about the rain forest (and the snowy forest), plays sports, and likes to solve problems and help people.
Dora the Explorer.
NOT Dora-what-color-headband-should-I-wear-with-my-dress.
Yet that's exactly what Nickelodeon and Mattel plan to do with our plucky heroine -- girlie her up to appeal to "an older demographic" of girls. Those vulnerable "tweens" leaving little girlhood and careening towards adolescence.
In an article in the April 11 Star Tribune, Kristin Tollefson says:
[The new Dora] is older, and her interests have shifted dramatically -- from travel and adventure to clothes and shopping. You can plug her into your computer to change her fashions, hair and eye color. Based on the new Dora, it appears that as girls age, they go from being intrepid, bilingual adventurers to superficial shopaholics.I love Dora exactly because she is not about all that. She holds her own in a sea of Barbies and Bratz. She is a regular girl who is brave and bold, likes adventure, and cares about the world. Dora is not about how she looks (though how she looks is its own huge message). Dora is about what she does.
We need Dora. For every one message girls get about "being" there are 100,000 messages girls about "looks." One Dora for every 100,000 Barbies. One Ellen Degeneres for every 100,000 Paris Hiltons. You get my drift.
I'm not alone in my outrage. When Nickelodeon and Mattel announced the "new" Dora last March, there was such outrage from parents that they reworked the new image to be a little less "trampy" and a little more like a school-age girl. But still.
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| This is the first "rollout" of the "new" Dora Let Dora grow up Dora. Don't send yet another message to our girls that the journey from girl to woman means putting away your moxie -- that being rough and tumble and "free to be" is just child's play, and that a woman's work is to color coordinate her wardrobe, shop til you drop, and ultimately to back that ass up and show us what you're working with. Update 4/30/09 More on Dora: Renee from Womanist's Musings has a great post: Dora the Explore Matters to Boys Great image of the lame attempts at a Dora makeover from Alas, A Blog's post Dora the Explorer's Makeover:
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I love Dora as well. You know we often talk about the positive image Dora is for young girls but as a mother of boys I have to report she is good for them as well. It is good for them to see a self confident female in charge of herself and living life on her own terms. It breaks down the idea for them that adventure, and ingenuity is the preserve of males and helps to break down many of the patriarchal images of women that are daily streamed their way. I love that my boys love Dora and I am saddened that they are changing her.
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