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Back in the early 2000s, the dolls Bratz was the biggest doll toy at the time. Bratz was big enough to temporarily threaten Barbie dolls. The four original Bratz dolls were Cloe, Jade, Yasmin, and Sasha. Cloe at the time was the blonde hair sweet girl who can be a bit dramatic. Jade was the trendy fashion focus Asian American girl. Yasmin was the sensitive Latina who aspired to be a writer. While Sasha was the fierce dancer and music focus African American girl. All four "have a passion for fashion" and wore the hottest trends of the early 2000s. Being the hot new toys on the market, I wanted to have my own Bratz doll. Sasha was the most, if not only, popular African American doll that was commercially available. My hopes as a little girl were to be the cool African American teenager that Sasha represented.
Sidenote, I don't think what type of Asian American Jade was supposed to represent was ever mentioned by the Bratz brand. Outside of my guess of Jade being East Asian, I don't have a clue what type of Asian American she is.
Naturally, when going to a store that sold Bratz dolls I was looking for the doll that looked like me. I was patient and waited until my family and I reached the toy section to look through all the dolls to find Sasha. At first, all of the original Bratz were on display. I saw Sasha and knew she was perfect. When Christmas came around I got my first Bratz doll and of course, she was Sasha. The next time I went to a store selling Bratz dolls, Sasha was no longer as visible as the other three Bratz. Then I had to look behind the other Bratz dolls to see a single Sasha doll. Every time I was looking at the new version of the Bratz dolls, I had to push aside the other three in order to see Sasha. There were multiple times when Sasha was behind several versions of Cloe, Jade, and Yasmin. The times when Sasha wasn't even present with the other three Bratz were the most disappointing. There were literally different versions of the original four, like the Bratz pirates, which didn't even included a pirate Sasha. I got the Yasmin pirate doll which was fine because Yasmin was my second favorite but a pirate Sasha doll would have made me extremely happy.
Sidenote, Pirates of the Caribean the Curse of the Black Pearl came out during the hight of Bratz and that movie caused me to love pirates so having a pirate Sasha would have really made my day. But there wasn't a pirate Sasha. There were other new and different versions of Bratz dolls which would often replace Sasha with whatever new Bratz doll the brand was introducing to buyers. Yasmin and Jade would get which out too with a new or different Bratz doll but not as frequently as Sasha. Bratz babies, which is the original four Bratz as babies usually had all four visible. This is fine if you wanted to play with the babies Bratz, however, the babies version didn't interest me.
Bratz had a cartoon movie where the dolls looked like the drawn version of themselves which had Sasha suspiciously lighter than her real doll counterpart. The movie Bratz Rock Angels were the Bratz became rock stars along with all other madness that went on during the movie. Kid movies using CGI characters were just starting to become the norm replacing drawn cartoon movies. The Bratz brand even sold the soundtrack of the movie. That music was played on looped during those days at my daycare. Nearly every kid there knew the words to the songs because we played the album so much. It was really fun and of course after such a smash hit more Bratz movies were going to follow. Bratz Rock Angels even got the Bratz dolls a CGI cartoon show which continued with the aftermath of the movie. Naturally, I watched the show too because I liked the movie and the dolls. But as I got older, Bratz dolls became less important to me as I grew out of playing with dolls. Even though I stopped playing with dolls, the Bratz dolls still are a fond memory of mine.
There is however one constant problem I have with not only Bratz dolls but Ever After High dolls and Moster High dolls which suffer the same problem. That problem is that a Black character like Clawdeen Wolf from the Monster High doll line and Cedar Wood from the Ever After High doll line lack any sort of love interest. My problem isn't that these characters need to be in a relationship. My problem is that the other main dolls have a boyfriend, crush, or someone crushing on them. Similarly to Sasha, Clawdeen and Cedar are staple characters in their perspective doll lines. Unlike their friends, no one was interested in them romantically nor were they interested in someone. As new dolls got added to the different lines, as far as I know, none of the Black doll characters have a romantic partner, crush, or another character interested in them romantically. This is damaging because a young Black girl will unconsciously believe, as well as any other child, that Black females are undesirable. I'm aware that there are other female characters outside of the Black ones who don't have a love interest but this affects Black female characters more often. They are deprived of any type of romance. None of them have a crush on another character, none of them is another character's crush, and none of them have a romantic love interest. That concludes in the minds of any child that plays with any of these dolls, is that Black females are not to be seen in a romantic light. That Black females do not possess romantic feelings for others. Or that Black females are not someone who wants to be in a romantic relationship. This doesn't just happen in these dolls lines either but in television, books, and movies. This greatly affects little Black girls and how they see themselves, and I should know as it affected me.
