Cool News
Massawyrm -vs- The BRATZ!!
Hola all. Massawyrm here.
It's not every day that I risk incarceration to review a film. But sometimes you've got to do what you've got to do. Sometimes you have to be the only grown man in a theatre that doesn't have a daughter with him. Some men run marathons. Some men climb mountains. Me? To prove my endurance I sit through all 110 minutes of Bratz: The Movie. What no one told me going in was that this totaled 6600 seconds, each one longer than the one before it. This isn't just a movie geared at little girls. This is their Lawrence of fucking Arabia, an epic tale of friendship, love and a Passion for Fashion (tm). In fact, David Lean should totally sue. They ripped his ass off.
And while I've spent months jacked into a testosterone and Mountain Dew fueled world of "flames on Optimus" and "No faceguard equals teh suck" I somehow missed the earth shattering debate on the raping of every little girls childhood. Maybe I really should check my Myspace more.
Little girls everywhere are pissed. They're texting. They're blogging.
They're calling their BFFs and crying. Because these Bratz…have normal sized skulls. W? T? F? SRSLY? Look, there are exactly two things preventing Bratz dolls from being cheap Barbie knock offs. The first is that the Asian, Black and Hispanic girls aren't simply relegated to being the white girl's back up band, and second they have ginormous fucking heads on top of impossibly small bodies. Yeah. I know. What were they thinking? What, was Nicole Richie busy? Really? Don't they realize that there are actresses destroying their internal organs every day to achieve the patented Bratz doll look? And they hire four complete unknowns with normal looking skulls? Nice.
You know the dolls I'm talking about, right? They're the ones you see in the grocery stores that look like they were modeled off of the girls you see in those internet videos that begin with the question "Do you know the password?" and end with the question "are you ready for the fiesta?" And these dolls are of vital importance to the future of this nation, and really, this society as a whole. Do you think guys like me can just get laid and reproduce on our own? No. Fuck no. It takes years of systematically breaking down the self-esteems of young women, of filling their heads with impossible expectations and then leaving them empty and hollow with a void that only booze and an endless string of faceless cock can fill. And that's where I come in. Just as we need pervert fathers eager to touch their daughters buttholes in order to keep the poles of this nation's stripclubs filled, so too must we give our daughters dolls that they can never live up to. Bratz.
Now I know what many of you are thinking. Why even bother reviewing a movie like this? Isn't this Ain't it Cool News? Your god damned right it is. But this movie was produced by Avi fucking Arad. Oh, yeah. Now you're listening. When Marvel's main man gets behind something, you know it's gonna be good. Just like The Punisher and Ghost Rider and Elektra. And in an interview last week he referred to Bratz as "X-men for Girls." Wow. You know, I thought I knew everything there was to know about the X-men. But clearly, I didn't know the first fucking thing about them. I didn't understand. X3 makes so much sense now. I'm sorry. I didn't know. I finally realize that a bunch of girls trying to desegregate the clique structure of the high school is exactly like everything the X-men went through. I was always focused on the awkwardness of puberty and the struggle against the oppression of minorities, and really it was all about teenagers in tight fitting outfits and having the right pair of boots.
And in order to tell a story this big, this important, this, dare I say it - epic - you need to find a director equal to the task. And so they turned to the one man able to bring these dolls' stories to life. Sean McNamara. The man who wowed us with Hilary Duff's timeless performance in Raise Your Voice. The man who managed to do what no one thought could be done by filming a sequel to the classic The Cutting Edge without either of the original leads in The Cutting Edge 2: Going for the Gold. And the man who proved that Hulk Hogan's career was not quite yet over with 3
Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain.
Here McNamara takes big creative risks by eschewing the classic notions of story in exchange for a surreal, nonsensical series of music videos, montages and irrelevant plot points that hint at a story rather than simply delivering one. And why bother developing characters beyond simple stereotypes when there's little for them to do but pose and occasionally speak? What's important isn't what they have to say. It's what they have to do. And that's look good, have attitude and stand by your BFF, even when the only thing you share in common is your overdeveloped sense of rampant consumerism.
For those still unfamiliar with the vast Bratz mythology, it boils down to four incredible role models. There's Jade, the repressed Asian girl with a clear sense of style, attitude and she likes science. Then there's Cloe, the klutzy white girl with a clear sense of style, attitude and she likes Soccer. Then there's Sasha, the saucy black girl with a clear sense of style, attitude and she likes cheerleading. And last but not least, there's Yasmin, the shy Hispanic girl who likes to sing. Oh, with a clear sense of style and attitude. But what's more important than their individual skillsets is the message that they send to little girls. And that is that you too can roll out of bed looking beautiful, never having a pimple and always sporting perfect hair. And if you can't, maybe you'll be lucky enough to be friends with those girls.
Opposite them is their antithesis. The archetypal popular villain hell bent on ruling high school with an iron fist. The girl who hates the Bratz for just how cool and well dressed they are. Oh, and for some asinine reason she feels they violate her strict sense of clique organization (because one's a jock, ones a brain, one's a cheerleader and one's a singer) despite the fact that they all speak, act and dress exactly alike. And rather than simply classifying this as an as yet undiscovered clique and issuing them their much coveted Z, she sets out to destroy them. For three years. Or I'm pretty sure that's the plot. This thing is so enmeshed in symbolism and metaphor that I'll be dissecting it for ages.
Throw in a deaf kid who becomes a DJ, a sleazeball 7th grader who seems to have a thing for younger women, and Jon Voigt wearing a prosthetic nose and you have a director that seems to be reaching to be the David Lynch of the Myspace generation. If there is sense to be made of this thing, it is by smarter men than I. And before you ask yourself What the hell is Jon Voigt doing here?, ask yourself this. Isn't that what we always say when he shows up these days?
Look, odds are your daughters don't want to see something this heady and intellectual. They're most likely interested in some insipid, vapid entertainment geared more towards selling a soundtrack and toys than it is passing on positive wisdom to the youth of America. But if your daughter feels far too good about herself or has bought into all this It's what's on the inside that counts bullshit, then you not only owe it to your daughter to take her to this, but you owe it to the 20 or so guys that in ten years will be tagging her while she lies face first in a puddle of her own vomit. These girls don't make themselves. They need your help, Dad. They need Bratz.
Until next time friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.
Massawyrm
Hey girls, here's a tip from your old pal, the Wyrm. If someone asks you if you are ready for the fiesta, the answer is yes. Oh, and close your eyes.
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you actually went to see this movie?
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Why God why - why would you go see this movie? You must secretly hate yourself.
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Um....You liked it then?Just kidding. Good review Mass.
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seriously.
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That was beautiful, Massawyrm! I saw the previews for these and almost went into estrogen shock. It looked like menstrual fluids smeared onto a film reel. I completely agree on the Bratz bullshit. Yay, let's teach our daughters to be superficial skanks before they even hit puberty!
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CHAVS, that's to say the sort of throw 'em to the curb scum Wyrm is describing.
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what the point of reviewing this was? I mean I did wonder what the point of reading it was and did give up after the bit about fathers touching their daughters buttholes at strip clubs. It is very hot in the office and the air conditioning is down and there is weird noises happening - kind of industrial so I am getting an Eraserhead vibe to the day and this has helped. So what are Bratz? Is it a sequel to Antz - cause that was good~!
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you don't like the whole BRATZ thing. I get that.
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Two shitty toy movies.
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Is what I meant to say.
The kids and the parents of the kids who by them this crap are a hideous pox on our social landscape called CHAVS. The average CHAV female has on average 3 kids before she reached 16. -
in a long time i think someone made a joke about rape that was funny AND appropriate.
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Can Chavs string a legible sentence together?
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Since the 80's when every shitty nightclub in the UK was called something that would normally end with an S but spell it with a Z (Spatz, Foxyz, Daterapez) or cheap shops would sell things at Crazy Prizez I have avoided things with a Z at the end of the name. Apart from Antz - which my girlfriend of the time thought was a Bugs Life when she hired it because she was a dumbazz
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"Bratz is like being raped by MySpace"Second Best Quote: "This is why the terrorists hate us".
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were you assigned it? I didnt think people were assigned to go to movies on this site....I mean why? Its hardly a shock that Mass didnt like it-I doubt anyone, any where EVER over the age of twelve would -so why bother? Just avoid it...it was funny and all, but save yourself the anguish-if you have to watch shite wait until the next Gigli comes out. But Im seriously-Jon Voight? OOOOh.....how the mighty have fallen....I mean for Gods sake Jon, have some dignity....I cant even imagine the producers sitting around going "who can we get for this part? JON VOIGHT!"....I dont believe they would even have the guts to ask...yet he's there...please tell me it was a contractual thing.....
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... Sasha=African American chick, Yasmine=Hispanic chick, Chloe=white chick? What? Wing-lin, Shaniqua, Juanita Maria Lupe Fatima de San Jacinta and Jessica weren't stereotyped enough as names go?
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Finally, someone has the courage and the decency to praise the child molesting fathers of America. My dad molested us for almost 18 years, but where was his parade I ask you. Where?
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"Just as we need pervert fathers eager to touch their daughters buttholes in order to keep the poles of this nation's stripclubs filled, so too must we give our daughters dolls that they can never live up to. Bratz."
Massa, you have just once again proven that you are indeed THE MASSA. -
Durendal: "I saw the previews for these and almost went into estrogen shock. It looked like menstrual fluids smeared onto a film reel." Damn, somebody hates women. I mean, don't get me wrong, this movie looks about as good as spending your afternoon with your face in a used barf bag, but you couldn't find a better way to express it?
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best of all, they're targetted to 10 year olds... where's Chris Hansen when you need him.
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not worth it
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I agree, I call these dolls Slutz as well. I mean, they look like Rosie Perez and Lil' Kim trolling the clubs for booty. And still, parents are dumb to buy them for their children, thinking that it's ok, but won't realize that at age 15, she'll walk out of the house in a see-through blouse without a bra, thinking that's acceptable. What's worse, is that it made Mattel change Barbie into Kennedy for their My Scene line in order to make her slutty and compete with them. Thus, instead of these being 3D representations of Jordi Labanda's artwork, they've lost all their integrity. But at least those whores have made the people who have griped about Barbie's unrealistic shape shut the hell up. I mean, they ripped off "The Barbie Diaries" as well. And Jon Voight should be ashamed of himself. He and Ben Kingsley are slowly losing their credibility by appearing in crap films like this 'for the children'. Thus, I was happy to see this film received 0 stars. So, in short, take the little girls to see "Underdog" and take the tweens to see "Hairspray" or "Stardust". They don't need to learn that if you dress like a slut, people will like you.
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that should never be spoken, especially not by a grown man.
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Yay F.S.O.W.A.S.P.C. (Film Studios and Oscar Winning Actors for Slutty Preconditioning to Consumerism) My favorite Hollywood backed organization...
Now all we need is Dickz, how to be a 8-10 year old fratboy, alcoholic, womanbeater....I can't wait! Maybe they can get Mel G. for a father role? -
Genius!!!
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Wow that came out all wrong.
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I kept forgetting about all the good movies he's made over the past few years.
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I'm sure the only grown men going to the movie all said. "I need one for 'Bratz'. (sigh) I'm a reviewer..."
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Who is going to see this movie by his self.........probably twice.
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best..review..ever
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that is all
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Why do they allways give you the shit movies? Is it because you're "the new guy", or did you do something to piss off Harry and bride?
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may have fallen, but i feel like his would be the type of role they would give to paul giamatti, pre-sideways.
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You are the king.
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Why in THE FUCK did you watch this Massa? Were you forced at gunpoint? Jesus . . .
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As a minimally conscientious father of 6 year old twins, I avoid the Bratz crap like the fraking plague. "Slutz" is more like it.
But the trailer for Bratz is some serious misrepresentation. I didn't even know that the trailer was for Bratz until they flashed the title at the end.
The trailer makes it look like it's in the tradition of Clueless and Mean Girls, but they missed that mark a bit - Bratz gets a 29 on Metacritic. -
You're either a saint for voluntarily subjecting yourself to this, or a masochist of the highest order. Still a little fuzzy why this is being reviewed on AICN, tho.
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I avoid the Bratz stuff at the mall too - don't want my 5 year old seeing that stuff. We always refer to them as the "ugly" dolls so she won't want them. Stinkin' neighbor girl gave my daughter some of her old Slutz dolls anyway. You can't escape them!
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I cry bullshit. Massawyrm slams this movie and yet claims to have "jerked off four times before the end credits rolled".... That's called hypocrisy my friend. And it's unsanitary.
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Wow, Massawyrm, I didn't think you had it in you. This is without a doubt your finest hour as a reviewer. It's bizarre, that it would be in a review of the fuckin' Bratz movie that you would break through to another level of reviewing, but seriously, this was amazingly well written, thoughtful and hilarious. And who knew the 'Wyrm was a good old BITCH-magazine media-critiquing feminist? God bless you man, I'll buy you a Dr. Pepper & rum any day for having written this...
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...those were some pretty nasty burns, sir. I commend you.
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Hand it over now Massawyrm, you swamp donkey.
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Defending Bratz: the movie? I curse you....
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Seriously, why couldn't you guys have had Neil Cumpston review this one? It would be comedy gold. GOLD, Jerry!
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I, too, see those Bratz dolls and just get disgusted by it. It's bad enough that without kids at all, I just don't feel right about it. At least Barbie's still got some class. Didn't they even recently change her measurements a little? I fear if I ever have a daughter, I'll be keeping her locked in her room wearing Victorian-era clothing, buttoned up to her neck. There generally seems to be the movement these days that equate "being a strong woman" to acting slutty...
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used to love these stupid dolls, always wanting me to buy her one or 8. And what's said is they made a Bratz male line to complemete the girls line, except they all look like fags. I'm not talking about a reasonable looking acting homosexual man, i'm talking about a flaming, assless chaps wearing fagswhich apart from 8-12 year old girls and soon to be featured on To Catch a Predator:Bratz edition are they only ones seeing this moviedang that's what Chris Hansan should do his next TCAP, eliminate PJ totally and just catch single guys coming out of the movie.
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do they rock?
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are always of movies you ardently hate. I guess angrying up the bile brings out the best in you. Carry on!
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After seeing the entire movie, I'm surprised Massawyrm isn't fetal in a corner drooling onto himself. Dude must have started with a 600 IQ to be able to still write a review afterward.I'm very easy going when it comes to adapting this or that to film. I figure no matter how crap it seems to me I'm sure there are fans out there, and I'm glad for them (ex. anything done by Uwe Boll). But this movie just makes me sad. Sad for any parent who has a child that wants to see this. Sad that any child would want to see this. This movie is nothing more than a cash-grab; a way to make money off children. Hey Avi, just because it's easy to take candy from a baby doesn't mean you should.
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The third paragraph of this review is some sort of a high water mark for AICN. An endless string of faceless cock, indeed. Take a bow, Massa. Well done.
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No wonder Angelinia Jolie hates her dad
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The funniest fucking review I have ever read. I have not seen a trailer or heard anything about this, but I have seen those big-headed skank-ass dolls in stores, and those are atrocious enough.
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As in 7% approval on ye Rotten Tomatoes. Has any film ever scored lower than that? Sheez. Massa, you kick ass.
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Sounds like Massawyrm's been surfing MySpace pages he probably shouldn't. Somebody want to get Chris Hansen and the TO CATCH A PREDATOR film crew on this?
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You poor thing Massa, after that i hope you are wiping it from your mind via the power of drink, a stronger man than i though, that is for sure, and congratulations for even seeing one second of it.
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Luckily, all the girls I know liked regular X-MEN.
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Bratz is a amazing achievement in repressing the urge of peadohiles everywhere.
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to trick us into believing that women are smart?
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That sir, is possibly the best bit of writing to come out of yer yob in quite a while.
Voight? What WAS he doing there? Didn't Transformers money pay the rent? Sheesh.
I can't stand those dolls and what they 'stand' for. -
Of COURSE regular girls liked X-Men. Well, except for the truncated Phoenix storyline in X3...but I digress.
And...I hope we're all together at BNAT (wherever it may be) again this year. Dmann told me what a blast he had with you guys. I will go next year. It crept up on me and I didn't have dinero/advance planning in place to make it so. Next year, Gadget... Next year...
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Oh the hugh-manatee.
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A waste of film like this needs a biting sarcastic review to help communicate the absurdity of something like this even existing, and unforgivably being exhibited nationwide to impressionable youngsters. I think it'll do big business in middle-America. (No offense to anyone who lives there, since it's not you, it's probably your neighbors.) Because taking ones children to see this garbage isn't about being a good parent and raising intelligent, emotionally-secure women who may be the astrophysicists and CEO's of tomorrow, it's about sitting your fat ass down in those undersized theater seats and shoveling buttery popcorn in your mouth for two hours and thinking you're the king/queen of parents because your daughters think you're "cool" for taking them to see it. Then, when they come crying to you for an abortion at 14, you blame it on their friends, the schools, your ex- never being around...it's never you or what you've enabled of them.
So, if a movie of this bad is released, and there is no one there to see it, does Hollywood make a sequel? Sadly, the answer is yes.
The point is the only reason this was made, is because people, unlike the employees and talkbackers of AICN, will actually pay to see it.
Look for the Bratz Trilogy boxset for the 2009 holidays, in HD! -
That was as funny as a review gets. I don't care if you didn't see the movie just had some funny stuff to say about it. Can you imagine the dolls of the 2010's?
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under pain of death? I can't think of another reason why this is even here.
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The best reviews are always of the worst films. Great job Massawyrm!
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I shit you not. I'm not reading that review, I'm sorry but it's just far too long for a fucking Bratz movie. Even if it a howl of rage it's still to long.
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...got linked on Fark. With mostly positive comments, I might add. Just lettin' ya know. Oh, and this movie looks worse than a bucket of AIDS.
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three out of four ain't bad...
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Blackjack!
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I can't believe you reviewed this movie... It's neither cool nor news.
I hope it was free, cause otherwise you're just part of the problem and not part of the solution. -
THIS is what passes for children's entertainment today? Thank Christ for quality shows like AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER
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Filipino Hookerz.
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I ams o gonna see this! Thanks for the recommendation Wyrm! LOL
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EVER
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Man, that review was way better than anything Vern has written in ages! I agreed with everything Vern said in his Transformers review, but still found the review horribly written, almost at a MiraJeff level of dull rambling.Good job, Massa, you keep getting better. Maybe Vern needs to go to a Buddhist monestary and chill out like Rambo in part 3 so that he can come back stronger, like Rambo will in part 4.
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Actually, 12% overall and 18% cream of the crop for Bratz, which puts it well above Catwoman and the rest of Rotten Tomatoes' worst 100 ever.
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But really, to a greater extent at least occasionally or to a lesser extent, isn't self-esteem dessication dressed in the Trojan Horse of "empowerment" the unstated goal of most popular entertainment aimed at teens???
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that it has anything more than 0%? BTW- Spandau Belly, I concur.
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or making a point that's going over my head. if the latter, I'll cop to it.
But the reason it's spelled "Bratz" is because that's how they spell it on the toyline. Massa wasn't just doing it for the hell of it. -
originally, I agreed with 70% of it. But I've lost a lot of respect for it.
Because I don't know about you, but I've checked Vern's site. Normally he's a classy guy. He'll give something a bad review and move on. But He's taken Transformers very, very personally. Just about every review or every THING he's written on the site since starts out with a rant about Transformers and how shocked he is it's doing well. He can't let it go. I've never seen anything, not even the Chaos DVD or PG-13 Die Hard, piss him off so much.
For Transfomers, I initially loved it. Then I hated it for a while. Now, I'm somewhere between Massawyrm's take and Moriarty's take on it. I don't think it's particularly good, but it's not near as bad as Vern says it is. At the least, it's way better than Ghost Rider, (and I know that's very faint praise.)
I was surprised as anyone that Moriarty gave the film it's most unabashedly positive review on the site, but I think I know why now. He was the only one who took time to read the prequal material and re-aquaint himself with Transformers before going in. That really demonstrates this film: The more you already like about Transformers, the more you get out of it. -
My mistake. I cop to being a dumbass.
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I thought this was going to be animated until a few days ago, and since then I've been seriously considering immolation.Of course now I have to see it, and if I'm dead because of it, I blame Massawyrm. How could you make it seem like this is even remotely able to have sense of depth? I now have to see it, much like some people have to shoot-up heroin, just to see what it is like.
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That I am thanking God that I have three sons and no daughters. Thank God. Again, thank you God.
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Just because it doesn't speak to your generation doesn't mean that it's meaningless to some else's. People used to bitch about Barbie the same way. Maybe all the GUYS that are complaining about this forgot that when they were little boys, their playtime was filled with unrealitically strong machismo idols like He-Man and G.I Joe.
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I hope your cock's faceless. Damn, that's creepy.
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That was inspired. Seriously, I give you mad props for manning up to sit through this garbage just so you could trash it. I wish I had that kind of time. We all get more invites than we can handle at AICN. I can't see every p.o.s. movie that lands in my inbox. But wow, you really took one for the team here. Atta boy! Avi Arad might know how to make a buck but he should be hanging his head in shame.
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S & M porn is meaningfull to some people, but that doesn't make it any better than this...As for Barbie, GI Joe, and He-Man, those could be seen as seriously altering the perspective on how people should look and act...Wait, I like most of those things, well, not Barbie so much.
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"Because these Bratz…have normal sized skulls. W? T? F? SRSLY?" Hahahaha! Massa is the one.
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It's a wise move and the rest of America should follow suit. Since when did pedophilia become a marketing angle? Who the hell thought it was a great idea to dress up little girl dolls like whores? And don't they have Baby Bratz now?
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The irony behind Barbie is that the doll that she was based on had been a very slutty character who appeared in a German newspaper. If a guy brought one to his date, it meant he wanted to get busy. Ruth Handler didn't want that, she just wanted a doll that was like the paper dolls her daughter played with. The guy who was in charge of making it, however, was a sexist pig who was known for having lots of parties with scantily clad women, so Barbie's shape hadn't changed much from the other doll. Ruth was upset, but the doll still went on. I think the Leggy/Hi-Glam dolls, no matter how fab, are a worse role model as they're freaky anorexic. Trust me on it.
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Slutz looking cool. I've seen my friend's younger sisters running around with thigh high skirts, parading their 14 year old asses around, and this was before Bratz got huge. Maybe, we should blame Britney Spear and Christina Agu-layabunchofguys, because it seems that after they went through their "whore" eras, we started see shite like this... Of course, we can always blame the beef hormones.Then again, if I was a 14 year old boy, I most likely wouldn't mind the trend.
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Is that really such a thing to be thankful for? I mean, you don't have girls to fall prey to this shit, on the other hand you have sons who are getting the other side of it: To see and recognize dumbed-down girls and how to most easily prey on them. This kind of shit isn't just bad for girls. It's bad for boys, because it encourages boys to see girls as "lesser" kind of people, not as equals. I know guys who saw consumerized girls who care for nothing but fashion and parties, and they think they've hit the jack pot.
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necessary. How else would we know that it would suck? http://tinyurl.com/3adc6q
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...Seriously, I'd beat the shit out of one of them.
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The time is ripe.
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Reaching a little far there, aren't we?
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Sat down with my popcorn, all of a sudden a great deal of pink appeared on my screen, as I awaited the start of the movie.
It was like someone threw up on the screen...But threw up in pink.
As the trailer progressed...
"Oh, it's a Lindsay Hohan-less Mean Girls sequel - how original" said I.
"That was in Mean Girls."
"That was in Mean Girls."
"Hey, that happened in Mean Girls."
Then their names appeared. And I knew I was fucked. It was THEM. Those big-headed bitches.
Then I realized that today's young girls play with dolls of; and aspire to be like those ho's.
And I remembered my childhood when all a kid wanted to have, was a transformer and wanted to be, was a power ranger.
Now the young want to be a pile of pre-teen ho's.
Lyk, OMG! Totallly sux!!!1!!1! -
I was making a joshing point, but that is why it is reaching.I'm just sayin, you know some 40 prevert is going to be wanking to this movie, like they did to Mean Girls with the chicas in the Santa outfits... Wait, no that was me.
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I have to remember to give her a hug today.
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I read a post up there about someone's sister that won't let her daughter play with "Bratz". Does anyone remember when they were a kid, and there was ALWAYS that ONE kid whose mom wouldn't let him play with any toy that had a gun, or wouldn't let her have a Barbie? Remember how that was the ULTIMATE injustice, and everyone talked about how mean that kid's mom was? Well, alot of you are starting to sound like that mom. ;-)
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Ummmm, guy- I'm pretty sure "Bratz" is marketed to 12 year old tween girls. And if there is fellatio or coitus in the film I might agree with you about the rest, but alas, there is not. Kids dress differently now than we did. Deal.
Personally, I'm glad. If I see one more emo 15 year old in a "Sex Pistols" or "Cramps" shirt, I'm going to rip it right off them. They can keep their damned hands off that. Punk was MY generation. Where I came from, you had to EARN the colored laces on your Doc Martens. -
In MY days, when I was young, you had to walk 20 miles in deep snow in order to get to school. And when you got there, the teacher would thrash you with his belt until you bled. and we didn't have enough money to put butter on the bread, if we even had bread, and if WE wanted colored shoe laces for our doc martens we had to bleed on them, and since we couldn't afford a razor to shave our heads or music, we had to just yank it out and clap our hands. And the dolls my sisters (there were 21 of us, but only 3 survived) played with were actually only pieces of paper that the dog had chewed on. And the dog was just mom, because we couldn't afford a dog. But you try to tell the young people today that, and they won't believe you.
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In your quest for sarcasm, the meaning of my post went RIGHT OVER YOUR HEAD, GENIUS.
If you read a little into it, I'm PRETTY SURE I'm making fun of the lot of you for being so out of touch and shamefully hypocritical for having a problem with these "youngin' upstarts today". -
How many of you remember that 1995 sci-fi movie with Nicole Eggert? I suspect more than a few do. I remember a scene that bothered me (the flim takes place in the future), a bank robbery. Eggert's character in faux-RoboCop garb comin' to the rescue. There was a young girl, one of the hostages dressing in what looked like lingerie. That's not right. Less than a decade later... Bratz. Little Nikki Eggert, the prophet.
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...with an eleven year old girl striving to be like a whore? If you find that a child acting like that doesn't disturb and disgust you, you may just be a pedophile.
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....make this crap film's running time 90 minutes or less. What a friggin' nightmare!!! I can't wait to never see this movie!!!
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Because Western Civilization just can't sink any lower.
To whoever came up with the whole "Bratz" crap: Thank you so fucking much for spending millions of dollars telling our daughters it's a Good Thing to be a slutty high-maintenance materialistic bitch. We just can't have enough 13-year-old hookers! You've made your contribution to society. Now please go kill yourself painfully, you goddamned pustule. Rot in hell, assholes. -
ie. They're nowhere near as disingenuous as Barbie's "oh but she has brains and look now she's a real role model" blah blah blah.
You Bratz haters are just mad "the gays" took over your beloved Barbie. -
We "Bratz haters" do not suspect "the gays" as having taken over our beloved Barbie. For one thing, Barbie never looks like she pays for lunch by sucking off winos in the alley. Bratz are a profoundly mysogenistic pedophilic wet dream, and whoever thought them up is just an evil twisted fuck, pure and simple. If you can't see that, well, you're culturally blind. Sorry, but it's true.
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Nothing like having one's spelling of "misogynistic" undercutting one's argument. Mea Culpa.
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WHERE does "Bratz" encourage girls to be materialistic whores? I can't find ONE example of Bratz encouraging promiscuous behavior. The only thing I can find searching around is that the "Bratz" brand encourages girls to be fashionable, healthy and take care of themselves. To that extent I agree. Take a walk into Walmart sometime and look around at all the McDonalds-fed rotund piglets running around and tell me it's not a good idea to encourage a little class. The fashions are even modest when compared to Barbie. I think you're working off presumtions, not facts there, friend. People are reacting to the name. To that degree, I concur. Why they couldn't have been called "Friendz" or "Girlz" or "Galz" I don't know.
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Do you actually think that most of the people on this have any experience with Bratz other than seeing commercials for it, or knowing someone that likes/hates it (and if they do, they are most likely under 15).I honestly don't believe any major retail outlet would let an action figure doll blatantly encourage young girls to be sluts, but then again...."Cuming soon, the future of tween entertainment is here! Slutz! From the makers of Whorez, comes the newest line of dolls that are THE leaders in pseudo-felacio technology!"
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Maybe I was a bit over your head?
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Bratz (and especially the odious "Bratz Kidz" and "Bratz Babyz") are overtly sexualized characters whose existence revolves around being "fashionable," which apparently involves massive collagen injections. The dolls and media do not encourage "class," they encourage temper tantrums and artificially enhancing secondary sexual characteristics to get the material goods they want.
The combination of the porn-star lips, the young target audience and the bitchy attitude implied by the name "Bratz" just steps over the line, in my opinion. And I'm not a prude by any means.
If you want your daughter to grow up thinking this is the accepted way to get ahead, then more power to you. Myself, I'd rather sacrifice an arm. -
...Western Civilization as we know it? Guess what! Girls around the age of 10-12 AREN'T concerned about much more than being fashionable. I don't care what they're into, what kind of kid they are, or even if they're into boys yet- with a few exceptions, most girls are trying on makeup, sorting through their clothes, and becoming more and more catty and competetive with each other. Why? Not "Bratz", NATURE. It's about the time that nature starts triggering instincts that they need to attract a male. Anyone that's taken developmental psych knows this. Accuse a brand of toys all you want, but girls have been doing the same thing since the dawn of humanity.
And Uglymood, re-read most of your first sentence.
"are overtly sexualized characters whose existence revolves around being "fashionable," which apparently involves massive collagen injections."
You could be talking about "Barbie" there. At least you're admitting that your problem is merely that you don't approve. The next step is admitting that you don't have the slightest idea what girls are interested in. -
Maybe you were. I had the distinct impression I was being mocked. The point is yours: Love-15.
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parading infront of him in the theater. That's why he went to the movie. Perv.
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I know precisely what girls are interested in; I have a daughter.
I also know that girls are interested in a lot more than the shallow, vapid crap that mass media keeps throwing at them. Do any of the "Bratz" know what Callisto looks like? Could "Bratz" describe why a hypercube sliding through the third dimension would change size? Do "Bratz" know the difference between a Degas and a Modigliani? No. But my daughter does, and she's seven years old.
And yet it's important to defend the cultural significance of a bunch of dolls with Platinum Visa Cards and lips that take up 40% of their faces. Are you simply incapable of seeing that they're supposed to be hookers?
By the way, Barbie was a doctor. When one of the Bratz does better than turning tricks in an alley off Times Square, get back to me. -
Joe Camel was designed to be a penis, and it took years for anybody to admit THAT. What's so fucking hard about admitting that Bratz are designed to make our girls into little money-grubbing jerks who'll inject toxins into their lips so people will think they're "cute" and give them anything they want?
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Hell, no, I don't "approve." Nobody should. It's pernicious and destructive.
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Dude, you need to one day acknowledge that some day in the future your' daughter is going to be moaning like a bad diesel engine, with her legs wrapped around some boy's pimply ass, and all that info you pump into her 'aint going to amount to a hill of beans to what's being pumped into her at that moment.I'm not saying your' daughters going to be a slut, but come on, the society one lives in has an extreme impact on what one becomes of themselves.I think Jeffers was right in his belief in Inhumanism.
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She's seven. Yes, there are alot of things she isn't distracted by yet. Get back to me when she's 12 and let me know if she pretends to be interested in anything but what is "cool". If she is still into quantum mechanics and theoretical physics, congratulations- you've raised a nerd. Not that there's anything wrong with nerds (quite the opposite), I know many socially inept nerds that are moderately successful.
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The name of which I cant remember. but its by someone who has a degree in business and is a mother. Her campaign against toy corporations began when her daughters first word was dora as in dora the explorer on the TV. She is on a mission to stop children under three from watching TV. This is the way that toy corps are targeting kids and no I am not being paranoid, this woman ahd her book actually exist.
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I thought that was because we aren't muslims, or aren't willing to the dhimmi (lower citizen) tax.
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I agree with you, not about Transformers, I actually feel it's the new King Kong remake in terms of awfulness. But I agree with you about Vern's site lately. For the last couple months he used every review to launch into an ageist rant about youngsters and their cellphones, and it seems he's now stuck on the terribleness of Transformers. When he gets stuck in these rant ruts his materiel is not funny, insightful, original, or relevant, it's just dull, angry and repetative.I love the guy, but this review Massa just wrote feels more like the ol' Vern than Vern does now. He recently reviewed Commando and Cobra, which should've been easy targets for him, but he phoned in mediocre write-ups that were truly disappointing. His review of Blue Steel was more on track, but still not as good as this review of Bratz. I hope Vern pulls out of it. But I'm also glad to see Massa steadily improving over the last couple months.
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Flight attendant, Pilot, Railroad conductor, teacher, businesswoman, astronaut (Even before man landed on the moon!), Olympian, performer, police officer, politician, firefighter, doctor, veterinarian (or Pet Doctor, as vet would be hard to spell for a little girl), dentist....those slut dolls? They just play sports and look like cheap whores. I was relieve to hear my 3 year old niece say those sluts "have no fashion sense." So there's hope for a little girl to have a doll that's had plenty of career possibilities.
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Seriously, what a grotesque line of toys -- marketed, it seems specifically, to encourage young girls to dress (and act) like prostitutes when they're 5. Its sick, gross, and I'm sure some pedohile asshole is behind it all. Why not girls toys that promote positive images? I mean, dressing up and looking attractive/sexy is one thing, but these things look like coked-out whores. Thats something that should be reserved to the world of adults; if you're 18 and you want to be a coked-out whore, have at it! But these toys are marketed towards young children and tweens; I find that really disturbing.
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Damn Wyrm: You are SO Buffy <3Ä -
to convey that I wasn't fucking around. -
You said what I intended in 1/20 the space. On the nose.
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(bear with me on this as a female) I had a lot of Barbies. I was a bit of a tomboy but I loved playing with dolls. My girl friends used to get pissed at me - seriously yelling at me to take my dolls and go home - because I liked to take one of them to get "kidnapped" and I'd put her on top of the fireplace mantle. Then I would run string from the bar to the couch, where the other dolls would zip line, flip and land on the floor, climb the rocky face of the fireplace to save "the girl". Meanwhile my friends wanted to make beds out of empty tissue boxes and change the dolls outfits every five minutes. I thought that was fucking boring.
I think what I am trying to say is: It doesn't matter what your toys look like, but how you *PLAY* with them. -
I used to make the boy dolls kiss each other.? -
That was one of the best reviews I've read on this site. That was tremendous dude. Good work. You have really stepped up recently and are carrying this site.
Mirajeff, shut the hell up dude. I'm glad "you're too busy" to handle all the "invites" that you guys over at AICN get. Damn it must be sweet to be so cool. No wonder you'll never be on the right hand side. Course, you're just a 24 year old with a brain. -
I heard the new DVD with the episode "Its Great to be a Ghost" rocks! Can you do that one next?
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Angelia Jolie is his daughter. She's a Bratz prototype. She has those Bratz lips. She took the Voight-Kampf Bratz test and pssed, but doesn't know what she is: a Bratz skinjob. More Bratz than Bratz. She wants more lips, fucker. The God of biomechanics will let her into heaven. She's coming for you.
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...is because Christopher Walken was booked. Sad, yet you know it to be true.Avi Arad is dangerous and MUST be stopped.
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After all the tongue-in-cheek and sarcastic posts it never occurred to you for half a second I was being facetious? Nice one, and subsequent posts have revealed you to be just the neurotic hothousing parent I would have guessed. Watch your daughter rebel in a few years time and become obsessed with the sort of things you're overreacting against now.
Unlike most here my view isn't as black and white as the bunch of simpletons that dominate the boards with their "I like this therefore THAT is shit" manifestos. Anna, you're also being disingenuous in the extreme if you don't think Barbie's many respectable and spotlessly above-board, morally correct professions are anything more than a two-pronged marketing attack. One to sate the previously outraged parents (though how realistic is that modern bodyshape anyway?) for something the girls are going to ask for anyway and two as the perfect excuse to sell tons MORE merchandise. O.K. Bratz have a blinged-out 'pimpmobile' but Barbie is SO much better because she's put the old cars behind her and now kids can aspire to the new VW beetle instead? Talk about splitting fucking hairs! Obviously going the yuppie/preppie route is not materialistic in the LEAST! It's still called the Barbie ISLE, right? Or did Mattel come clean and admit that you don't NEED to have an outfit or special Barbie for all of her acheivements and can use your fertile young imagination instead. BTW Barbie outblinged and outfashioned Bratz first with the outrageously over the top collectors' stuff. Bob Mackie for fuck's sake! Did the modern and morally unassailable Barbie stand her ground when Bratz came along and outsold her into the ground? No, Mattel tried to save face with parents but still brought out MyScene with their preppie-meets-Finlandia Vodka automaton designs and diminished Barbie's part enormously and on purpose, without admitting to kids they were still actually selling them Barbie (maybe that one should have been called 'stealth Barbie'). It's all about money in the end.
As for Bratz they're as morally reprehensible marketingwise as Barbie but more shallow/honest in the tactics. Here's a secret though. Kids don't want to be educated ALL the time. Parents forget the value of pure PLAY 'cause they're so busy (especially when the kids are under 5) being ultimate parents. The link here is that little girls still, in this supposedly enlightened age, want to play dress up in pink, fluffy or sparkly things (or preferably all 3 at once). They still want to get around in Mummy's best heels. They still like ponies and other supposedly prehistoric sexist clichés. Bratz caters exactly to that in the most blatant overindulgent way possible. Am I saying that's good? Of course not. But the proof is there - girls turned away from Barbie because sure she was what every Girl's Mum was comfortable with, but not FUN any longer. I think it's hilarious that Anna's niece (who I'm sure is precocious in the true sense of the word) said what could easily have come from a Bratz show (or Clueless, irony of ironies). It didn't occur to you at all Anna? No of course your niece is an infallible little wunderkind who paints incredible abstract art (there's that sarcasm again). Funny that you were 'relieved'. I would have been ALARMED as it couldn't sound much MORE like a soundbite!
You people have bloody short memories, especially considering Posh Spice is in our faces more than ever at the moment! My God, do any of you recall how the Spice Girls dressed, performed or the lyrics to the hit that made them famous? Little girls all over the world sang those obscene words of promiscuity completely oblivious (as were the hordes of supposedly vigilant mothers) to their meaning, they just liked the catchy melody. Millions of little girls wanted to dress up in those slutty outfits (hey parents! Sporty is your get out of jail free card - but watch out, she could be a lesbian!), but to them it was glamour and boldly coloured cartoonishness. Well what do you know, sounds an awful lot like Bratz (though even Bratz don't make kids sing what they really really want is they wanna uhng ung ungh!), except that the dolls came last.
Uglymood, I'm just making a long-winded point here and playing Devil's advocate to your gleaming myopia. Were there millions of girls that DIDN'T fall for all that crap? Of course. hat still doesn't discount the millions that did or the ones that did WITHOUT becoming scarred for life. Have some faith in girls' barometre for taking what they want out of something without being coddled and secondguessed. It's sort of sad to hear you use the world's oldest subjective reasoning that YOU know about little girls because YOU have one, therefore drawing the broadest generalisation yet. I was going to include you bringing your total to two but it doesn't sound like you were actually given the chance to be one, considering how uptight you are (and by extension are passing that on too). It doesn't have to be all or nothing. How many times have you seen parents but the sensible luadable educational toy? Sometimes, just sometimes the kid would rather play with anything else, even the bloody box. And watch out in 5 years time or even less when you get the urge to have them ban offensive material on the net, intead of monitoring her computer use yourself. I was going to ask if your daughter's an only child but that would be the sort of rash judgement we're trying to get away from. ;)
Anna, don't forget Kingsley in Thunderbirds. If you can survive that you must have something going for you (I don't believe the Anthony Edwards in this and Zodiac are the same guy).
I do agree with you both on one thing though - the film version of Bratz WILL set feminism back 50 years. Avi Arad said he made it for his daughters! Hopefully they'll lynch him and equilibrium will be restored.
What do you two think of Hi-5 (American or Australian) just out of interest?
Rbatty - "when did pedophilia become a marketing angle?" - when Britney Spears' career was launched with a song where she dressed like a sexy SCHOOLGIRL and implored them to hit her, one more time. Funny how the implications of that clip and those lyrics slipped under the radar of middle America.
Sorry all for the massive rant. Ignore at your leisure. -
And there's nothing anyone can do about it. Face it. Commercialism totally won and mindfucked an entire generation or two into plastic morons of downsyndrom, credit-card swiping proportions. No amount of dorky, alternative politc speak making via internet, nor sarcasm, is going to make this shit go away. It's all over. The human race is done. It sucks to be 22-years-old, part of this very generation, and yet be this pessimistic about life when it should be just starting. *Sigh* is it too late to pop my colar, learn how to breakdance, talk in forced ebonics and drive a BMW? ...Is it??
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On a lighter note if you or your friend's, or whoever's daughter turns out to be something you disapprove of, it will be the result of a number of factors, not just because of the popularity of some plastic pieces of shit. Bratz are possibly a symptom of some of the numerous flaws of modern culture (materialism, shallowness), but NOT a fucking cause.
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A TB about a movie made for young girls, is the number 2 TB right now... ha.
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I'm in the camp that thinks Bratz are an extreme negative, a toy that encourages little girls to act and dress like collagened coke-whores, but I'm appreciating the comments made from the other side as well that don't see them quite as negatively. ,br>
Its also very amusing that this talkback, based on what I can only assume is a piece of crap, braindead movie, is producing some of the most thoughtful and intelligent comments I've seen on AICN in awhile. Weird! -
Quite possibly the greatest review to ever get published on AICN. Search your feelings, you know that it is true.
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She was the frakking prick-teasing slut gold standard. Britney, Christina, the Spice Girls, the Pussycat Dolls, Paris Hilton - all pale imitations. Even Courtney Love took a stab at this with her heroin-chic kinder-whore look.
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Wow.
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Easy to do Vader
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Look what you've spawned. Damn you and your' tongue in cheek humor. This TB is now numero uno, and thats all because you most likely have written the best review for this movie.
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I don't know fellas, I think Vern keeps getting better and his Transformers review was his crowning acheivement. The same things Vern is ranting about are the much of the same things Massa is criticizing in this review, except when it's a movie about based on dolls for little girls it's easier for people to talk about the downfall of civilization, whereas people didn't want to hear it when it came to their stupid robot movie because, hey, "it's not supposed to be Shakespeare." The dumb, shallow, cell phone obsessed culture that made the Bratz toys popular is the same one that allows for a big ugly awful mess like Transformers to qualify as a good summer movie. I think Vern is becoming more insightful in his reviews rather than just being funny and making jokes about films that are easy to make jokes about.
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movies under something called "financial core", a category meant to help struggling actors who otherwise can't make it happen for themselves financially and have to take non-union work. It was SAG contract agreements that made Voight, that protected him. Going financial core is an odd way to express your gratitude.
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I actually agree with you on a number of points, and if I gave the impression that I'm wholeheartedly endorsing Barbie believe me that wasn't my intent. I recognize that girls will be girls and boys will be boys. While I personally don't like brain-dead junk I know that it is popular. I don't have a problem with that. I believe that there's room for both home-cooked meals and McDonald's.
The problem with Bratz, (and Britney 'Come and get me, pedophiles' Spears) is a matter of degree. Yes, little girls like to play dress-up and put on makeup. But is it really helpful to our society to deliberately market a line of dolls glorifying a table-dancing party-girl ethos? Do we want thousands of little Paris Hiltons running around? Is this a behavioral pattern that we want to reinforce? Just because it will sell doesn't make it right.
Also, I am fully aware of the fact that my daughter will eventually rebel and even *gasp* have sex. I also know that she will make mistakes. I'm not an idiot. I can only hope that I have been able to teach her some of the things she will need to know.
As for your suggestion that in five years' time I will be wanting to censor material on the internet: if you knew me you'd know that I've spent the last 30 years fighting vociferously for civil rights and against censorship. At no time have I even suggested that the makers of Bratz should be stopped. I do, however, think that they're the lowest sort of scum profiting off of humanity's basest instincts, and the more people that know that the better. It is my fervent desire that the free market forces them to crawl back under the slimy rock they slithered out from. As I have said in other contexts, censorship is a government's admission that its arguments are so unconvincing they must be imposed by force. -
I'M LISTENING!!!!!!!!!!!
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Cheese!
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Wow.
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Even though I'm straight, and already married, and don't really like Dr. Pepper, I kinda have a man-crush on Massa. He's quite simply the best reviewer AICN has. We should hang out and smoke and stuff.
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And even tho Bratz "may" have been popular with them 3-4 years ago, they no longer talk about them, anytime, to anybody. Now, suddenly, someone makes a movie about Bratz?? Why? Bratz, IMHO, disappeared a while back. Basically, Bratz is no longer popular. I don't understand. And Firefly/Serenity languishes on the back burner while this other shit keeps getting heaped on us, shit like Fast and Furious, Garfield, Snakes on a Plane, etc.
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The internet thing was sarcasm too (it's all the rage in today's thread!). It probably got muddy with all my hyperventilating - serves me right for continuing to post at 4 in the morning.
It's great to hear you're not against anything having a right to exist, I guess I just see Bratz as filling the hole old (50s to 70s) Barbie left, and don't think it's as insidious as you do precicely because of the blatancy. The film however...
Oh as for the all chrome & diamonds merc? It WAS Myscene after all, called "My bling bling", which I guess evens up the score a bit more! And no, I didn't buy it for the kids, it was for reference. Honest! Reflections distorting around compound curves are insanely hard to draw out of your head. In the interests of full disclosure, my girls have 1 Bratz doll each, but in my defence it's because they are identical twins and loved to see the dolls were "like them" (in opposition to wanting to BE LIKE the dolls), so at least the tail wasn't wagging the dog there, and they're actually not all made-up like clowns. Their favourite toys are still a bedraggled teddy and a blankey though. -
Duh.
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Loved the review. More please.
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