Kylie Jenner just launched her new collaboration with Bratz, but the seemingly innocent collection is already causing controversy.
The collaboration features six new miniature Bratz dolls wearing some of Kylie’s most iconic looks, including her outfits from the 2019 and 2020 MET Galas. Each doll comes with its own accessories – one even has a miniature Norman, Kylie’s Italian greyhound.
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However, Internet critics have pointed out that there’s one notable difference between the dolls and Kylie – the skin tone. Some folks are arguing that the dolls have a darker tone than Kylie does in real life.
“Why these dolls look Black?” one person wrote on a social media post Kylie shared about the new collaboration.
“Just here making sure we were all collectively astonished that she was trying to pass this melanated doll as herself,” another person wrote.
“The doll is darker than her in all these pics,” a different commented added, while one said, “This don’t feel right.”
Critics have linked to this to the Kardashian-Jenner family’s problematic history with Blackfishing, which occurs when a non-Black person tries to appear as though they’re Black. This is problematic because “it allows a person to pick and choose the ‘cool’ parts of being black, without facing any of the discrimination that black people do.”
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Kylie has been called out for Blackfishing in photoshoots multiple times as well as appropriating Black hairstyles and clothing.
Moreover, Bratz has been directly called out for choosing to partner with Kylie as its first celebrity collaboration ever. When Bratz first launched, it was marveled for its ethnic ambiguity, something not as easily seen in Barbie.
As such, some critics have argued it would’ve been more appropriate to choose a woman of color for its first celebrity partnership.
“Giving Kylie (a white woman who modeled her face/body around Black women) her own Bratz doll (which is an arguably more Urban/Black presenting doll) before an ACTUAL Black woman is…weird,” one person tweeted.
Another critic said, “As a Bratz collector, the Kylie Jenner collab is upsetting. 3/4 of their core dolls are ETHNIC and they choose a white girl popular for cultural appropriation, reality tv & fake lips. She doesnt even have a bratz sense of style and their big thing is fashion. Hard pass.”
So far, Kylie hasn’t responded to the controversy over her Bratz collection.
Sources: The Scotsman, Buzzfeed,
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