"The ONLY girls with a passion for fashion."
A line of anime-styled fashion dolls created by ex-Mattel employee Carter Bryant and produced by MGA Entertainment. Released in 2001, the line did the unthinkable and dethroned Barbie from her spot as the #1 doll line among girls.
The Bratz line received praise upon its launch for featuring an ethnic rainbow of different characters to choose from, a level of diversity that was less common in the early 2000s. In addition, the dolls were heavily stylized with obviously unnatural proportions and facial features, meaning they couldn’t be accused of promoting an unhealthy body image like Barbie. However, the characters’ personalities quickly led to a different kind of controversy. The Bratz’ interests revolved almost entirely around makeup and high fashion, and they also had much narrower career paths than Barbie, with many lines focusing on glamorous occupations like models, pop divas, actresses, makeup artists, hairdressers, and fashion designers (Barbie, by contrast, has been everything from a veterinarian to an astronaut.) Their clothing also received criticism for being more revealing and modern than that of similar fashion doll brands. Controversy aside, though, Bratz eventually became popular enough to warrant a bunch of spin-off lines, including several animated Direct-To-DVD movies, a short-lived cartoon series, and a live-action movie, acquiring enough spin-offs in enough media for us to make the Franchise.Bratz page.
In December 2008, Mattel won a copyright lawsuit against MGA that ruled that, since Bryant was still working at Mattel when he created the original dolls, they were Mattel's intellectual property. As a result, MGA was banned from selling all 40 dolls in the line
. MGA successfully appealed the ruling in July 2010 and regained ownership. In August, they released updated dolls with wider figures, less make-up, and more modest clothing to celebrate the franchise's 10th anniversary (and so that they could claim the new designs are not the same designs that Mattel claimed ownership of, but that is neither here nor there.)
In late 2012, the line expanded with Bratzillaz, who are not only the cousins of the main cast, but also witches. The line took obvious cues from Harry Potter, but has mostly been compared to Mattel's Monster High, and with good reason—MGA seemed to be doing their best to openly compete with Mattel's juggernaut, with a similar catchphrase ("Glam Gets Wicked", as opposed to "Freaky Just Got Fabulous"), similar animated "webisodes,” and even a live-action music video which was often compared to the Monster High "Fright Song" video. After 2013, the Bratzillas line was quietly cancelled.
The Bratz line was relaunched for a second time in 2015, but the new dolls received a negative reception from fans, due in part to perceptions that their makeup and outfits had been significantly downgraded in order to appeal to parents and critics. The relaunch dolls were only sold for about a year before being quietly discontinued. In 2018, collector dolls designed by fashion illustrator Hayden Williams were released on Amazon to a more positive reception. For the brand’s twentieth anniversary in 2021, MGA released near-replicas of many of their original 2001 dolls, to the delight of collectors and nostalgic adults alike.
See also Pinkie Cooper and the Jet Set Pets, another line by Carter Bryant.
Movies:
- Bratz: Starrin' and Stylin' (2004)
- Bratz Rock Angelz (2005)
- Bratz: Genie Magic (2006)
- Bratz Babyz: The Movie (2006)
- Bratz: Passion 4 Fashion Diamondz (2006)
- Bratz Fashion Pixiez (2007)
- Bratz Kidz: Sleep-Over Adventure (2007)
- Bratz: Super Babyz (2007)
- Bratz Kidz: Fairy Tales (2008)
- Bratz Girlz Really Rock (2008)
- Bratz Babyz Save Christmas (2008)
- Bratz: Pampered Petz (2010)
- Bratz: Desert Jewelz (2012)
- Bratz: Go to Paris the Movie (2013)
This franchise contains examples of:
- Alternate Universe:
- After watching the webisodes, one even wonders if Bratzillaz takes place in the same world as the primary Bratz canon... partly because it seems zombies are an accepted part of society here.
- The 2D animated films made prior and during the CGI era seem to be like this, as the backstories of the characters are different (e.g. Yasmin being a new student and Cloe stating that she and Cameron met at elementary school, despite them knowing each other in the first Bratz Babies film)
- Anthropomorphic Food: The main antagonists of Bratz Super Babyz are alien potatoes. This actually gives the Bratz Babyz the idea to request Gran to cook a potato-based dinner as an attempt to scare the aliens away, and it works.
- Artistic Age: The characters are only high schoolers, but they act and dress a few years older than their official ages.
- Artistic Licence – Anatomy: The Bratz are distinguishable by their stylistically larger heads and fuller lips.
- As Long as It Sounds Foreign:
- One of the discontinued characters is a Japanese girl named May Lin. Oops!
- Katia and her father, introduced in Bratz: Genie Magic, are obviously Russian, but according to Cloe's latest blog post, she's now Moroccan (although this may have been intended to correct a research failure, since the fashions in Genie Magic had a slight Moroccan influence).
- Bait-and-Switch: When the Gainax Ending of Bratz Kidz: Sleepover Adventure reveals that the Kidz have turned into monsters. The monster-fied Sasha looks, gasps, and exclaims "Whoa! Gross!"... but it turns out it's because Meygan had something in her teeth. A bug. Which the Kidz all want to eat.
- Blithe Spirit: No one other than the Bratz in The Movie had even thought about talking to people outside of their cliques, let alone sitting at a different cliques' lunch table, until they came along.
- Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Cloe (blonde), Sasha, Jade, and Yasmin (brunettes), and Meygan (redhead).
- Bowdlerize: The 2015 relaunch changed the outfits to include more layers and pastel colors in a significant departure from the edgier fashion of the early-2000s dolls. This was widely perceived as an attempt to appeal to parents who criticized the earlier dolls for being overly sexualized. The change disappointed many fans, who criticized the outfits for being poorly-done and the makeup for being similar on every doll.
- Brainy Brunette: Jade and Yasmin.
- Changeling Tale: The alien potatoes in Bratz Super Babyz ultimately plan to disguise themselves as human infants and replace the Bratz Babyz so they can apparently be "worshipped" by Gran, who was merely babysitting them at the time. While the aliens succeed in fooling Gran, the Babyz decide to leave Gran none the wiser for her sake, and the plan to scare the aliens away starts with the real Jade willingly apologizing for what "she" had done.
- Clueless Aesop: In Bratz: Super Babyz, there's a side moral that Cloe shouldn't cry over things. Problem is that the Bratz are, well, Babyz in this. Babies naturally cry a lot.
- Colon Cancer: Bratz: The Musical: Girlz Really Rock.
- Covers Always Lie:
- The Bratz Babyz' outfits presented on the cover of Bratz Super Babyz◊ are vastly different from (and more modest than) the ones they wear in the film◊.
- Likewise, the cover for Bratz Kidz: Sleepover Adventure has the Kidz doing activities such as Cloe painting Sasha's nails, Jade eating popcorn, and Yasmin combing Cloe's hair. All they actually do in the movie is dance and tell stories. Also, Taco the dog is shown along with them as a "cute sidekick"-type character, when in the movie he's actually the antagonist of Cloe's story. Oh, and Ginger is absent in spite of the fact she hosted the sleepover.
- The Bratz Babyz' outfits presented on the cover of Bratz Super Babyz
- Dead All Along: Ginger in the first Bratz Kidz movie is all but outright stated to be this based on the Gainax Ending.
- Disproportionate Retribution:
- In Bratz Rock Angelz, after Jade gives Burdine a double cheeseburger for lunch, Burdine fires Jade, her children, and her grandchildren from the Your Thing magazine for life and tells her that she'll never work in any magazine from that day onwards.
- Then Jade and the rest of the Bratz fake being employees of Your Thing, and then Byron Powell gets the Your Thing crew kicked out of a concert because they're not dressed punk.
- Eek, a Mouse!!: How the potato aliens in Bratz Super Babyz are defeated. Using the same "Matter Exchanger" device that turned the Bratz Babyz into superheroes, the aliens turn themselves into 'something hard to find' to hide from Gran, who the Bratz Babyz convinced into making potato-based foods to scare the aliens away. They're turned into mice, disgusting Gran once she finds them and prompting her to shoo them out of her house.
- Expy:
- Struts, which is Bratz meets My Little Pony.
- Extremely Short Timespan: Bratz Babyz: The Movie is set over the course of one day, starting when the babyz wake up in the morning and ending sometime in the afternoon with the karaoke contest. In addition, most of it is set in the mall.
- The Fashionista: While the entire franchise is about this, Jade's generally portrayed as being the most into fashion of the four main girls (her main goal in life is to become a fashion designer).
- Fish out of Water: Katia the genie from Genie Magic.
- Five-Man Band:
- The Leader: Cloe
- The Lancer: Sasha
- The Smart Girl: Jade
- The Big Guy: Meygan
- The Heart: Yasmin
- Five-Token Band:
- Cloe's a white girl.
- Sasha's a Sassy Black Woman.
- Jade's Asian and Nerdy.
- Yasmin's a Latina Granola Girl.
- The fifth person is whatever one-shot character is in that episode/movie/set of dolls.
- Foreshadowing:
- A couple of hints are dropped in "Sleepover Adventure" on a part of the ending ( specifically the idea of Ginger's family being Dead All Along), but can easily be missed with how Sasha dismisses them.
- Cloe brings up that she heard nobody lived at Ginger's house.
- Yasmin brings up that the old movie theater Sasha and Ginger met at had been closed for years.
- Super Babyz has the Bratz Babyz' time at Adventure Universe foreshadow their superpowers.
- Sasha arranges all the plans for the trip, thus she gets Super-Intelligence.
- Jade gets messy with ice cream and candy, hinting at her Sticky Situation power.
- Chloe throws a tantrum when she doesn't get her own photo with Explodo-Girl and later on gets Super-Scream.
- And Yasmin wanders off to the gift shop, indicating she'd get Super-Speed.
- A couple of hints are dropped in "Sleepover Adventure" on a part of the ending ( specifically the idea of Ginger's family being Dead All Along), but can easily be missed with how Sasha dismisses them.
- Four-Girl Ensemble:
- Chloe's the sweet but dramatic one.
- Sasha's the Soul Sista and musician of the group.
- Jade's the alternative, rebellious fashionista.
- Yasmin's the peacemaking Team Mom.
- Fun with Acronyms: Let's just hope that this one is unintentional in the case of Bratz Rock Angelz.
- Gainax Ending: The last part of Bratz Kidz: Sleepover Adventure will definitely leave you bewildered. Hang on, folks: When the Bratz pressure new kid Ginger to make her story scarier, she gets overwhelmed (and judging from what she exactly says, implied to have scared even herself with her untold ending) and runs out of the room, prompting the Bratz to try and look for her so they can apologize. Sounds like your simple everyday girl-oriented Slice of Life children's movie, right? Well... they can't find her or her parents anywhere, and the house begins to age, disturbing the Bratz enough for them to escape the house and look at its exterior now. Turns out, the house is actually abandoned, and Ginger's family was Dead All Along. The Bratz then flee to discover the characters from their storiesnote have become real. Then when they try to go to their own houses, Ginger and her parents are at the door, repeating the words they said before the sleep-over began. The Bratz are understandably freaked out and flee each time they see this, but when they go to Sasha's house, it's Ginger's family that is suddenly scared of the Bratz to the point of fainting by their presence. This is because the Bratz have lost any fear they had, but also have inexplicably become the monsters from Jade's story. They also act like they've always been monsters, try to find somewhere to sleep... And that's it. Little to no explanation to how or why the heck it happened or what happens afterward. The closest we get is the phrase "Strange things happen on a full moon".
- Girl Posse: Quinn and Avery, Meredith's yes men.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Cloe fits many of the criteria - young, beautiful and generally sweet if dramatic.
- Hormone-Addled Teenager: In The Movie, of the 'obsessed with fashion' flavor first and foremost, with a side-order of boy-crazy.
- I Need to Go Iron My Dog: At one point during Super Babyz, the Bratz Babyz find the Super-Bud actors from earlier leaving the park and, still believing they're the actual Super-Buds, try to convince them to rescue a childnote from an uncontrollable ride. Not wanting to shatter the innocence of a quartet of babies by breaking the news that the Super-Buds aren't real, they all make excuses before leaving, each one weaker than the last. Ultimately, this makes the Babyz just see them as Dirty Cowards.
- "Smartessa" claims to the Babyz there's a lunar eclipse that night that would remove their powers which an unconvinced Sasha breaks it that the last one was just that June.
- "Explodo-Girl" tries to tell them that she's off duty.
- "Mr. Stretchtastic" can only apologize before leaving.
- "Johnny Speedometer" just... smiles, waves, and runs off.
- Informed Flaw:
- In The Movie, Cloe is supposed to be clumsy. But that doesn't stop her from being the best soccer player on the school's team, capable of pulling off moves that only professional players can do. Her clumsiness even results in her friend group making up with one another, and with her getting to spend time with her crush.
- In one of the animated movies, Jade is publicly humiliated at school when word gets about her fashion “disaster,” which was... a pretty cute and unique outfit. Despite the fact that there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with it, all of her friends say that it looks terrible. Instead of wearing the outfit, Jade eventually chooses to wear a generic yellow dress identical to the dresses everyone else wore to the dance, and then happily declares that she finally got her individual fashion sense back.
- Insult Backfire: In both Rock Angelz and the live-action movie, the girls get the idea for their group's name from a mean girl calling them "brats." It's much more subtle in Rock Angelz than in Bratz: The Movie.
- Lighter and Softer: Bratz Kidz: Fairy Tales is softer and more comedic than Sleep-Over Adventure, as it focuses on the Kidz getting pulled into a Fairy Tale Free-for-All where they have to bring the stories they're playing as to a Happily Ever After. It also features the girls learning a big aesop to not take things for granted, and finishes with a Dance Party Ending.
- Live-Action Adaptation: Bratz: The Movie, which was nominated for several Razzies (including "Worst Movie"), and was described by one reviewer as "the reason why terrorists hate [America]."
- Love Makes You Crazy: Cloe in Rock Angelz with the ninth duke of lessex.
- Make Way for the Princess: Both Meredith and the Bratz do this in The Movie.
- Media Scaremongering: Every few years or so, someone starts a panic saying that the toyline is teaching girls to dress like hookers, or that it preaches vanity by showing that beauty is everything in life. Granted, the franchise doesn't exactly present its supposed Aesops (individuality and self-confidence) in the best light.
- Merchandise-Driven: The various shows and movies are clear vehicles to promote the toyline.
- The Movie: Cleverly named Bratz: The Movie.
- My Beloved Smother: Cloe has one of these in Rock Angelz, after which we never hear from her again.
- Negative Continuity: In Rock Angelz Cloe tells us that she met Cameron in second grade, but we see Cloe and Cameron have a skate contest as Babyz in the Babyz movie. Though as stated in Alternate Universe above, the canon from the 2D films are not connected with the CGI ones.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Byron Powell, London Milton, Allonce... don't forget Lo-J.
- The Noseless: Whether or not the characters have a nose changes from scene to scene in their cartoons.
- Only One Female Mold: Not only for the dolls, but also in the cartoon. To the point that when one of the male characters disguises himself as a girl, he has exactly the same body shape as the female characters.
- Only Six Faces: There are currently only two face molds.
- Only Sane Man: Yasmin.
- Origins Episode: Rock Angelz to the television series, as it explains how the main characters started their own magazine company and met Byron Powell.
- Overly Long Name: Bratz Passion For Fashion Diamondz.
- The Power of Friendship (and fashion!)
- Pretty in Mink: Some fur coats, as their outfits are often influence by hip hop culture.
- Rich Bitch: Meredith Dimly from The Movie.
- Selfie Fiend: In the 2010s, the characters began incorporating this into their personalities. They're fashionable, energetic teenage girls, so all of them use social media and take selfies.
- Series Franchise
- Spinoff Babies: Lil' Bratz, Bratz Babyz, Bratz Boyz, Bratz Kidz, Bratz Petz...
- Stripperiffic:
- The dolls have been accused of being this, with some degree of truth. Due to what might or might not be unfortunate tailoring (scale doll clothes have to suffer the same rules of material and tailoring as full size clothes- the scale is 1:6 but not the materials), there have even been Bratz dolls with pronounced camel toe.
- MGA seems to be trying to change this with the new dolls, who are much more covered up.
- Superhero Episode: Bratz Super Babyz, where an old woman babysitting the Bratz Babyz unwittingly buys an alien machine that turns one into what they ask to be swapped with a simple toy and, confusing it with a TV remote one night, presses a button and gives the Bratz Babyz superpowers.
- Super-Scream: Cloe gets this power in Super Babyz, where she can let out a cry loud enough to pop tires or send a bear flying.
- Super-Speed: Yasmin gets this power thanks to the Matter Exchanger Device in Bratz Super Babyz.
- Take That!:
- Burdine, the Tweevils, and Meredith all have blonde hair, blue eyes, and are always shown wearing the color pink. Burdine also reminds Kaycee of "that fashion doll" Kirstee used to hit her with when they were 3. Hmm...
- Subverted with Cloe, she has blonde hair and blue eyes, but she doesn't wear pink.
- Both Pretty in Punk ads have the line "Not Pink, Punk!"
- Tamer and Chaster: The Bratz dolls were always controversial for being too sexualized and mature for their target audience of 9-12 year olds. In the 2010s, the series attempted to retool itself with a more G rated image. Gone was the emphasis on fashion—the dolls were now about creativity and taking selfies. This turned the title of the series into a bit of The Artifact as the girls were no longer "bratty". The reboot ended up bombing. They also created the Bratzillaz line of dolls, which were cuter in style but were "creepy" dolls
based on Monster High. - Theme Twin Naming:
- Kirstee/Kaycee, Orianna/Valentina/Siernna, Nita/Nora
- Subverted with the Toola Twins as their first names have yet to be revealed.
- Totally Radical: As one might expect for such a long-running line, the dolls began to take on shades of this over the years as their Y2K outfits started going out of style and their marketing began to appear dated. Even the characters’ names—and the name of the brand itself, which is a prime example of Xtreme Kool Letterz—began to look outdated after a while. Fortunately, by the time the reproduction dolls were released in the early 2020s, the fashion of the early 2000s had cycled from dated and un-cool to nostalgic and trendy again.
- Toyless Toyline Character:
- Neither Burdine nor the Tweevils have gotten any toys. Averted for the Tweevils as of 2023 now that they have a collectors’ edition 2 pack.
- Cymbeline from Fashion Pixiez didn't get a doll either, but oddly enough Big Bad Lina did.
- Ginger only had an appearance in Sleepover Adventure and never got a doll. Considering what we could best gather from the Gainax Ending, this could subtly be justified.
- Trailers Always Spoil: The promos for Bratz Babyz: The Movie completely spoil the climatic karaoke contest, complete with the Babyz joining Nora and Nita onstage.
- Unlimited Wardrobe:
- Hence the tagline.
- Interesting note about the cartoons: While they do change clothes, they all have a set of different outfits that they rotate in and out of. And they're all essentially recolors of one another. All four girls will usually wear the same style of outfit, ironically...
- This might have been
Hilarious in Hindsight when you realize most of the new dolls are wearing the same type of outfits.
- Visual Gag: The first movie was full of this.
- Vomit Discretion Shot: In Meygan's story for Sleepover Adventure, a rider sitting next to Meygan turns to her to throw up on her clothes. We only see the outside of the ride as we hear the splat and Meygan's Big "NO!".
- Wakeup Makeup: The first scene of the movie. Their hair is even perfectly straight too.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: So the aliens in Bratz Super Babyz are finally defeated, but any word of what the cast did regarding the device that started it all, despite Sasha bringing up that they should get rid of it moments prior, is never brought up after that.
- Xtreme Kool Letterz:
- Pretty much all the names of the dolls. Examples: Meygan, Roxxi, Breeana. Also, the Twiinz line. I'm serious.
- Not to mention, Bratz.
- BRATZ R BAK!
- Pretty much all the names of the dolls. Examples: Meygan, Roxxi, Breeana. Also, the Twiinz line. I'm serious.
- You Killed My Parents: In Dream Jewelz.
