Could have been much much worse.
Posted on 03/16/2009 12:16:42 PM PDT by presidio9
When toy maker Mattel, working with Nickelodeon, announced earlier this month that a "tween" version of Nick's beloved "Dora the Explorer" cartoon character would be unveiled in the fall, the response was overwhelming ... overwhelmingly negative.
Dora the streetwalker. A sexed-up version of a children's icon. A poor example for kids.
Those were just some of the terms tossed around the blogosphere after Mattel released a silhouette of the "new" Dora, whose image was drastically changed from the endearing tomboy look Dora fans grew to love, with her bowl-cut hairdo, T-shirt and red shorts. This new Dora appeared to have long flowing hair, and was wearing what seemed a scanty skirt, emphasizing her long, shapely legs.
"Did Mattel turn Dora the Explorer into a Tramp?" read one headline from The Huffington Post.
But not so fast.
Mattel and Nickelodeon both say there are two major misconceptions about the new Dora, which is not replacing the "Dora the Explorer" cartoon, but will be a new interactive doll aimed at 5- to 8-year-olds.
"People care so deeply about this brand and this character," Leigh Anne Brodsky, president of Nickelodeon Viacom Consumer Products, says. "The Dora that we all know and love is not going away."
"I think there was just a misconception in terms of where we were going with this," Gina Sirard, vice president of marketing at Mattel, says. "Pretty much the moms who are petitioning aging Dora up certainly don't understand. ... I think they're going to be pleasantly happy once this is available in October, and once they understand this certainly isn't what they are conjuring up."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Dora the Explorer is great. I’d prefer they didn’t mess with it?
I predict my son will like the “new” Dora better.
Dora was designed to make Illegals more acceptable to Americans.
Could have been much much worse.
Dora is idiotic. I hate the fact that it draws my daughter’s attention. I try to avoid having her it.
Here’s a pseudo-script:
(NOTE: Dora is on the verge of yelling EVERY line.)
Dora: We need to go to Grandma’s house to get some cookies. Let’s ask Map how to get there. Everyone say “Map.” Louder! “MAP!” LOUDER! “MAAAAAAAP!”
(inane map song)
Dora: Look, to get to Grandma’s house, Map says we need to go around the muddy-mud, over the hilly-hills, and past the rocky-rocks. Yes, I’m so incredibly creative that EVERYTHING is described with the adjective form of itself.
(Some stupid monkey shows up and sings a stupid song.)
Dora: Look - it’s the muddy-mud! How will we get past it? [Short pause.] I know, let’s - *gasp* - WALK AROUND IT! [Wow - Dora’s problem solving skills are off the chart!] Can you HELP me walk around the muddy-mud? Say “camina!” [Because you can only do something as simple as walking if you first say the word in Spanish.] Louder! CAMINA! LOUDER GRINGO! CAAAAAAMIIIIIINAAAAA!
And so forth. Sigh...
Dora is an illigal alien, an undocumented!
"Asking" map doesn't sound like it teaches any skills. Plenty of people "ask" Mapquest, Rand McNally, or other sites.
But ask those same kids/adults to find a street on a map and you may have better luck getting them to properly fold the map back up.
I suppose that along with ‘cougar’ Barbie we’ll soon have the same with Dora.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjDmCEJokZs - [cache] - Live
Not an anchor?
Map Song
If there’s a place you got to go
I’m the one you need to know
I’m the Map
I’m the Map
I’m the Map
If there’s a place you got to get
I can get you there I bet
I’m the Map
I’m the Map
I’m the Map
I’m the Map
I’m the Map
I’m the Map
I’m the Map
I’m the Map
I’m the Map
I’m the Map
I’m the Map
I’m the Map
(yes, 12 times)
I keep waiting to hear directions from the map that go like this:
First swim across the big river.
Then go through the desert.
Then we get to America!
I agree. I feel like starting a group called “leave Dora alone”.
>> This new Dora appeared to have long flowing hair, and was wearing what seemed a scanty skirt, emphasizing her long, shapely legs.
Good grief. That’s “sexed up”, streetwalker, etc? Its a shirt, not a skirt. My 4-year-old daughter has several, and they’re not at all revealing. And, as fathers go, I’m pretty hard on my little girl regarding her wardrobe.
SnakeDoc
Now that’s funny right there...
What struck me is that Dora is going to teach them to be “enviomentalists”. How awful is that? She’ll probably be talking about “gorebul warming”.
Nik and Disney are the devil to young kids....
And their poor parents.
I’m completely unfamiliar with the character, except for what I have read here.
-It sounds like the creators are starting the dumbing down process at an early age. (or maybe she is just the product of already dumbed-down people).
-I wasnt sure if that was the before or after picture, so i guess it’s not so bad.
Apparently, she will become “Dora the Shopper”.
Really, really boring....
Yeah, exactly... It’s merely a shirt. Which means that Dora is wearing nothing but tights for pants. Put a skirt on her and it would be less problemmatic.
>> Nik and Disney are the devil to young kids....
Really? They (particularly Disney) are pretty popular in my house. My daughter watched Dora a little, but prefers the Little Einsteins. I don’t really see any problem with either.
SnakeDoc
So, Dora was just a “L.U.G.”?
I think you mean:
Swim across rivery river
Then go across deserty desert
My problem with Dora is that she’s constantly code-switching. They figure it’s fun for kids and it gets them wanting to learn a foreign language, but it completely destroys literacy.
LOL! I remember pi$$ing off my ex when I’d sing MY version of her theme song.
I won’t post my lyrics, but you’d get the idea...
I’ve noticed that many (most) of the new cartoon characters have souht-of-the-border accents. Handy Manny, for one. Made me wonder if small Anglo kids are going to be speaking with an accent now. Not saying that’s good or bad - just saying -
Glad I’m not only one who has thought of that.
Nice to see her creators were able to purchase some facial reconstruction for her. Now that poor girl won’t have to go around looking like Stewie Griffin’s long-lost half-sister with the football-shaped head.
>> Which means that Dora is wearing nothing but tights for pants.
They’re not tights — they’re slightly shortened pants. They’re far longer than even the most conservative pair of shorts. Like I said, my daughter has several outfits just like that— and they’re not at all revealing. They’re cotton pants.
SnakeDoc
Wait till they get about 12.....
how about “Twamp” ?
... and no, that's not my daughter.
SnakeDoc
Looks fine to me, and I’m a pretty picky about these things.
That show is about as PC as one can get. I think just about every ethnicity (save middle-eastern) has been depicted. The only white males are either depicted as disabled, or as poofters.
I hadn’t seen two G’Daughters for a year — when they were 6ish, 7ish. (they live across the country) When they came for Christmas a year back, I had bought a couple pair of Dora slipper sox as one of their gifts. These girls were now close to ages 8 and 9 -— and you should have heard the squeals when they opened the slippers! I was still living in the past, when girls were little girls until their tweens! Little did I know that they were into Hanna and her ilk!! “We’re not little kids any more, G.Ma!!!”
Well, that was all I needed. I fixed the slipper mistake, but when they went home, I packed a couple of Dora cookies in their suitcase. More squeals when they found them! And when I sent Valentine cards, I pasted Dora pictures over Hannah’s face! These kids are going to hate me!
When I saw them a few weeks ago, I hid a couple of cute trinket gifts behind my back and they could only get them if they said they LOVED Dora. They said it and got the gifts. Then the devil in me went further. I had a couple more trinkets but they had to promise me that they would wear Dora costumes that I would sent them for Halloween — and I had to see pictures of them in them. They swallowed hard and promised. When they went home, there were a couple more hidden Dora cookies in their bag. (am I a terrible granny? Yep!)
But now, they can see that G’ma is on top of it, with this new Dora coming out! New respect?
What can I do now?
That's "sexed-up"?
Complaints must have been from some Muslim moms who want an older Dora to be seen only in a full Hijab.
I didn't know stretch pants qualified as "sexed-up". What does that make shorts?
Or we could go the other way:
Across deserty desert
Swim across rivery river
To find Tico, who has been deported.
Is dissemblingly even a word?
lol
1. That’s not what Dora’s wearing; the little girl’s wearing pants; Dora’s wearing tights.
2. There’s a lot of clothes little kids can wear that I’d have a problem with teenagers wearing.
The Devil? Really?
You (or your kids) must have a very easy life then. If Disney is The Devil then what's left? Nothing could be worse, right?
I got everyone to not watch Dora when I started shouting other things when Dora told me to say something in Spanish.
Here's an example: Dora says, "Say, Camina." and I would say "food stamps."
>> The shows really pussify young boys i believe.
Possibly. My son’s pretty young still ... but he’s more into Superman, Batman and Pirates of the Caribbean than Disney (though I guess POTC is Disney). He does the Handy Manny thing a little — but it seems to me to teach the value of a hard-day’s work pretty well.
Yeah — he’s Hispanic. But, I don’t see much problem with that.
>> I dont have kids but my sis does so i get it in fairly small doses. It makes it easier to see the dissemblingly that way.
Perhaps. But, I’ve seen a LOT of it. The Disney Princesses are actually OK — at least for me. They teach good and evil, general politeness, etc. Little Einsteins teach music, etc.
There may be some bad lessons in there — vanity particularly. But, there are some good ones too.
SnakeDoc
I’ve noticed that my own childhood TV experiences have made my much more tolerant of sarcastic green homeless guys who live in trash cans, blue choclate chip cookie addicts, blue wierdos who have bi-polar disorder and think their superheros and ambiguously gay couples.
>> Dora: Look, to get to Grandma’s house, Map says we need to go around the muddy-mud, over the hilly-hills, and past the rocky-rocks. Yes, I’m so incredibly creative that EVERYTHING is described with the adjective form of itself. <<
Hey, I know all types of Protestants who LOVE Pilgrim’s Progress.
Oh great, on top of everything else, they made her into a LIBERAL. Like the entertainment industry, toymakers just don't seem to care about what more than 50% of their customers think.
I’m more concerned that some are so uptight that they found this to be ‘sexed up’. Bratz dolls on the other hand... I don’t know how to define ‘sexed up’, but I know it when I see it and I see it with the Bratz line of dolls. Won’t have them in my home, but I wouldn’t object to a Dora doll like this for my 8 year old.
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