Blogging the Big Toy Book: Dora

This is what started me on my Toy Book examination. Above you can see a picture of Dora the Explorer, the cartoon character, and Dora the Explorer, the doll. Notice anything a bit different between these two images?

Dora, the animated character, looks like a child. She's not fat, she just looks like a kid. I guess that's not enough, though, so for this toy, she was elongated into something much taller and much thinner. Its a fashion doll with Dora's head plopped on top.

The problem is, kids know what Dora looks like. They aren't just making a skinny fashion doll. They are remaking a beloved character as one. What is that telling children? That Dora isn't thin enough? What kind of a message is that supposed to be?

We know about Barbie's inhuman proportions. There has even been some attention to proportional difficulties in boy's action figures. The problem is still going on, though, with kids still being trained to adopt fat negative ideals.