So here's an image comparing a Monster High doll with an Equestria Girls doll.



The first thing you'll notice is that the Equestria Girls doll is nearly two heads shorter than the Monster High doll. As much as I hate to say it, the Twilight Sparkle doll just looks cheaply made. Her top is painted onto her body, for crying out loud! The only actual piece of fabric Twilight Sparkle has is her skirt. It looks like Hasbro took the "dresses" from the My Little Pony toys and reused them as skirts for its line of human dolls.



I can't help but wonder if this decision to paint clothing onto the Equestria Girls dolls was intentional. Now perverted bronies can't even buy the dolls for the express purpose of undressing them! Hasbro managed to take the one slightly titillating aspect of fashion dolls and ruin it. Barbie, Monster High and nearly every other line of girls dolls are tastefully nude underneath their outfits.



Why couldn't Equestria Girls be the same way? It's like Hasbro is deathly afraid of nudity, or something.

(sigh)

I miss the 80s.



Having an outfit painted onto her body is also very limiting from a fashion perspective. Yes, Twilight can theoretically wear other clothes over her painted top, but she can't wear anything which exposes her shoulders. No tube tops allowed. Come to think of it, didn't I see a Twilight Sparkle wearing a strapless prom dress?



I see. When Twilight comes packaged with a dress that requires bare shoulders, Hasbro doesn't paint the pink blouse onto her body, but leaves it the color of her skin tone. It makes her look like she has deformed collarbones. Now that's just lazy! It's like Hasbro is trying to shoot itself in the foot with this product.

In an previous blog post I talked about Hasbro's earlier attempt to directly compete with Mattel's dolls.

One of the reasons why Jem failed to resonate with people was because she was bigger than Barbie. When I say "bigger than Barbie," I'm referring to Jem's size; not her popularity.



Jem didn't fit in Barbie's world. She couldn't wear her clothes or use her accessories. It looks like Hasbro is making the opposite mistake now. Instead of being too big, their latest dolls are too small.



Pictured left to right: Jem, My Scene Barbie, Barbie, Monster High, Bratz

As long as we're here, I may as well take a moment to point out another bitter rivalry from ten years ago which continues today.



Actually, no. As much as I'd like to talk about a feud between rappers, the focus of today's bitter rivalry is something much more cut-throat and nefarious: The doll industry.



Shortly after the start of the millennium, MGA Entertainment released a line of dolls known as Bratz. Founded in 1979, MGA billed itself as the world's largest privately owned toy company. The hyper-sexualized nature of the Bratz dolls made the once-vivacious Barbie look tame by comparison. By 2003, Bratz dolls were outselling Barbie dolls 2 to 1 in the UK.



But the golden glamor goddess wasn't going to relinquish her crown without a fight. In an effort to compete with Bratz, Mattel created a new line of "sexier" fashion dolls. The result was "My Scene Barbie," which debuted in 2002. Like the Bratz line, the My Scene dolls shared the same "doe-eyes" and pouty lips as their diminutive doppelgangers.



By 2005, Bratz was at the zenith of its popularity and generating more than $1 billion in sales each year. This cut deeply into Mattel's Barbie doll sales, which fell 30% in 2005. (The Barbie brand managed to recover from that slump and currently manages to make an average of $3 billion annually.)

In April of 2005, MGA Entertainment sued Mattel, citing that the My Scene dolls were too similar to Bratz. MGA accuses Barbie of being "the playground bully" and claimed that Mattel was guilty of "serial copycatting." MGA contended that Mattel made a knockoff of Bratz to confuse consumers and "muscle MGA out of business."

MGA CEO Isaac Larian called the My Scene dolls "a rip-off."



Mattel responded with a $500 million countersuit; claiming that Bratz creator Carter Bryant developed the idea for Bratz while he was still working for Mattel.



On July 17, 2008, a federal jury found that MGA was liable for infringing on their competitor's intellectual property and had to pay Mattel $100 million in damages.

On December 3, 2008, Mattel was granted a permanent injunction request, which stated that MGA had to remove, at its own cost, all Bratz products from store shelves, reimburse retailers for the product, turn over the recalled product to Mattel for disposal, and destroy all marketing materials and molds and materials used in the production of the dolls. The first round legal victory went to Barbie, who seemed poised to crush the competition beneath her pink high heels.



MGA immediately filed for a stay of the injunction, which was granted through the end of 2009. This gave MGA the time it needed to appeal the Court's decision and overturn the verdict.

On December 10, 2009, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit granted MGA a permanent stay of injunction; effectively halting the recall of Bratz product, which was set to have begun on January 21, 2010. The Court said the initial ruling against MGA was "draconian" and had gone too far in awarding ownership of the entire Bratz franchise to Mattel. In a statement from MGA, Isaac Larian states that “the Court’s stay is good news for all Bratz fans and for anyone who cares about fair competition.”



(MGA CEO Isaac Larian, surrounded by Bratz dolls)

On July 22, 2010, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the District Court's original ruling for Mattel and declared that ownership of the Bratz franchise belonged to MGA Entertainment.

Mattel and MGA returned to court on January 18, 2011 to renew their battle over who owned Bratz, which this time included accusations from both companies that the other side stole trade secrets.

"The industry is very cutthroat," Bradley Justice said. Justice is a longtime Barbie collector and North Carolina-based regional director of the United Federation of Doll Clubs.

"There are spies everywhere," Justice said, "It's almost like an espionage novel."



Vitriolic accusations were flung by both sides; with MGA claiming in court papers that Mattel sent private investigators to trade shows where MGA was displaying new products and routinely engaged in unfair competition by threatening distributors and retailers for doing business with MGA. They also claimed that Mattel even tried to buy up excess doll hair, which would leave the Bratz bald and force them out of the market. Mattel denied those allegations and responded with a counterclaim, which accused MGA of routinely poaching top Mattel staffers and encouraging them to bring along secrets from the Barbie-maker’s vaults.

On April 21, 2011 a federal jury returned a verdict supporting MGA. On August 5, 2011 Mattel was ordered to pay MGA $310 million for attorney fees, stealing trade secrets and false claims.



In August 2012, MGA and Mattel's dispute had ended with MGA walking away the victors. Larian described the struggle as a David-and-Goliath battle, with Mattel using its financial muscle and monopoly status to bring down the first real competitor Barbie has ever faced.

Larian has said he has spent as much as $170 million on legal fees, while analysts estimated Mattel's legal fees at $400 million. Larian said that the Bratz brand was damaged by an estimated $1 billion, due to Mattel's lawsuit and that MGA intends to recoup the losses in a separate and pending lawsuit against Mattel.

In the midst of their legal woes, MGA released a live-action Bratz movie in 2007, which also served as a big middle finger to Mattel.



Considering their rivalry with Mattel, is it any wonder that the main villain of the Bratz TV series is an aging, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, pink-obsessed, tiara-wearing diva named Burdine Maxwell?



Bur-dine Max-well?

Bar-bie Mat-tel?



After going back and watching some episodes of Bratz, it's amazing how closely the show mirrors the real-world rivalry between MGA and Mattel. Burdine Maxwell runs a fashion magazine called "Your Thing" magazine, which could be viewed as a subtle parody of Mattel's "My Scene" dolls.

In this episode from season one, Burdine sends her minions to spy on the Bratz and learn their secrets. "Those rotten little Bratz! How come they always beat us?" A large pile of bones is found in Burdine's office; implying that the perennially-pink prima donna has a literal skeleton in her closet.

The Bratz think that Burdine Maxwell is a cold-blooded killer and have nightmares that she's trying to murder them. If this isn't MGA making a clever satire of their legal battles with Mattel, I don't know what is.

Now that MGA's legal victory has given Bratz a new lease on life, they're back to take on Mattel's twin titans: Barbie and newcomer Monster High.



I'm afraid that the combined strength of Monster High and Barbie may try to double team and dominate the competition. On second thought, that sounds kind of kinky.



Now, you may notice that one prominent contender has been absent from this fierce fight of flair and fashion.



Where was Hasbro during the Bratz Warz? Were their executives just sitting around with their heads in the sand?

Actually, Hasbro wasn't asleep at the switch during this whole controversy. They did have plans to release their own line of vivacious dolls to compete with Bratz and My Scene. In 2006, Hasbro struck a deal to make a line of girl toys based on the Pussycat Dolls.



Quite frankly, they look more like extras from Team America.



Then again, those were only the prototypes. Hasbro canceled their plans to produce the Pussycat Dolls toys when an advocacy group, Dads and Daughters, mounted a letter-writing campaign pressing Hasbro to shelve the line of racy fashion dolls.

Apparently, parents don't think that a modern-day burlesque act makes a good role model for pre-teen girls.

Hasbro, if you want to compete with the popular dolls, you don't need a celebrity endorsement. My Scene Barbie tried that in 2003 with a Lindsay Lohan doll.



Mattel was hoping their celebrity endorsement would upstage the Bratz dolls. There was even a tie-in movie, which is now horribly dated and unintentionally funny in the wake of Ms. Lohan's string of poor life choices.

Hitching their wagon to a star ultimately hurt the fledgeling My Scene brand. If they ever decide to rerelease the Lindsay Lohan My Scene doll, they should package it with copies of her various mug shots.



Whether you like Mattel or hate them, there's no denying that they know how to make a fashion doll. They only falter when they feel pressured to mimic their competition. Things may change if Bratz manages to become as popular as it once was; but for now, Mattel seems content to continue doing what it does best: Making high-quality dolls like Monster High. In contrast, Hasbro seems content to give their customers the bare bones.



That's not to say I'm pessimistic about the future of Equestria Girls. Remember pink Celestia?



Hasbro's always been a little slow on the uptake, but they eventually came around and started making more show-accurate toys.



Here's hoping that this first wave of sub-par Equestria Girls dolls will eventually lead to higher-quality products, like this fanmade Zecora.

