Have you heard that Dora the Explorer is about to go through puberty? Yep, it's true. Mattel and Nickelodeon recently announced that toddler icon Dora will "grow up" next year, complete with longer hair and a mini-skirt."As tweenage Dora, our heroine has moved to the big city, attends middle school and has a whole new fashionable look," the companies announced in a February release titled "Dora Grows Up!"
When my mom called this morning to tell me about this, my first reaction was disbelief. What!? That's absolutely ridiculous. That's like putting Barney on Weight Watchers, or giving Elmo a deep voice (which, now that I think of it, isn't a bad idea).
So I did a little Googling to see if this outrageous story could possibly be true. And sure enough, there it was in all it's Good Morning America glory.
My next reaction was disgust. Crap! Hollywood has gone too far this time. First they fill the theaters with gory, sleazy movies. Then they totally corrupt evening TV time with shows full of sex and violence. Not to mention the utter dearth of decent Saturday morning cartoons. NOW they are taking away my afternoon babysitter toddler's favorite show!? This is just too much! Man, if this doesn't usher in the Millenium, I don't know what will.
But then I started to think about Emma. She's 6 years old, nearly 7. She's definitely not a toddler anymore, but not quite a tween either. I've really struggled lately to provide decent, acceptable shows for her to watch. She's bored with Wonder Pets and Sesame Street, yet I don't want her watching the teeny-bopper shows quite yet. Shows like Hannah Montana and iCarly may not contain explicit sex and violence, but they do protray young girls in a fairly "mature" light. Most of the episodes contain frequent references to making out, boyfriends/girlfriends, and the importance of being popular, not to mention the "humor" of sassing and lying to your parents.
So maybe a grown-up Dora isn't such a bad idea. I have to admit that I like the new Strawberry Shortcake, with her cute clothes and hair. And if Mattel and Nickelodeon actually stick to their pledge that the new Dora will still be about problem solving and multi-cultural adventures, then this may be a great development for this age group.
Then again, when has Hollywood ever stuck to their pledge?
6 comments:
What is going to happen to Boots? Is he going to grow up and start biting people's face's off? (That was in the news Brooke, I know you don't watch.) But really, what about the monkey?
Dora may just be too much "woman" for my little guys once she goes through the "transformation."
It's still a little too weird for me. I mean, Arthur has been in third grade for 12 years and still manages to capture my kids attention!
The thing I like most about Dora is her tomboy look and attitude. My girls, especially Sophie, really liked Dora when they were a little younger--I never really thought about it before, but I think there's likely a direct connection between Dora-love and their utter disdain for Hannah Montana.
If Dora's still an adventurous teenage tomboy in a miniskirt, I say more power to her. We'll see.
this is disturbing news to me. if they want a character that age, make a new one! no one is aging the others, altho they DO go backwards in time, don't they with baby looney tunes and scooby puppy?
I guess it was the natural next step after appearing with Jon Stewart last week. ;-D I even learned some useful new word sfrom that segment.
But seriously: my guys did not watch a lot of television at that age (oh, it was tempting, as I am sure you can imagine!). The Kratts were wildly popular, though; could you look into Animal Planet and other channels like that? Maybe "Zoboomafoo" is still being aired somewhere....
Oh, wait. I read an article about this, in which it labeled the 5-8 year-old group as "tweens." What?!? I thought tweens were 8 or 9-12 years old! Five is still "little kid" as far as I am concerned.
Post a Comment