It's a controversial topic that has been going on for years. No matter how many times it dies, someone brings the argument back up sooner or later in different ways. We've seen it with the artist who drew Barbie proportions on a human woman. We've seen it with the Lammily doll. We've seen it with Tree Change Dolls. It's an issue we can never escape from, and that is the controversy over fashion dolls. The question is asked every time: "Are they a bad influence on young girls?"

Artist Nickolay Lamm, creator of the Lammily doll, started out his project by making a 3D printed Barbie doll with realistic human body proportions. This image went viral back in 2014. He is still running his doll line, Lammily, as the anti-Barbie.

Majority of the time, the influence is focused on one of the three: body proportions, makeup, or clothes. Sometimes it's all three at the same time. It's never about anything else the doll portrays. Let's look at Barbie as an example, a big one at that. She is probably the most controversial doll on the market and has been for years. The message she delivers to young girls is always "be who you want to be". It's what the Barbie campaign is all about. It's on the doll boxes. It's in commercials. They even went as far as to make this adorable advertisement. The message Barbie gives is point blank period. However, adults don't seem to understand this. They let it go way over their head and focus on the surface of a brand without really digging deep to see what their kids are actually seeing. They point out how their neck is longer than the average human's. They bring up how long their legs are. Never have I seen a child point this out until the adult said so.

Barbie's "You Can Be Anything" Campaign Banner from the Mattel website.

Let's use another controversial doll brand that I know everyone is well aware of: Bratz dolls. I remember loving the brand with all my heart as a young girl. I remember watching the movies, listening to the soundtracks, and watching the show and just enjoying the messages the Bratz sent to me. They told me I didn't have to fit into a cookie cutter image that society wanted me to be in. They told me I can let my passion be whatever I wanted it to be. They wrote songs that told me to express myself and even wrote ones that told me I didn't have to let a man tell me what to do. Not only that, but their whole appeal to young girls is that they had a teenage-like style. They simply dressed how teenagers did back then, which was a high appeal to young girls who dreamed of being a teenager. However, that's not what adults told me. I specifically remember playing in the living room with my Bratz dolls and my mom and her friend were in there as well. I remember them pointing out how slutty and scandalous the dolls were. I'd never heard the word slut until I had heard it from them. As an adult now, I still don't find Bratz dolls to be slutty or inappropriate for kids. What I do find inappropriate is what adults say to their kids about the dolls. Kids don't see slutty, they see pretty fashion dolls; AKA their intended purpose. The positive messages the brand sends is an added bonus. I will say that I don't mean to call my mom out. My mom was in college and majoring in women's study. She was well aware of what the media was portraying to young girls and just worried. Yet when she realized that they didn't have any negative impact on me, she kept purchasing them for me because she knew how much I loved them.

The point I am trying to make is that the dolls are not the issue. What we say as adults who have broader minds to young kids who have innocent minds can be the issue. If we push our negative ideals about a doll to a kid, especially when the doll is giving them a positive message, I think that can severely impact how kids will use their judgement when they grow up. If a doll brand is not sending anything negative, then what's the harm? Don't blame the doll for giving an unrealistic representation for anything when we can put the blame on something that is actually doing harm. With my personal experiences, I can definitely say I was a very insecure kid. It wasn't my Bratz dolls that made me think so, it was the kids at school and the TV shows/movies that had real people that told me I had to be skinny. In fact, my Bratz dolls were my salvation when it came to dealing with insecurities. As said before, Bratz and Barbie give very positive messages to kids. They both gave a positive message to me growing up. I can guarentee that we have nothing to worry about.