I can't say anything until she's actually released, but I'm happy for now. I guess since I never collected Rainbow Brite as a kid, I don't have the same emotional attachment everyone else does. I like changes now and then because I always hope the change will come out for the better. Besides, I've seen a lot of people on the net draw Rainbow Brite as a teen and drew her that way a few times myself, and after seeing a lot of these I wondered why everyone feels compelled to draw RB in an older incarnation. Maybe it's because people want their childhood heroine to grow up with them, a reminder that growing older won't change anything. After all, do we all have such little faith in Rainbow Brite herself? Think about it for a second. Why would growing up a little change her? Wouldn't she still be as sweet as she was in her childhood, as caring of others? The company said as much when they claimed that they would honor the look of the original and position her as a role model for girls.
It seems to me that that's what most girls want out of their toys anyway. My mom says that when she was little, girls mostly played house with baby dolls. When I was a child, "house" didn't interest me that much. I preferred my Barbies, my Hasbro Little Mermaid Ariel doll, Krystal Princess, Princess of the Flowers, etc.; I mean, there were Stacy and Kelly to add to the mix, but most of these dolls were
1) In the realm of high fantasy, completely dissociated from myself and my world. Actors in a drama, characters to drive a plot. I, in a similar process to the way I write now, was an omniscient observer, orchestrating the plot but not a character in the story (one reason I don't write in first person).
2) Adult women or on the threshold of adulthood. They were decidedly feminine, they were beautiful, they embodied all the physical qualities little girls aspire to have when they grow up. Don't you worry about the shallow factor, either; smart girls will have smart heroines. Mine were always on the road, seeking adventure, doing useful things, challenging the constraints of society...the beauty, that was just an added bonus. Indulgent fantasy, if you will. The belief perhaps that everyone will see your inner beauty if you're a good person. Dolls are static objects and must display those traits symbolically, on the outside, but every child knows her doll is a good person anyway, right? (Unless you're playing the villain.)
Fact is, having mostly grown up dolls to play with, I didn't have much anxiety about growing up myself. Certainly I enjoyed the Peter Pan story a lot better than I do now, but I never had that dread of aging that the story hinges on. Change was a good thing if it brought me closer to the beauty of Ariel, who was my idol at the age of six. Too many people in this world grow out of their toys, something I find very sad. But I've also encountered a good many people on the internet who wallow in their nostalgia and only ever talk about their toys with that whiny refrain: "I miss my childhood." This is perplexing to me. I am now 23 and every year I have grown, it's brought me new experiences and new wisdom to shape my philosophy about the world. I don't collect toys and watch cartoons to deny that I have grown older. I think a healthy way to play with toys is not to deny any part of yourself, but to connect your life in an unbroken circuit, acknowledge that you are all the ages you ever were, that you're also an adult with an adult intelligence...capable of writing novels, for example.
There is still a lot of gender objectification in this world, and that's very unfortunate. If a woman is perceived as being too beautiful and paying too much attention to her appearance, let alone too "girly," she is not taken as seriously as the less girly types. I don't support the slutty bratz look, but why is it so wrong for a doll like Rainbow to have a feminine body? Should we be instilling that kind of shame into our little girls? There is nothing inherently sexual about having a big chest unless you dress inappropriately, yet when they see it on a doll, people complain. So...why not? Let's see what "tween" Rainbow looks like. Let's be comfortable with our adulthood. I think Hallmark knows what they're doing. They're catering to all the age groups at once. Most little girls nowadays like to have dolls that embody their latent femininity. Us Gen-X'ers have grown up knowing that Rainbow Brite didn't grow up with us. Isn't it fun even in the slightest to see her finally catch up to us?
~Marysia
