Nickelodeon Decides To Skank Up Dora: World Ends Not With A Bang But A Defeated Whimper

(Actual Nickelodeon plans for New Dora.)

(No, not really. But they could be.)

You knew this was coming.

Apparently, some Nickelodeon executives are worried that if Dora the Explorer and the Bratz dolls were ever forced into a smackdown, the Bratz would win, notwithstanding Dora's obviously superior trekking skills and that supply of weapons that she keeps in her backpack. The Bratz, after all, have make-up and halter tops. That shit wins every time. So Dora needs a makeover and some skank-training, stat.

According to the Financial Times:

Dora the Explorer, the wide-eyed cartoon character adored by young children around the world, is facing a makeover amid competition from older, racier rivals.

Nickelodeon, the children’s television network owned by  Viacom, has been discussing a redesign of some Dora-themed toys and other merchandise that would make the character appear more feminine, say people familiar with the talks.

More feminine, of course, means more trollop-like. It's not enough that Dora wears purple and has a sweet little girlish bob and speaks in a high-pitched girly voice - you know, LIKE A LITTLE GIRL - she's not ever going to be 'feminine' enough until she's been ruffled up and eyelashed and - oh, what's the word I'm looking for? - sexualized.

Which is not to say that they'll skankify her entirely. That's too risky. No, they'll go the Strawberry Shortcake route and just tweak her so that she no longer bears any markers of little girlness as little girlness actual occurs in nature (you know, without glitter eyeshadow and false eyelashes) but instead resembles more perfectly some pervy businessman's fantasy of little girlness. You know, all the better to appeal to the pre-school market, which wants to see, according to the geniuses at Viacom, 'more mature' characters.

I'd say more about this, but my head has just blown off and I'm having trouble typing blind. Also, I need to go reclaim blown-off head so that I can bury it with all the hopes and dreams of modern feminism and take comfort in the fact that - so buried - I'll never be forced to witness the invariable, post-Dora whoreifying of Prairie Dawn and Abby Cadaby.

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