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"Barbie has finally kicked her rival Bratz doll to the curb."

The legal battle the Daily News (predictably) calls a "catfight."

Feel free to discuss the legal issues:

Mattel claimed the sassy Bratz dolls were the brainchild of one of its own designers, before he went to work for the rival and gave the upstart its signature toy....

Earlier this year, a jury awarded Mattel $10 million for copyright infringement and $90 million for breach of contract after members agreed that Bratz designer Carter Bryant had developed the concept for the dolls while working for Mattel.

Mattel subsequently requested that MGA be banned from making and selling the Bratz dolls, and Federal Judge Stephen Larson made it happen Thursday.

"Mattel has established its exclusive rights to the Bratz drawings, and the court has found that hundreds of the MGA parties' products, including all the currently available core female fashion dolls Mattel was able to locate in the marketplace, infringe those rights," Larson said.

And the dire commercial consequences: "MGA must immediately stop making all 40 dolls in the line and has until after the holiday season to remove them from store shelves." Presumably, there will be some sort of settlement that will allow the dolls to continue to be made, with Mattel raking in much of the money.

But law and commerce are not everything.

Let's talk about aesthetics. There's a lot of talk about the difference between Bratz and Barbie, but look at the picture of "Chat Divas Barbie" at the link. Not only does Barbie now look about 13 years old, she's got her mouth open in the can't-stop-talking position. I have never even accepted Barbie smiling. To me, Barbie has always been this face:

She doesn't smile. She's not a child. She's a glamorous, sophisticated woman. She's not an empty-headed chatterbox. She's a deep mystery. What are her thoughts? She will not tell you.

Full post as published by Althouse on December 06, 2008 (boomark / email).