Taking Girls Childhoods-one icon at a time

I was an 80's kid. This means neon colors, bad hairdos and most of all awesome cartoons. My cartoon icons were cute, sweet and lovable if they were young and could kick butt if they were older and that was OK by me. 

I was very excited to see a lot of yester-years coming back to cartoon land as my own kids would be able to enjoy them as I had before them- but wait something was seriously amiss- where was the demure dresses and sweet innocence I remembered from my youth?

I looked to little avail... Now I like these cartoons for the most part. They are still sweet with good morals and story lines and my kids like watching them and aren't trying to kill one another afterwards, which is always a bonus...but I miss the days when little girls looked like little girls.

A personal favorite, Rainbow Brite is supposed to be a six year old orphan named Wisp who saves the Color Kids and brings color and rainbows back to her world and Earth- in this new incarnation, Rainbow looks more like 16 and her dress looks like it is about to go flying. Still cute but not appropriate for the story line or little kids anymore, in my opinion.  

Strawberry Shortcake still looks young and in this guise at least still looks modest though slimming her down was unnecessary. She was made so mainstream looking really that I feel it took away from the cute raggedy-ness that made her a classic. All her friends are basic carbon copies of the same look as well no matter the ethnic background with just tiny hints to their ethnicity.

Now Cheetara, from Thundercats started off with a woman's figure, but as you can see with their reinvention they added way more cleavage, took away half her uniform, and made them hip huggers and cut away her waist into insane proportions. This new Cheetara is also supposed to be a teenager rather than a twenty-something from the older cartoon.

In a really weird transformation we go between species for our sexualization. My Little Ponies Friendship Is Magic, Equestrian Girls takes the carefree Ponies into a world where they are human- which of course means knee high boots, stomach showing tops, mini skirts or short shorts, and heels or thigh-highs... 

RIGHT.

Even Disney apparently felt the pressure to sex up their newest princess, Meridia, from the hit Brave. Taking her from a semi-good role model willing to stand up for herself to another, in my eyes, dolled up bimbo- something the character- humorously enough fought against in the movie like crazy.