A Deep Dive Into Monster High

I’ve literally never wanted my body to look like a dolls, what made me insecure was my parents.

Monster High was so important that a girl who had tragically lost her leg who was in my class painted her fake leg to look like copper because of Rebecca Steam, and everyone (girl) called her Steam because of the character. Literally coolest moment, its one of those memories that you never forget and you just... attach it to your brain

Parents: “skelita is a girl who starved herself to death! Bravo Mattel!” All of Mexico: “fuck my culture right?”

Is it me or the idea of a buff mermaid guy on a wheelchair is like the coolest thing i ever seen Mattel do

As a fat girl, I can say that skinny dolls never bothered me as a kid. They just didn’t really register as human to me honestly.

Those parents that complained about the dolls are 100% those who actually gave self-esteem issues to their own daughters.

I never realized how whiny adults were growing up. My mom hated the body types, but she told me to not use my dolls as an expectation of what body type I wanted, and to just have fun. Since monster high had a lot of POC-coded characters such as Lagoona and Clawdeen, she was more than happy to give a little brown girl like me these dolls for Christmas. You can’t expect kids to instantly know self-confidence from birth, you have to teach them. Don’t be like the whiny adults in the monster high reviews.

I understand some points of the parents but when I was a kid I never realized their skinny proportions or sexy clothes, I just wanted to play with them. Nowadays I’m obsessed with these dolls because they’re a perfectly imperfect piece of art. I wish they’d sell more OG reproduction dolls for collectors.

Me, a 30 year old man with no interest in dolls: HOW DARE THEY CHANGE HER DESIGN, SHE WAS AN ICON

"the dolls set unrealistic standards and will give our kids body image issues" no mom thats your doing 😭

Spectra Vondergeist's transparent limbs always fascinated me as a kid, making her become my favorite doll (or should I say GRAVEorite)

When i was a child and played with the dolls, i literally never ever thought 'i wish i was skinny like her..' kids don't care about that stuff. They just wanna play with their dolls. Even at 10 i didnt think that.

There is a massive problem with the body image issue. I remember as a kid having transformers and I hated myself because I couldn’t morph into a corvette.

obsessed with the girls in testing who said frankie stein had to be green. these queens did so much for us

as a kid, dolls never gave me negative body issues. i knew that they weren't real, and was aware that their unrealistic proportions would be very weird on an actual human body. they just didn't come across as human. dolls look cool, and so i'd obsess over their clothes/hair more.

It’s so interesting to hear these parents clutch their pearls at Monster High because my own mother couldn’t have given less of a shit about little me playing with them. In fact, she thought some of the dolls were really cool. She especially liked how Skelita was molded to actually look like a skeleton. Honestly, a lot of her sentiment was probably because when she was younger, she was quite the tomboy and most toys made for girls back then were very stereotypically girly. So I think she was happy that I got the chance to enjoy something that she didn’t get to.

If monster high was a masculine toy targeted to young boys I promise you the parents would care less about the “sinister” monster themes

I feel like this is a small detail, but when i got Clawdeen as a kid, in the little diary that came with her, it said that she needed to shave frequently bc her hair grew too quickly and honestly as a child I always took comfort in that, since im a hairy girl and all haha I just thought it was cool that I could relate, and it made me feel better even if it was just for a moment.

I actually had a long going war between my Monster High and Ever After High dolls. I'll never forget the time Draculaura sacrificed herself to save Clawdeen (pretty sure I had them marry each other) and Lagoona when they were trapped in a prison camp. I might have been a kinda dark kid lol

I think introducing diverse body molds in G3 is what monster high needed to further support the message of inclusivity. But still, I don't see how the dolls could cause self-esteem issues. As someone who struggled with this, I never made the connection with the dolls.